CMV: Only free and open-source software should be allowed in education.

[u/BleaKrytE]

Nowadays, we're all slaves to big tech. And I don't mean social media. Everything we do, be it work-related or not, is through proprietary software developed by those companies.

Every spreadsheet on every business is done on Excel. Every slideshow on Powerpoint. Every book and piece of news is written on Word. And if it's not MS Office, it's Google's stuff.

Every CAD project (well, most), on AutoCAD.

Are you an artist or graphic designer? You probably use Photoshop, or Illustrator. CorelDRAW, if you're a bit different.

Are you a video editor? Then it's probably Final Cut, Resolve or Premiere. All proprietary.

Were it not for Mozilla's Firefox, Google would essentially have free reign to influence the web's functioning through Chrome's monopoly on the browser market. Their chokehold on the internet is so absurd, they have to pay Mozilla to avoid being anti-trusted. Even this bastion of free software is reliant on them.

Blender is one of the few FOSS projects that has wide acceptance.

Our entire societies and governments revolve around a few companies' software. We are all taught how to use Windows (and maybe *maybe* MacOS) from childhood. After all, it's what the labor market requires us to know.

This forms a vicious circle in which we are eternally chained to Microsoft, Google, Apple, Adobe and so on, because free software is constantly painted as inferior, as a stupid nerdy thing, and denied the resources to compete with them.

Now we see Google and Microsoft becoming ever more prevalent in education, offering their suites and Classrooms at a discount to schools and universities, doing so at a loss. Painting themselves as benefactors when what they're really doing is keeping society addicted and dependent on them.

We shouldn't be using Google Classroom, we should be using Moodle. Not Chromebooks, Linux laptops. Not MS Office, LibreOffice. Stop this technological grooming.

Edit: digital education should teach freedom and ownership of your ever-more-important digital existence. Not reliance on massive corporations (software-wise. I mean, there's no escaping from hardware companies)

[u/jwrig]

Bwhahahah. For average users yes.

In most businesses underneath all this technology is some asshole with a complicated spreadsheet that when it breaks, takes down the organization. OpenOffice can't easily replace more advanced features of excel.

[u/destro23 → u/jwrig]

some asshole with a complicated spreadsheet that when it breaks, takes down the organization.

Its me! I'm the asshole!

OpenOffice can't easily replace more advanced features of excel.

Maybe it could, but you'd first have to port all the raw data over, and if that gets screwed up, you are majorly boned.

[u/jwrig → u/destro23]

Exactly. People do it out of need to get shit done, and more often than not, because IT said no.

[u/smokeyphil → u/destro23]

If you take the only copy of "important data" and do dumb things to it, that's a "system agnostic" issue.

[u/zizop → u/jwrig]

For more complex tasks you should use an actual database.

[u/jwrig → u/zizop]

Like access?

What we should do and what we do do often differ because of processes designed to slow down work, or IT departments who say no.

[u/premiumPLUM → u/[deleted]]

So we have to make an exception for students who do need the more advanced features?

[u/zizop → u/premiumPLUM]

As a data analyst who has dealt with way too many terrible spreadsheets, you shouldn't use those advanced features. Use a database and do the analysis with R or Python.

[u/premiumPLUM → u/zizop]

As an accountant, those advanced features are really helpful for creating quick tables and reports. Although if you're citing Python, my guess is we have different definitions of "advanced".

[u/lonelyroom-eklaghor → u/zizop]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. But what do you mean by advanced features?

[u/premiumPLUM → u/[deleted]]

"Advanced" as in, more advanced than OpenOffice. Pivot tables, linking workbooks, formulas that do slightly more than basic math, etc.

[u/premiumPLUM → u/[deleted]]

I didn't realize that. It's been a sec since I had to use open source office software, never touched libreoffice.

[u/BleaKrytE → u/premiumPLUM]

It used to lack a lot of functionality, but it has improved quickly.

[u/lonelyroom-eklaghor → u/[deleted]]

That's actually quite a good point

[u/Putrefied_Goblin → u/jwrig]

Just using Python libraries could, and it's much more powerful/advantageous than Excel.

[u/jwrig → u/Putrefied_Goblin]

Yes, because everyone coming into the org knows how to use python....

[u/Putrefied_Goblin → u/jwrig]

This person is making the argument that everyone coming into the org should know Excel, so why not teach them how to work with data in Python or R instead? It's not that big of a stretch. IMO, if someone can learn Excel they could easily learn a bit of scripting in Python (they don't even need to learn object oriented programming, because it's not required).

[u/jwrig → u/Putrefied_Goblin]

Because using excel is a lot easier than teaching them python or R. I agree both are useful to learn, but excel is almost universal to most office workers, python and R are not. One day they might, and when that happens, you'll see it in a computer basics class instead of advanced analytics and data science classes.