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Microsoft Attempts to Quash OSS Recommendations
An anonymous reader writes "Inside Higher Ed has a story detailing Microsoft's attempt to alter a report created by the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Gerri Elliott, corporate vice president at Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector division, complained about recommendations in the report to look into 'open source' and 'open content' at higher education institutions across the country. Elliott, who is on the voting committee, waited until the last minute and tried to have the report changed after a public vote. Although she does have a point that 'open source' is a development model, it still has collaboration at its heart. Can Microsoft argue against 'open' and win?"
It's fine and you're retarded.
Let's not forget how to start a sentence.
that open-source is being reccommended to Higher Ed. However, it seems that the availability of source code would have limited use to most college students. For Engineers, Comp Sci, and other technical students that would have both the interest and ability to look at and work with the source code, that's a great thing to be exposed to. But, I don't really see the bennefit for say, business students (not that I'm saying that business students can't program). But, for majors like Comp Sci and Engineering, the source could be a useful too to a good number of students.
I think that being exposed to the different platforms at the Higher Ed level is important though, as you don't know what platform you are going to be working with out in the workforce, and it also allows you to make a more informed desicion about which you'll use personally.
So, is there an educational bennefit to pushing open source software across the board? Or should it be targeted to technical students who could use the extra information (and possibly the exposure to new environments)?
Microsoft word is the law, you commie hippie zealot!
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."