New Free Software Foundation Video Mocks Proprietary Remote-Learning Software (fsf.org) 50
"Computer user freedom is a matter of justice," argues a new video released Friday by the Free Software Foundation:
The University of Costumed Heroes is an animated video telling the story of a group of heroes falling prey to the powers of proprietary software in education. The university board acquires cutting-edge remote learning software that enables them to continue their operations online, but -- [SPOILER ALERT] -- it may sow the seeds of their downfall.
This video is the second in a series of animated videos created by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and this one is themed around our campaign against the use of proprietary remote education software. We must reverse the trend of forsaking young people's freedom, which has been accelerating as corporations try to capitalize on the need to establish new remote education practices. Free software not only protects the freedoms of your child or grandchild by allowing people to study the source code for any malicious functionalities, it also communicates important values like autonomy, sharing, social responsibility, and collaboration.
"Help give students #UserFreedom," reads a tagline below the video, which shows what happens when the university forsakes an ethical remote-learning platform that safeguards computer user freedom for a proprietary AI-powered alternative. But don't worry, the bad guys eventually learn their lesson.
"Noo!! Defeated by the Free Software Foundation once again!"
This video is the second in a series of animated videos created by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and this one is themed around our campaign against the use of proprietary remote education software. We must reverse the trend of forsaking young people's freedom, which has been accelerating as corporations try to capitalize on the need to establish new remote education practices. Free software not only protects the freedoms of your child or grandchild by allowing people to study the source code for any malicious functionalities, it also communicates important values like autonomy, sharing, social responsibility, and collaboration.
"Help give students #UserFreedom," reads a tagline below the video, which shows what happens when the university forsakes an ethical remote-learning platform that safeguards computer user freedom for a proprietary AI-powered alternative. But don't worry, the bad guys eventually learn their lesson.
"Noo!! Defeated by the Free Software Foundation once again!"
Do better (Score:4, Insightful)
Ya know, instead of spending all your time and effort attacking other's tools... why not... ya'know... build up your own to be better instead?
It should be a race to the top, not a battle to the bottom.
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Re:Do better (Score:4, Insightful)
That must work wonderfully in a world full of network effects and bribes by established players.
The education procurement process is indeed corrupt.
Nonetheless, the first step in fixing it is to provide an alternative.
FSF is in a good position to provide leadership. Instead, they are just whining and grandstanding.
Where's the open-source alternative to Zoom? Where is the platform for crowdsourcing etextbooks?
Re:Do better (Score:5, Informative)
Where's the open-source alternative to Zoom?
https://meet.jit.si/ [meet.jit.si]
Where is the platform for crowdsourcing etextbooks?
https://wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org] https://openstax.org/subjects [openstax.org]
Re:Do better (Jitsi) (Score:1)
What was interesting is that people pushed me to move to Zoom. So we as a group moved to Zoom. I can say the experience was just a little better.
Streaming video from sources other than Youtube worked well on Zoom. From what I can tell Jitsi is limited in that way. Otherwise, a very nice tool that is heavily used in Europe. Professional ho
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The fact that it took an Anonymous Coward (Why don't you put your name to your recommendation by the way, are they shady?) to tell me about this alternative I've never heard of IS THE PROBLEM.
So where's the FSF's advertisement and marketing? Grandstanding is nothing if someone needs to ask Slashdot what alternatives exist, and even worse if alternatives exist yet someone is not even willing to put their pseudonym behind them.
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It is incredibly easy to find these alternatives, and many more like them. If you've never heard of them, it's because you don't care at all about this issue. And hey, that's your prerogative, but don't lay the blame on other people.
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You're right, I don't care about the issue at all and not in a position to make a decision on any. Yet I've heard about proprietary offerings...
If your marketing strategy relies on people searching for you, then you really should be no where near a business, like not even a soda stand on a street.
Some people think privacy *is* better (Score:3)
Well, some people think software that respects user privacy *is* better. That's what the video was about. It's saying ooej source is better in this application because it's not harvesting data about the users (students).
Fortunately, some network effects work for Moodle (the open source learning management system) over Canvas (the biggest proprietary LMS).
Unfortunately, while the folks selling Canvas will fly a team of two salespeople out to apwns 2-3 days pitching Canvas, Moodle doesn't have the same sale
Re:Some people think privacy *is* better (Score:4, Informative)
Canvas isn't proprietary. Canvas is AGPL licensed. Rather, it is dual-licensed and there is an AGPL version. Unfortunately, they do require a contributor license agreement. Additionally, their API is available for 3rd parties to write code against, and they implement the LTI standard so linking out to a 3rd party web app and returning information via API is possible to should you care to extend even the non-AGPL version.
note - I spent 6 years as Canvas admin and still teach using Canvas.
Thanks. I should have said Blackboard (Score:2)
I probably should have used Blackboard as the proprietary example. I hadn't looked at Canvas and didn't realize it's open source, though tied to Instracture.
