Give Students User Freedom
my.fsf.org
my.fsf.org
Products like Zoom may not fulfill free software criteria, but they get the job done and they’re easy to use. Parents and students shouldn’t be saddled with unfamiliar tools for the sake of ideology. Let them focus on learning and use whatever tool is best for getting out of the way and letting teachers and students do their work.
> Out of my current teachers and teachers I've had in the past, almost all of them were vocal about not liking Classroom or just didn't use it. It is basically a small layer on top of Google Drive & Meet that does not integrate anything nearly well enough. Most of my teachers seem to prefer Canvas, a free software solution to this, because it has more features. My teachers primarily cited the integrated quiz/test system as its biggest draw when I asked.
> Classroom is also is very difficult for less-privileged students to use - speaking as someone who used to rely on a 4 GB of RAM netbook with a Pentium and was still using it for part of this quarantine, even with Linux things really get slow. This could primarily be attributed to relying on a lot of Google tabs at once (for Drive, forms for quizzes, etc) while Canvas I've never had to open more than a few maximum. My only other option is to buy a Chromebook and while my school can afford Chromebooks for every student, many students are relying on just using what they have.
> With that, I don't think that the proprietary software really has all too much of an advantage in terms of pragmatism (which imo is even more important in schools). I don't think the usual arguments against adoption of free software really seem to hold up, though I assume that cost might be an issue that I'm not aware of seeing my district is rather rich.
> I'd love to hear more teachers opinions on this. Hopefully this gave you an idea of how education tech is from a student user's endpoint.
My point is that arguing that the choice should be made on the free software status is a bad idea.
Choose software based on the best tool for the job, not the ideology behind it.
Furthermore, I doubt Google offers Classroom out of direct profit, but rather to implant dependence in Google Suite, especially Google Drive, Docs, Forms, etc.
> Why, after all, do some proprietary software developers offer gratis copies(1) of their nonfree programs to schools? Because they want to use the schools to implant dependence on their products, like tobacco companies distributing gratis cigarettes to school children(2).
> With pain in my heart I just installed MS Office on my son's laptop because he needs it for school (free on a license from school fortunately). I thought it was stupid because LibreOffice. He thought it was stupid because Google Docs, which his primary school used.
In that case, proprietary software may be "better" because it's been subsidized by tech giants in order to implant dependence later– schools seed society. So we should play the long game and use what benefits society in the long-term.
> I can't agree more with stallman. It pisses me off to no end that I was forced to learn autodesk in school, only to graduate and realizing nobody uses it in the real world. So why did my school pay to teach software nobody uses? Might as well used FreeCAD to teach the concepts.
> Autodesk is most certainly used by a huge variety of businesses for a multitude of purposes. Is it the only solution? No. But the school also likely got the software at a steep discount or free, exposing you, as a student, to CAD software in general. What tools you use following that are up to you, but the school did its job in teaching you a general skill that can be applied in a variety of other programs at will.
How? It enables a teeny tiny minority of users to modify their applications. These users are stupendously dedicated and have access to all sorts of free software in other environments. I have no doubt that somebody who is capable of modifying and recompiling some FSF-Zoom is capable of scratching this itch with other software.
No, it doesn't. For end-users, free software does the exact same things as proprietary software. Users don't have the time and knowledge and interest to look at the source of their tools, and usually don't even have the time and energy to shop around for others' versions of these tools.
Really? I suppose you'd be fine with me replacing your VLC with QuickTime player.
VLC gives you way more options and abilities, because people can openly contribute to it.
If FSF wants school administrators to change their behaviour to stop using proprietary software, they'd need to make that change easy. If _they_ say that free software is too hard to install/use/manage, then the FSF can either:
A. Call that an excuse, which is a path of mutual distrust that will block change.
B. Listen more deeply to their underlying needs, then change their software to meet those needs.
C. Option B, then listen to themselves to understand what would make it easy to make that change.
I think the free software community would get much farther if the acknowledged the realities of school districts with limited IT staffing. If you have a team of 2-4 IT people to manage hundreds or thousands of kids, you don’t want any software solution that doesn’t come with some form of tech support or at least some readily available help documentation or tutorials.
