Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Considering the similar histories of open source software and open
source hardware, the following anecdote is a cautionary tale of having
closed source software in education for the open source hardware
world to learn from. Software is a fundamental part of modern creativ-
ity. From writing music to writing code for microcontrollers, a broad
set of software is typically involved at some point in the process.
Learning to effectively use software tools requires study and practice,
in the same way that one would expect for traditional skills such as cal-
culus or fluency in foreign languages. It's often difficult for people to
find the time to develop new software. Students in primary school and
college have a special opportunity to learn new software skills, and in
many cases the software to which they're exposed will determine what
they use later on in life.
This concept of software incumbency is a major element in market-
ing strategies for software companies. Products such as Labview and
Matlab are given to educational organizations at significantly reduced
cost or no cost at all. Companies are motivated to distribute their
products to students as early as possible, so as to build familiarity and
engrain habits. This strategy can be seen in many other markets, ran-
ging from cars to cigarettes. When students graduate and move into
their professional careers, they are much more likely to purchase an ex-
pensive software package if they have spent time in school using it.
Likewise, teachers who have developed curriculum based on commer-
cial software packages may have a hard time moving away from those
packages. If a professor has been teaching with Matlab for many years,
for example, it can be a daunting task to migrate to alternative plat-
forms.
While comfort and familiarity with any tool is a good thing, there are
some significant downsides to this trend of education using low- or no-
cost licenses of very expensive software tools. Beyond the obvious is-
sue of high costs (often measured in the thousands or tens of thousands
of dollars for a single license), closed source software does not allow
students to explore the inner workings of the tools they are using. A
student who is using Labview might wish to find out exactly
how
a
facial-recognition function differentiates her face from her sister's, and
perhaps even modify it to behave differently. A student who is using
Matlab might wish to explore the intricacies of its compiler. With either
of these tools, there are impassible barriers to satisfying this curiosity,
