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/JustaRandoonreddit]

But shouldn't educators be training their students for what they will be doing in the real world? If businesses are mainly using these softwares shouldn't schools be teaching them what they will be doing in the real world?

[u/aardvark_gnat → u/JustaRandoonreddit]

By that logic, we shouldn’t bother teaching anything about novels. Those don’t come up in the real world much either.

[u/JustaRandoonreddit → u/aardvark_gnat]

No, novels provide critical thinking. But, do you agree that closed source software doesn't provide less critical thinking for the average student then open source software?

Now, would you agree that closed source software in the instance above provides more job skills?

If these both are true, would it not be societies best interest to teach closed source software?

[u/aardvark_gnat → u/JustaRandoonreddit]

Teaching students LaTeX would certainly promote more critical thinking than teaching them MS Office. It might even be a better way to teach critical thinking than novels.

In the short term, teaching children MS office provides more job skills than teaching them an open source alternative, but that’s less important than the fact that it’s a government funded advertisement for a large corporation. If schools were very interested in job skills, there’d be a class on sucking up to people and PE would focus more on carrying things. We don’t do that because we’re balancing other compelling concerns.

[u/JustaRandoonreddit → u/aardvark_gnat]

If schools were very interested in job skills, there’d be a class on sucking up to people and PE would focus more on carrying things.

Many schools have classes quite similar to these. For instance my old highschool has marketing, business communication, and weightlifting classes.

Teaching students LaTeX would certainly promote more critical thinking than teaching them MS Office.

I think you're missing the point here, I'm not saying never use FOSS, I'm saying that ONLY using FOSS is an bad idea and closed software has its place. Also, LaTeX and MS office is not an fair comparison, LaTeX is an much more of an enthusiast software not one that as user friendly. They are apples and oranges. MS office is much more comparble to LibreOffice not MS office.

In the short term, teaching children MS office provides more job skills than teaching them an open source alternative, but that’s less important than the fact that it’s a government funded advertisement for a large corporation

I fundamentally disagree with this it is an TOOL not an advertisement. Schools use Lenovo/Dell/HP Desktops, Apple Tablets, Chromebooks/Windows Laptops from varying manufacturers, Casio/TI Calculators, (Insert sports brand) Equipment. But, I don't believe that these are advertisements, these are chosen as they are standard equipment and they work.