The biggest thing FSF could do is make a push for making the software as easy to use, troubleshoot, and understand as possible. Once it becomes less work (not necessarily less cost) to use free software, the change will follow organically.
Trying to petition schools to use free software on ideological grounds is a step in the wrong direction. Tie your movement to real-world incentives, not abstract ideology.
There is a metaphor with Islamic finance somewhere here.
Rationalizations about "getting the job done" or "ease of use" are the same as saying macOS has a better UI than a given GNU/Linux distro, and that's why it's OK Apple sends third party app usage data without you knowing. The struggle for agency and control in today's world isn't a light one, and it involves sacrifices.
I would also posit that "learning" makes more sense within a free software environment than in a closed, proprietary one.
I'm not disputing the validity of the ideological point here, but it isn't enough. The Free Software solution needs to be genuinely competitive.
But whose sacrifices? The blind kid who has shitty screen reader integration? The overworked professor who can't deal with your LMS integration? Why not ask the users whether they would prefer to use the FLOSS applications? You might be surprised when they say no.
Granted, it has a terrible UX for students. But since it is free software, it gave me freedom to build my own interface by providing an API– unlike Google Classroom– which I used to build a better interface to view my due quizzes. I can then share this software with my fellow students, promoting the values of sharing.
The point is that this software needs to compete by being better software, not by convincing people that FLOSS applications are morally righteous.
What percentage of faculty members have ever modified the source for Canvas? I'd wager it is less than 1/10,000th.
This is a sign of a good UX.
One impactful thing the FSF could do is create a case study the history and incentive structure of this project and extract lessons on how to structure other projects well.
> it has a terrible UX for students.
Just to check: Do you mean that it is frustrating UX or that it is unattractive? People often think that UX means graphic design.
This is patently false. It's not a "rationalization" to say "there is no 'free' tool that gets the job done". It is in fact the most important criterion: we need to be able to teach students, in a way that doesn't hurt any more than the situation already is. We need to help schools deal with extremely limited IT budgets without hurting any more than they already are.
If there are free and proprietary tools that get the job done just as well (including ease of use, cost of maintenance, accessibility and others), then it's ok to ask schools to standardize on the free tools. If the free tools are worse at the actual job than the proprietary tools, then it would UNETHICAL for schools to insist on the inferior choice. Of course, if it is the other way around, if the proprietary software is inferior for the purpose, then it is equally unethical to push for that!
However, none of this makes it ok for the proprietary tools to hurt their users' privacy, like the Apple tools were. In fact, it makes it even worse.
How would anyone know, especially when more and more software becomes cloud based apps, there is no way to make an informed decision.
I agree that ethics should only be part of the equation when picking software, it's a bad idea to pick only based on whether software is free.
Kindergarten promotes sharing and kindness. Do you consider sharing and kindness "ideological"? Those are the same values free software promotes.
For example, would it be a better choice for a school to choose to use a free software tool over something proprietary even though the proprietary one has better accessibility support for disabled students? RMS would probably say "yes" because he doesn't care about people, but anyone with a half-working moral compass is able to realize that accessibility is more important that being able to modify the source code in this situation.
I think the FSF would have a much better time rehabilitating their image after the RMS/Epstein shitshow by pivoting away from their uncompromising position (which lets be honest, was just RMS bullying people into parroting) towards one that encourages people to consider software freedom one very important aspect on which to make decisions, but not the only one.
> RMS would probably say "yes" because he doesn't care about people
That's a ridiculously uncharitable thing to say, especially about a person who has spent their life advocating for people's rights. Just because you don't agree with the philosophy, doesn't mean that those who do are uncaring, immoral, or anything like that.
