[TOS] Use of proprietary software in colleges and universities

Jeff Osier-Mixon jefro at jefro.net
Sun Jun 27 01:42:52 UTC 2010


I think Matthew's tone may be a bit harsh, but there are some good points in
his message.

I attended college in an era before open-source software was popular.  In
the computer science courses I took, I'd have to say one of the few positive
things I learned was the inner workings of computer hardware (von Neumann
FTW) and assembly language.  In undergraduate college, when one is first
really learning, I think there is little sense in bogging someone down with
a choice between open source and proprietary software when they don't know
what a compiler does, let alone how to use one.  I agree with Matthew that
those concepts can be learned using proprietary software as well, as legions
of programmers can attest.

That being said - Matthew seems to assume that the employers of new college
graduates are going to be using proprietary software as a matter of course,
and that is simply not the case in industry.  gcc is the de facto standard
in compilers and has been since the early 1990s.  That's why Borland is now
a piddly enterprise middleware company, when in 1988 they were the compiler
kings with 10k employees.  Anyone coming out of college with a deep
understanding of gcc (and compiler theory in general, which they can get
much more efficiently from gcc than any other compiler) will have no trouble
finding a job.  Knowing the rest of the compilation suite - gnu as, ld,
binutils, and particularly gdb and its extensions - means choosing from
multiple jobs over $50k/yr.

The primary reason to use open source at the undergraduate level is not
because it is free but because it is GOOD and there is a lot of free
documentation, tutorials, communities, etc. out there to help.   For
programmers, locking down to one proprietary compiler would be a much worse
choice than gcc simply because gcc is available on all platforms,
particularly the large number of embedded platforms out there, and you can
take the thing apart and examine it insides by looking at the source.  I
learned far more in a few days combing the gcc sources *after* college, on
my own time, than I did in two quarters of undergraduate compiler courses in
college.  I wish like heck that I had had access to the source code for a
world-class C compiler when I had to write a portion of one for a class.
 Students should at least have the knowledge that such a thing exists.

The same thing goes for non-technical education.  Writers should be using
openoffice instead of word because openoffice is far less horrid than Word,
and accounting students should be using the openoffice spreadsheet for the
same reason.  I hesitate to advocate Gimp over Photoshop because the
latter's UI is SO MUCH better, but the concept holds true if one wants to
learn why something works, not just how to make it work.  Every feature and
nuance they learn in open-source software translates directly to proprietary
software. If anything, I would suggest that students work through their
first 80% of university education using open-source and then obtain the
low-cost proprietary equivalents on their way out in order to get the most
recent versions so they can claim the skills on their resumes.  Programming
students, of course, would have no need for this - they'll be using the GNU
tools in their jobs anyway.

In short, I can't agree that open-source is not a financially sound choice.
 People get hired for skills and knowledge of concepts, not programs,
proprietary or otherwise.

Luis - I could suggest a different approach for your abstract, or at least
for the talk:

We have been collectively raising an entire generation of engineers
who are ignorant of the wealth of educational opportunities that
open-source software availability provides.  Deep learning about
complex subjects can be accelerated dramatically with access to
source code, which is not an option with proprietary software.
Students should be aware of the opportunities with open source.

And to answer your original question, here is the gateway to buying cheap
proprietary software at my alma mater:
http://its.ucsc.edu/service_catalog/software_licensing/

Best of luck with the talk!  I'm looking forward to attending

Jeff.

On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Matthew Jadud <mjadud at allegheny.edu> wrote:

> Hi Luis,
>
> Your abstract makes some claims that you cannot support. For example:
>
> [quote]
> We have been collectively raising an entire generation of engineers
> who are ignorant of the essential inner-workings of hardware and
> software due to the widespread use of proprietary products in college
> campuses which has prevented them from learning how things really
> work.
> [/quote]
>
> I suspect you will be "preaching to the choir" at OSCON, but you
> cannot actually, rationally, defend that statement. It is overstated
> and you have no evidence that the use of closed-source software
> somehow creates engineers who are ignorant of the inner workings of
> *anything*. Or, if you do, I would like to see the peer-reviewed
> research that demonstrates it.
>
> Given your question, I'm going to make the assumption that you're
> going to attack the (common) practice of students receiving
> low-cost/gratis copies of proprietary software. My apologies if my
> assumption is wrong. If you do, please include a rational, financial
> argument from the student's perspective as to why this is a bad idea.
> While I believe we need to encourage change, we cannot expect our
> students to make choices that are not financially sound. From the MIT
> webpages:
>
> [quote]
> Nine months' tuition and fees for 2009–2010 is $37,782. Additionally,
> undergraduate room and board is approximately $11,360, dependent on
> the student's housing and dining arrangements. Books and personal
> expenses are about $2,858.
> [/quote]
>
> http://web.mit.edu/facts/tuition.html
>
> If an engineer graduates from MIT and has zero proficiency with the
> tools used by the employers, how is she going to pay back her student
> loans? That's no small change... and walking out the door saying "I
> don't use Autodesk as a matter of principle because it is closed
> source" won't get you far in the interview circuit.
>
> Cheers,
> Matt
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