This may be an unpopular opinion online, but I don’t want schools picking educational tools purely on ideological criteria.

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.

To create change, make the change easy.

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.

Good points. When we tech people spend all day in terminals using software like git, it’s easy to forget that the average person doesn’t have the time nor desire to learn difficult software. They just want to get the job done and get on with their day. Ideology isn’t a factor at all.

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.

I spend all day in git, but when the school asks me to install yet another online tool, I want it to be straightforward. I really don't want to spend additional 15 minutes figuring it out on the evening on top off all chores and home school etc.

The biggest thing the FSF could do is innovate on economic models that help economically support people deeply focusing full-time on making the software as easy to use, troubleshoot, and understand as possible.

There is a metaphor with Islamic finance somewhere here.

It's really about picking the tool based on the license and whether you, the user, wants to be in control of the software in your life, or if you're ok being complacent while "your" technology controls you.

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.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

Students lack control over the software they use because schools need them to stay on task in the classroom, to enforce behavior norms on their interactions with each other, and to avoid facilitating access to adult content. These factors are intrinsic to K12 and will not change just because the software is open source. That freedom accrues to administrators, not end users.

Their point is that if the Free Software solution is far inferior to the non-Free solution, it doesn't seem right to harm the students' education in the name of ideology.

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.

> The struggle for agency and control in today's world isn't a light one, and it involves sacrifices.

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.

My teachers almost universally prefer Canvas Instructure (AGPLv3 free software) to Google Classroom. It gives them far more power and freedom to build courses.

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.

But is it because it is AGPL? My wife is a professor who also uses Canvas. She knows how to program. If I turned to her right now and asked what AGPL was or what Canvas' license was she wouldn't know nor would she care. If I asked her how she'd start modifying Canvas to solve her problems she'd tell me she is already way too busy and isn't going to try something like that in a million years.

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.

> It gives them far more power and freedom to build courses.

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.

> Speaking as a student whose school primarily uses Google's suite (classroom, meet, etc..) but still has a few older solutions, some of which are free software, I can say that there's a common argument that schools should focus on pragmatism and working with what they have - the age-old argument that free software still is not accessible or easy to use. I don't beleive that this is still an issue.

> 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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24481117

If the free software solutions are better then by all means, go for it. I never suggested that proprietary was better than free.

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.

Free software encourages sharing, social responsibility, and independence. It also encourages learning.

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.

> Free software encourages sharing, social responsibility, and independence. It also encourages learning.

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.

> For end-users, free software does the exact same things as proprietary software.

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.

VLC is better then QuickTime and therefore "Free software encourages sharing, social responsibility, and independence." is not exactly logical implication.

> It also encourages learning.

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.

> purely on ideological criteria.

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.

> This may be an unpopular opinion online, but I don’t want schools picking educational tools purely on ideological criteria.

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.

Yeah, this is a big problem with the ideology that the FSF pushes. They make it out to be that "freedom" (how they define it, that is) is the only criteria on which to make technical decisions. In the real world that doesn't work, and there are a number of other factors to consider.

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.

You lost your credibility in my eyes with this:

> 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.

RMS's personal behavior over the past 35+ years has clearly demonstrated he does not care about other people's feelings. He is rude and insulting, and when this is pointed out to him he becomes defensive and digs himself in deeper.

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.

RMS has spent his life advocating for a very particular right - the right to free software. I'm not sure he cares about other rights, like disabled people's rights to access technology, when they are in conflict with his preferred core right.

> I'm not sure he cares about other rights, like disabled people's rights to access technology, when they are in conflict with his preferred core right.

What makes you think that? Do you have any evidence to support that or is just a gut feeling or something?

> 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

I wouldn't call posting links on his shitty homepage to Guardian articles at 4am "activism"

I think it's probably more fair to say that RMS considers the long-term issue of software freedom more important than the short-term issue of a particular piece of non-free software being more usable or accessible right now. One can hold such a position without having a broken moral compass, and one can disagree with it, as I do without believing those who hold it are of bad character.

So it's better that we get this situations like this? https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210122/09463546102/brita...

There is no software that is not laden with ideology. That ideology is either free software or proprietary software (or some variants of either).

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.

Freedom is the ideology that America was founded on, I'd assume most Americans prefer to have their nation's values followed. Most software is chosen on ideological grounds, Zoom was picked because it's popular not because its the best tool. The software impedes them doing their work, that's a major message FSF and others are trying to send: free software benefits the user!

Interesting especially for Germans:

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.

[0] https://github.com/hpi-schul-cloud

[1] https://hpi-schul-cloud.de/

I'm less concerned with tools like Zoom and Teams than I am with the shocking degree of lock-in that textbook publishers are doing lately. [1]

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...

I also think technology is over used/relied on at some levels. I really don't think grade school students should be staring at an iPad screen all day.

So how should they attend classes in a pandemic world?

Based on all the data and the CDC, it looks like in-person education is considered to be generally safe with the proper precautions.

This focuses on the proprietary software aspect (unsurprisingly as it's the FSF), but more concerning to me is the fact that this makes students beholden to account deletion or censorship by these companies. Write an anti-Google essay, and you might lose access to everything!

That's the real issue. Going to school might be required by law, but there should not be a requirement to enter a contract with an arbitrary company in order to successfully participate in the school.

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.

Did anyone else think the page starting with "To access the petition form itself, you must view this page while logged in" might be some kind of a parody on FSF's part?

Even if I need to log in to submit it, at least show me a preview...

I legitimately thought it was a joke, and that clicking the login button would take me to a joke page.

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.

I think the bigger discussion that isn't happening is that over the past 10 years, a surveillance state has been built to collect and monitor student information inside of schools under the guise of suicide and shooting prevention.

See https://www.bark.us/ for an example.

Using public funds to teach students proprietary software or to force them to use proprietary software has always seemed undesirable to me, however if there isn't free software that is a competitive alternative (weasel words) it seems hard to argue this point. I might even say that there is a more fundamental level which is that teacher's need to accept documents formatted in an open font in addition to proprietary fonts.

Well, for video conferencing etc. what we have is fine. But, for test/exam proctoring/invigilating software, oh god... have we forgotten what happened and how students were treated? This needs to be fixed!

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24481117 "Schools Should Exclusively Use Free Software"

In the 90s in the UK, school kids like me used Acorn Archimedes and related systems in school. Then on leaving school we went into workplaces or universities where Windows based PCs were dominant.

Schools need to use and teach the technologies that children will encounter in their daily lives, not those that tick an ideological box.

And how will we start the change to more open systems, except by starting in the start of the workforce chain in schools?

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.

Except if you're a developer and you're coming into the workforce today, I am going to be far more likely to hire you if you run Linux than Windows. My startup lives and breathes Unix/Linux tooling because it's the best toolset to work with.

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.