What makes you think that? Do you have any evidence to support that or is just a gut feeling or something?
https://www.stallman.org/ shows his activism against all kinds of human rights violations
Look at the whole Epstein mess he got himself into. He said something that was obviously offensive and when people criticized him for his he didn't apologize, he just insisted that he was right and what he said couldn't possibly be offensive.
This isn't anything new. Look at his response from 1993 to a colleague who announce the birth of a new baby. http://www.art.net/studios/hackers/hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-d...
I think its fair to say his capacity for empathy is severely lacking and that has a profound impact on the ideology the FSF advocates for.
Your comment is like when people say they don't want to 'politicize' a discussion, by which they mean they are comfortable with the status quo politicization.
While I don't disagree with you on this, I do think they need to pick educational tools that allow open protocols.
For a couple of examples I deal with now:
- My School is all in on Google/Zoom. I cannot sign into my school account because I don't have Google Play Services on my phone (and the school disabled IMAP sign-in, so I cannot sign in it with K9 Mail). *Ironically, I can use it on my Pinephone pretty well.
- The school uses 2FA based on DUO, which does not use TOTP but their own app. I once again don't have Google Play, so I am out of luck. I also cannot use my Yubikey for desktop sign-in because I don't have chrome installed (Firefox: https://community.duo.com/t/u2f-keys-in-firefox/1987). So I am forces to use text based sign-in.
So while the idea of close app themselves do not bother me, the fact that many of these apps force closed protocols infuriates me for reasons like the aboce.
HPI offers a fully integrated open source[0] software suite[1] explicitly dedicated to schools. It includes tools for creating & sharing content, chat, (online) collaboration, conferences and more. Hosting for German schools is provided for free.
It's not enough just to charge nosebleed prices for the text itself, although they still do that. Now, in a lot of cases, you have to buy an "access code", likewise priced to induce epistaxis, in order to submit homework and assignments for grading. By the sound of it, you increasingly can't even participate in the education you're already paying for, without paying a lot extra for what looks to be more or less pure rent-seeking - and rent-seeking that depresses the used textbook market, besides.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/why-st...
If such a contract is required, it should be between the school and the vendor only, not imposing additional conditions on the student. Including accessibility or the need to have a particular third-party operating system with its own EULA.
After all, the student doesn't need to enter a contract with the caterng company to eat a school lunch.
That's where ideology comes in useful: if the school cannot provide that, it should be forced to create such a system. Given how many schools are there, the resource investment per school should not be that big.
Even if I need to log in to submit it, at least show me a preview...
But nope, they actually want you to make an account to sign the petition...which makes perfect sense, but kind of awkward given the context.
See https://www.bark.us/ for an example.
Schools need to use and teach the technologies that children will encounter in their daily lives, not those that tick an ideological box.
Imagine if schools starting teaching everyone Blender over Autodesk Maya, for instance. We create a workforce where most people will end up knowing Blender over Maya. At that point, there is a compelling reason for enterprises to switch, and we see a world in which Blender becomes dominant and where people will encounter it in their daily working lives.
There are practical reasons to do this - Blender is free so schools pay significantly less, it still has its usage in freelance/smaller companies, and it has a wealth of resources from its large community on learning it compared to Maya. Many free/open source software suites are similar in these aspects compared to their proprietary counterparts. This, alongside the ideological reasons, is enough to switch.
And the ideological part matters too! In the English classes I've taken they regularly teach individualism and critical thinking. Why then, should we take away that thinking aspect when it comes to software and just tell students "use whatever they use, don't question its ethics?"
We have to start somewhere, and there's no better place to do so than schools, where it still benefits the school and students overall to use free software over proprietary software.
But it didn't start that way. It started as an idea and took the next twenty years to become the leviathan of corporate tech today. Somebody had to breathe fire into that idea and spark a life.
When our tooling is open, everyone benefits. We need to learn to look beyond our self-serving natures and nurture unbound software, even if that means a little discomfort now for a greater good tomorrow.