> Traditionally, these sorts of courses at MIT have used Matlab

This is an incredibly good sign for hobbyists in a number of fields where Matlab completely dominates the research end of the spectrum. In the DSP realm the amount of experimental software that relies on Matlab and the number of research publications that pack in Matlab implementations is enough to be a pain in the side for anyone outside of an institution where Matlab licenses are taken for granted. Hopefully it will become a trend.