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Big Company on Campus
Daniel Dvorkin writes "MSNBC (oh, the irony) is running a scary article entitled Microsoft's big role on campus, detailing how Microsoft is working its way into academic computer science through a combination of bribery and propaganda. The aricle may be overstating the case, but it does make it sound as though MS products are displacing others at a disturbing rate in computer science departments. Given that academic computing has traditionally been both the source of and the stronghold for innovative software, this is a disturbing long-term trend."
In Canada at my university (University of Waterloo, Canada's MIT for those ignorant), Microsoft generously offered to buy the University 4 new computer labs for SE and CS students. Only for a small price, the curriculem must teach C# and the new .NET framework. Thankfully the university did not sell their soul to the devil.
this is the potential future of computer science in the United States
My aren't WE large headed!! This does not just happen across the pond there, it happens in Europe too. In fact, MS has offered academic institution(s) here in Ireland _really_ cheap setups in the past, and there were 2 reasons.
o To lock them in (obviously)
o To test out NT in a large network enviornment
And boy was NT tested (some of the curses thrown at it were impressive. It caused an awful lot of hassle, never mind that the default setup allowed students to format the harddrive)
Now, the Computer Systems degree I'm doing in the University of Limerick, Ireland use a mix of Red Hat and Windows, and I believe that the Computer and Electrical Engineers use the same mix, but aside from that, the rest of the college use Win2k workstations with Active Directory and Exchange Server, which was a direct upgrade from the previous infrastructure... so I guess the lock-in worked
Rational thought is the only true freedom
At UC Berkeley (home of Unix!), around May 1999, I was a teaching assistant for CS 61B (Introduction to Data Structures). The course was taught in Java (and before that, C). The UC Berkeley CS labs for introductory undergrad courses are all Unix (Solaris x86, HP-UX, DEC OSF/1).
The lecturer received a letter from a Microsoft rep with a proposition to switch to Microsoft technologies, offering all of the software that we could possibly want. It was, of course, immediately tossed into the recycling bin with some sort of remark containing the word "slimey."
dont forget Cisco.
their original product was the result of a university research project.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
I was an MIT CS student from 1988-1993 (BS and MS). Part of what made MIT great was that Microsoft's crap wasn't used. MIT has always had a strong "home grown" culture. The software we used was largely developed at MIT, much of it written (at least partly) by other students. You saw, by example, that you could create the tools you need and you don't need to rely on some company's bug filled code to get the job done.
It is sad to think that MIT CS has become (or could become) a showcase for Microsoft tools.
At University of Maryland University College (Europe), first non-Windows disappeared - Linux was removed from all campus lab machines - claimed it was a "security risk". Next most non-Microsoft software was removed from the lab. The IT director knows M$ and nothing else.
.not). I have been reprimanded because I point out to my students flaws in M$ Windows. Want to take on-line courses - forget about it - Mozilla is barely supported and others are not.
I teach computer science. No longer can I teach with Borland (or gcc) and Linux. Everything is pretty much Microsoft-only. Everything must be VS 6 (and
I guess University of Maryland is really University of Microsoft.
Remember, for every CD you purchase, you give the RIAA that much more power. RIAA = SCO = IP terrorists. Any questio
As an MIT graduate (Class of 1992), I'm appalled by this turn of events. But what really bugs me is that Hal Abelson is involved with this ludicrous arrangement between MIT and Microsoft, in an administrative capacity. (This is according to the article.) Hal is co-author of the SICP text book (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs), and was one of my professors when I was there. How the hell did they buy him off?
What will this mean for future MIT students? Will SCHEME be replaced by C# as the language of choice for entry level CS classes? The article bemoans that many universities are having their CS departments reduced to little better than vocational schools, where knowledge of proprietary software is prized over theory and general concepts that can be applied anywhere. I think this is a very real threat to future innovation.
Microsoft might win more mind-share in the short run, but they'll be screwing the world out of the next generation of advancements in the long run. I, for one, will have grave doubts about sending my offspring to MIT.