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But K.S. Kyosuke is right, there's a lot of tech evangelists, backroom dealings and such that makes it so that, although the open source is clearly the better alternative, in companies and universities, they require a close source product. *sad tux noises*
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https://medevel.com/10-os-vide... [medevel.com]
If you're talking about "remote learning software" which is a little like saying "cloud-based reading software" in that just by posting a page about how to do derivatives will classify the page as "remote learning". But if you want to go that way...
http://www.openboard.ch/ [openboard.ch] https://www.congrea.com/ [congrea.com] https://www.goodfirms.co/ [goodfirms.co]
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Put it down to old lead addled fuzzy thinking. Remeber when they put lead in fuels and schools were near major roads, if you don't remeber it's because your brains were not poisoned by lead, today's decision makers, well, they forget to but that is because their brains were poisoned by that lead and they tend to make less moral, less thoughtful decisions based upon how large their lead dose was. Did they live in the metro, did they inhale lead fumes all day, did they have lead water pipes and a sure sign of
The Better Product Does Not Always Win. (Score:5, Interesting)
People are not nearly as rational as they like to believe. Very important decisions are usually made for bad reasons and on bad assumptions. In this case, there is an enormous number of people who trust such "givens" as:
1) If it is inexpensive then it is probably crap, and free is even worse.
2) People do things for money, if they can't make their money by selling the software then there is probably some criminal con involved.
3) A business must protect its reputation, whereas these free software hippies have no such incentive.
4) If it is not made by a business then there will be no quality control, it won't keep up with changing curricula, and we will get no tech support.
Any one of those reasons alone would be enough for someone to eliminate free software as an option, as a matter of policy, before individual packages are even compared. The only way free software will be chosen anywhere is free education (which is probably non-accredited and not-respected due to reason number one above), or underfunded public education (and even then probably not).
So, if we are interested in having free software get its foot in the door of paid education, we need to convince them that the above reasons don't apply to these software packages. That will require some kind of advertising....simply having the features doesn't in-and-of-itself convince anyone of anything.
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People are not nearly as rational as they like to believe.
People are rational enough to realise that University students are not world saving superheros and that what they said is not instantly being recorded for the express purpose of ensuring their downfall and thus the enslavement of mankind.
Honestly I didn't think a slippery slope fallacy would be the FSF's secret marketing weapon. They could have done something which would have taken them seriously, but here we are.
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Also they disingenously imply that there are only two options, FOSS and proprietary. There is also open standards based open source software which is libre but not gratis.
I'll buy proprietary (Score:4, Funny)
I'll buy proprietary if they promise not to make horrible cartoons like the FSF does.
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Re:I'll buy proprietary (Score:5, Funny)
Did you watch the video? Clippy has nothing on that.
This is the cartoon version of when your mom catches you listening to rap, gets worried and has you listen to "clean, wholesome rap" instead that consists of some soccer mom trying to rap about getting an education and going to church.
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> This is the cartoon version of when your mom catches you listening to rap, gets worried and has you listen to "clean, wholesome rap" instead that consists of some soccer mom trying to rap about getting an education and going to church.
And by listening to rap, you mean pleasuring yourself right? lol ;-)
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Did you watch the video? Clippy has nothing on that.
This is the cartoon version of when your mom catches you listening to rap, gets worried and has you listen to "clean, wholesome rap" instead that consists of some soccer mom trying to rap about getting an education and going to church.
I was just trying inject some humor. But honestly, that cartoon isn't in your actual program injecting itself forcibly and against your will, obscuring your view on something else just to tell you what you already know and, sometimes, the wrong thing. That cartoon was obviously done on a shoestring budget and a short timeline. Which also means, so was character design, animation and writing. It is lame, yeah. Both honestly, so was G.I. Joe and their "Now you know." segments. Inspector Gadget's educational s
Moodle is *better* (Score:5, Informative)
The institution I worked for looked at several Learning Management Systems and chose one just before hiring me. The decision makers were in no way open-source advocates. They chose Moodle (an open source LMS) because it's *better*, they decided.
In that job, I added some things to Moodle and wrote a couple of modules to integrate with out systems and do things the way we wanted to. I was surprised at the very high expectations / requirements of quality expected to get code into upstream Moodle. Most open source projects accept my initial pull requests, because I've learned to write decent code. Not Moodle. It went through several rounds of review and talking about how to make it even more perfect for each change.
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And Canvas (at least the Instructure hosted version) kicks Moodle's ass.
Canvas is AGPL. Not sure how that translates into the other software the hosted version has (BigBlueButton via Blindside Networks, think the HTML editor is licensed as is the magical "record from webcam" part of it), or what the self-hosted version even looks like but I can't imagine that it is too far off, at least based on the API docs.
Granted, having Instructure host Canvas for us (~11k FTE) wasn't any cheaper than what BlackBoard w
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It sounds like Canvas may have caught up with Moodle in the last few years. That's great. You didn't mention why you like it better, but clearly you're happy with it.
