massachusetts institue of technology. richard stallman is from there. most linux utilities were developed there and a lot of open source projects were and are made there!!! is it the best university for linux and open source??

  • Meltrax@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I live right near it, and have a lot of friends that went there. Not a strong opinion. Fortunately for you, you’ll find these two things at almost any university in the United States:

    • A Computer Science department that actually teaches the exact same curriculum as MIT.
    • An English department that will teach you how to use capitalization and punctuation in sentences.
    • adrrdgz@lemmy.todayOP
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      4 months ago

      an english department?? well that would be nice thank you!! i’m not originally from the usa and well still. even if a university is as good as mit. it’s still not “mit”!!! the home of richard stallman. the home of geniuses etc!! woa!

      • Meltrax@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I honestly can’t tell if you’re trolling…

        But to give you the benefit of the doubt, MIT is a school. There’s nothing very exciting about it, I’m sorry. The students are smart, but so are students at a lot of universities. It’s not really any better than the others, except for some name recognition. They teach the same things, they provide the same opportunities.

        Stallman didn’t even go there. He went to Harvard for his bachelor’s degree and was a “visiting researcher” at MIT. MIT has some cool research projects, but many many technical universities in the USA have those. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Stevens Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon, hell just any school that has graduate students and a computer science department.

        Now don’t get me wrong, Boston is a great city (I live here, I love it) and MIT is a good school. But that’s it, it’s just good. Many many many smart people have come from other schools. Linus Torvalds has had an even greater impact on some of the topics you seem to care about than Stallman, and he went to the University of Helsinki in Finland. Schools are just schools.

      • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
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        4 months ago

        Fortunately for you, most universities in the world offer a similar computer science curriculum as the ones in US.

        Not sure about English department though.

  • LalSalaamComrade@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    I hate them, because university rankings have kind if become a neo-caste system. Ivy League universities are elitist brain-rot. Sure, they house great minds, but the sham that is meritocracy will crumble if everyone in this world had the privilege to start from the same line one the race track.

    Just think of it - is advancement of human civilization a dick-measuring contest, or do we prepared folks to be better professionals to excel in the respective field they’ve chosen?

    Well, I am not really sure if you should be celebrating MIT, just because Richard Stallman has graduated from there. That’s like saying - we should bomb the fuck out of Harvard for producing graduated that have bought terror in this world through human rights violation of varying degrees?

    • 柊 つかさ@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Are universities automatically “elitist brain-rot” when they participate in rankings? When it comes to privilege, yes, rich kids that don’t deserve it are accepted into ivy league universities because of the connections they have. This is not a good thing obviously. Most researchers receive the privilege of working there because of their good research done at other universities. That is why they stay on top: a lot of excellent researchers want to join those universities. Obviously MIT has a very good standing when it comes to CS. The dick-measuring contest is but a small part of the university ecosystem. Also, neo-caste system is a quite strong. Most ivy league researchers are probably not rich or powerful. For that you have to look at our “friends” in the C-suite. I understand the sentiment, but I find “hate”, “elitist brain-rot” and “neo-caste system” way too strong.

      • someacnt_@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, in the more technical/scientific departments, people usually have incredible skills to prove their worth.

  • kbal@fedia.io
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    4 months ago

    N: Unable to locate package mit E: No packages found

    Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be too popular. Not even in debian.

    • LalSalaamComrade@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      MIT is a harmful license. I mean, it has it’s use cases for certain apps, but quite a few softwares out there would really benefit from GPL and AGPL-type licenses.

      • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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        4 months ago

        Any license can be harmful in some scenarios. I like MIT, because its simple and allows basically anything. There are some situations in which GPL is harmful too (such not being able to mix with any type of license) and would benefit from MIT. One can also go from MIT to GPL, but not other way, if everything is licenses in GPL.

        For complex programs that are important and where the source code must stay open, GPL is perfect. Like always, every license has its harmful scenarios and its use cases.

        • gerdesj@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          such not being able to mix with any type of license

          GPL licenced software merely has to comply with the GPL - make your changes available to all etc. The whole point of the GPL is to ensure that you can take but enforces that you give back too. It’s the Stone Soup thing.

          MIT is loved by say Apple because they can take your work, do their thing and not have to contribute back. To be fair, Appley stuff is now quite a long way away from BSD!

          As I’m feeling charitable, I should also point out that CUPS is/was largely Apple driven, as is Avahi/Bonjour. I can deploy a Linux box and expect it to find and setup available printers without having to do anything.

          • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
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            4 months ago

            GPL can prevent the linking of external and non-free third party libraries. It can add an increased legal complexity to the code base. It’s difficult for MIT licenses to have that “clashing” between licenses.

            There are variations to GPL that allow the linking of non-free third party libraries. Either way, consult your lawyer before using GPL code.

      • LeFantome@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        Well, that is like, your opinion man.

        Ok. Obviously different licenses are useful in different circumstances. So, what you are saying is clearly true.

        That said, even though the MIT license is the most used license I believe, I wish MIT was used more and GPL less.

        I do not want to create or get drawn into a debate ( because we likely have the same facts and just disagree ) but what I dislike about the GPL is that does not respect freedom—specifically developer freedom. It constrains freedom and hopes that what it calls “the 4 freedoms” are a side effect. In my view, the GPL restricts freedom to bestow rights ( a net negative for freedom ).

        My opinion is no more valuable than yours. We do not have to convince each other. I am just explaining my view.

        Don’t get me wrong, the ability of the original author to choose the GPL is something I totally support. It is a totally valid constraint to place on people that want to use your code. A developer should get to choose the terms under which people can use their code. It is exactly this freedom that the GPL restricts. Again, I think this is totally ok ( as would be demanding money ) but it is certainly a restriction which, by definition, is not freedom.