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Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

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Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#101

Post by systemvoltage »

Hitton wrote: post #96
systemvoltage wrote: post #81

What’s wrong with paying for a product or a service if it’s better for my students? Isn’t the teacher’s job to find the best available tools for their students and not engage in some kind of open source software usage high score? Edit: People are getting downvoted left and right. Why is this such a polarizing topic?

>What’s wrong with paying for a product or a service if it’s better for my students? Isn’t the teacher’s job to find the best available tools for their students There is nothing wrong with paying for something, but what's better is relative. Isn't it better to not give away students' private information? Isn't it also better for CS students to be able to look at the source code of tools they are using? Inevitably you…

I pay for SublimeText because I genuinely feel like paying for it - think about it - why does someone go out of their way to spend money on something they wouldn’t feel is “better”? I agree that criteria of what’s better is subjective but regardless, I don’t think it’s saying anything my stance on open source software.

Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#102

Post by woofie11 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #90
indigochill wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Don’t we buy oscilloscopes, lathe machines, incubators, scientific glass, etc for our student labs? Of course, because there's a material cost for manufacturing physical things. The marginal cost of "manufacturing" copies of digital information after the information is created the first time is the price of the electrons it takes to perform that copy, so very close to zero. I think everyone agrees there's a real wei…

Yea physical goods was a bad analogy, I’ve redacted it.

No. It was an excellent analogy.

Free software is like physical goods with Right to Repair. In the olden days, if you bought a radio, it came with a service manual and a schematic.

It's how many people learned EE, and it was a huge loss when that went away. People maintained their own stuff. People tinkered. That's how Sussman learned to EE too.

That's an analogy to free software exactly, 100%, and spot-on.

Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#103

Post by eesmith »

gspr wrote: post #41
heromal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Academia is an end in itself, not a means to an end. Sorry my overly idealistic friend, but as long as every job posting "prefers" (i.e. requires) a BS CS, it's fine to see the pursuit of that BS as a means to an end.

Why? It sounds like a symbiotic relationship still. Academia trains people for academia, which is an end in itself. Industry happens to like the skillset that people with that training have. This motivates people who do not wish for an academic career to undergo academic training. Win-win. It doesn't mean that said academic training has to adapt to the whims of industry, or turn into trade school. Is there maybe room…

Academia don't only train people for academia for the simple reason that there's clearly not enough academic jobs for all of the students who come through.

And the teachers and professors know that.

Here's one CS department which explicitly states how they can help students improve their career changes in the professional world, quoting https://cse.unl.edu/focus-areas :

> The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln introduces Focus Areas for its Computer Science and Computer Engineering majors. The goal of the Department is to equip our graduates with advanced skills focused in specific areas to better position them for successful careers. In today’s professional world, computing and computational problem solving skills are ubiquitously in demand in a host of advanced technology and scientific applications.

And they are far from unique. Here's an English department, quoting https://www.saddleback.edu/la/english-department :

> Of course, the first thing people imagine when they think of getting an English degree is teaching high school. Teaching is certainly a noble profession, but there are many career paths one can pursue with an English degree outside of teaching due to the excellent training provided in this field.

Emphasis mine in both quotes.

Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#104

Post by [deleted] »

md5person wrote: post #77
berkes wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave you an example by quoting how expensive it is to run a "free" jitsi service.

> "I gave you an example by quoting how expensive it is to run a "free" jitsi service." That's an entirely meaningless argument. Here's what you're doing: > "I run a large-ish jitsi instance: approx €50/month just for the VPS, my hours probably add another €2000/month to that." Here's what Sussman is doing: > "I used a Jitsi Meet server that I installed on an obsolete and otherwise useless computer that was sitting i…

[deleted]

Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#105

Post by raxxorrax »

marta_morena_24 wrote: post #43
zelphirkalt wrote: post #30

Obviously he is a great (one of the best?) teachers. Having the lecture use free software only, shows he also cares about ethics at his work. I think that makes him a better teacher. Far too few people in CS care about the ethics side as well.

Yeah right, because MIT is such a cheap school, it totally is required to use free software, because that is going to make a difference. Instead, MIT should make sure that students get their software and materials free of charge, not that the material or software itself is free (just because students on scholarships or alike may not have the money). They should use what is best for the students and not what is best t…

I think every developer knows that without open source their abilities would be much worse. That isn't an ideology.

Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#106

Post by fsflover »

barking wrote: post #71
Symbiote wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second of the "four freedoms" of free software is > The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. That is particularly important for students of computer science -- what better way to see how all kinds of software works than by reading and modifying its source code? I'm surprised if a "standard course" doesn't mostly use free software. Mine certainly did, I remem…

Who wrote the Four freedoms and how does he put food on the table?

https://fsf.org

Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#107

Post by [deleted] »

raister wrote: post #66
berkes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't see the relevance. How does this relate in any way to "proprietary vs free/libre" software used in classes?

Proprietary sw: easy to use/maintain, fun, works most of the time, professional developers behind it, profit. Open source sw these days: several versions, constant tweaking, works so-so (depends on the software), semi-professional developers working on it (I am not saying they're not good) or amateurs (with amateur designs), not for profit, of course. EDIT: remove double 'multiple versions'.

[deleted]

Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#108

Post by httpsterio »

marta_morena_24 wrote: post #43
zelphirkalt wrote: post #30

Obviously he is a great (one of the best?) teachers. Having the lecture use free software only, shows he also cares about ethics at his work. I think that makes him a better teacher. Far too few people in CS care about the ethics side as well.

Yeah right, because MIT is such a cheap school, it totally is required to use free software, because that is going to make a difference. Instead, MIT should make sure that students get their software and materials free of charge, not that the material or software itself is free (just because students on scholarships or alike may not have the money). They should use what is best for the students and not what is best t…

Honestly, it's not necessarily feasible to run all the tools one might have at the university and if the only way of doing science is by using expensive apps only available to rich individuals or companies that are well off, well its quite limiting in who can gain an attractive amount of experience working with it.

It also sets a baseline for every student and prepares them for a future where science is made to be shared and part of that is using tools and work flows that can be copied around the world.

Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#109

Post by gspr »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #30

Obviously he is a great (one of the best?) teachers. Having the lecture use free software only, shows he also cares about ethics at his work. I think that makes him a better teacher. Far too few people in CS care about the ethics side as well.

> Far too few people in CS care about the ethics side as well.

Unrelated to this story, but on the topic of ethics in CS: I found the decision of Joe Redmon [1] extremely brave. (If you don't know who he is, he's the principle original author of YOLO, and could easily have had a stellar CV career. Also, his papers are just amazing reads with tons of humor.)

[1] https://syncedreview.com/2020/02/24/yolo-creator-says-he-sto...

[2] https://pjreddie.com/darknet/yolo/

Re: Teaching my MIT classes with only free/libre software

#110

Post by raxxorrax »

woofie11 wrote: post #98
renewiltord wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is no sheer coincidence that the following three things are simultaneously true: A. MIT is as renowned as it is B. MIT does this C. MIT has people like Gerald Sussman as Professors

... and MIT became famous for work during the AI Lab days. ... MIT is going down the tubes. ... And people like Jerry (correctly) say MIT would never hire someone like them today.

I think he is right and that it is a sad development. We see similar things in the industry, perhaps even more pronounced.
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