I've been using Canvas as a student for my masters in cybersecurity and I've been pretty happy with it from the student perspective. Today is rhe first day daughter starts using it.
A well-documented API you say, huh? Interesting. Maybe I should do my part in helping an open source project and see what security issues I can find. Maybe I s
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Any user can generate their own API token, and use it. Rights are limited to whatever rights your user has on the server instance and in an individual course. API is documented at https://api.instructure.com/ [instructure.com]
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I've worked exclusively in school IT for 20+ years, private and state, primary, secondary and further education, self-employed and employed.
Not one school I've ever worked for has used anything except an expensive proprietary solution, often replacing it year after year with another one.
Not one of them has ever used Moodle or any open-source one. They just don't have the people with the knowledge to manage it, and unless it involves an expensive training course and a tickbox on their CV/resume, they aren't
The FSF team wins... (Score:3)
By combining their powers and forming THE HURD!
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Yeah but from the 10 people only 9 showed up, and they were only able to combine to form Hurd 0.9. They didn't so much win as throw a kernel except, and mumble something about being beta.
Runs on gnu hurd 1.1 (Score:2)
The gnu solution should be ready In 2042.
Putting the hype in education. (Score:4, Insightful)
Mock all one wants, the far more important question is is remote learning effective? Can we get everyone online, or will we find that much like telecommuting it only works for a few? Doesn't matter if open or proprietary if much like AI, and other such hype that's all it ends up being.
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We need an education system which works for both kinds of people, as long as both of the following are true: everyone is expected to work, and you need an education to get a job.
Saying "it will work for some people" is the same as saying "it won't work"
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Right, because we are all squares that go in the square hole on the pounding table. And anyone who isn't a square will get pounded until they turn into a square or are smashed to bits. Taking your statement to possibly mean everyone needs to do 12 years of public education plus a college degree, I'd disagree. We do not need that sort of an educational system, because we are not Prussia turning the plebes into good little workers obedient to the state and accepting of being a little cog doing what the big
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Your plan would produce a society of even worse know-nothings than what we have now, especially ending public education well before high school. If you really want to be surrounded by dumbfucks all you have to do is nothing.
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We do not need that sort of an educational system
However, we do need one that tells people that
is used to make a new line on /.
Justice?? (Score:3)
>"Computer user freedom is a matter of justice[...]it also communicates important values like autonomy, sharing, social responsibility, and collaboration."
I am a huge advocate of FOSS but certainly not due to "social responsibility", whatever that is supposed to mean, and it has nothing to do with "justice". Control, choice, security, standards, platform-independence, ability to extend and contribute, free of licensing and update costs, so many other reasons- they are all important aspects of FOSS.
Education is a prostitute's game (Score:1)
...and it's been going on for decades. Remember Channel One being put into grade schools that would shove ads into the captive audience faces in exchange for some crappy equipment, and money going into the pockets of school officials?
There was one horror story IIRC where a student was threatened with lock up because she refused to have this garbage shoved down her throats.
There is a whole rotten history of kickbacks for $chool admini$trator$ forcing students to use ad laden textbooks and work sheets "If Jo
Re: Education is a prostitute's game (Score:2)
Hmm, a mod down.
It seems I have ruffled said school officials feathers.
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Wish I had mod points; I can't believe you were modded down to zero w/o even a rebuttal offered. I would like to hear one, because I don't see anything in your rant that is untrue.
Free software can't have security issues? (Score:2)
Really? This cartoon is awful on every level. The art is hideous. It insults your intentions. The message is obviously wrong. It stinks and runs contrary to FSF's stated goals. Who the hell authorized this? Stallman left didn't he?
FSF uses a slippery slope fallacy for marketing? (Score:2)
Sorry but if you want to get people on your side you can't come in, pretend that the world is going to end and that students are going to get attacked (literally what is going on in the video), offer zero alternatives, an then even remotely expect to get taken seriously.
Seriously WTF. You have money built up from donations, stop wasting it on stupid videos and actually help by marketing alternatives (if any capable ones even exist) to what is being offered by evil proprietary.
I mean Linux is awesomely capab
Just have a product we can obtain (Score:2)
Sorry, but a Kickstart and "we will have the software REAL SOON, we promise" is just not good enough.
When you put up the product, you better have something that users can download and use right away.
A school's IT admin won't settle for less. This is the reality of the situation.
Not as cringey as I thought it would be (Score:2)
I thought it would be a lot more cringe, but it was a well produced cartoon as far as propaganda goes. The fatal flaw in what they're presenting is that using Public Software* doesn't protect privacy. Huge privacy-invading companies like Google, FaceBook, etc. build their systems on F/OSS. Software is a tool for privacy invasion, or not, depending on who uses it.
*RMS says there's no word for the kind of "free" he talks about, but that's disingenuous. He should be calling it "public" software.