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When Teachers Are Obstacles To Linux In Education
jamie found this blog post up on the HeliOS Project, which brings Linux to school kids in Austin, TX. It makes very clear some of the obstacles that free software faces in the classroom. It seems a teacher came upon a student demonstrating Linux to other kids and handing out LiveCDs. The teacher confiscated the CDs and wrote an angry email to HeliOS's founder, Ken Starks: "Mr. Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. ... This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older version of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..." Starks pens an eloquent reply, which contains a factoid I have not seen mentioned before: "The fact that you seem to believe that Microsoft is the end all and be-all is actually funny in a sad sort of way. Then again, being a good NEA member, you would spout the Union line. Microsoft has pumped tens of millions of dollars into your union. Of course you are going to 'recommend' Microsoft Windows."
I don't think it's worth attributing the teacher's support of Windows to some kind of fanatical support of union directives. From postal workers to teachers, truckers to plumbers, in my admittedly anecdotal experience I've found that the average professional has very little clue about his union's sources of funds and its goals.
What none sense; spending education dollars on MS products rather than say remedial spelling lessons for adults who are over reliant on spell check.
All I can say is wow... What a completly ignorant twat.
On another note ALL HAIL BILL
it is.
contribute at wikademia
"I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older version of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..." Just like XP now.
How are these people allowed near kids? It's rhetorical question, don't bother replying.
[FUCK BETA]
The teacher has nothing to do with the NEA getting money from Microsoft. She's just a low-level drone who's only source of information was maybe an education tech conference she went to and the mainstream media.
A better letter would have pointed out that Linux is being used in industry, in the world's largest companies, the U.S government and so forth and that children should have the skills to compete in the workforce by learning Linux. The whole free software thing should also be explained in the letter throughly, perhaps with a page or two containing a complete idiots guide to the basics of the GPL, etc. Perhaps reprinted from C-Net or some other technology media source.
Anyone else reminded of:
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Linux_Needs_Windows_To_Run
Was this real? The letter snippet reads as if the supposed teacher was ranting about drug use or some other evil of society. So much righteous indignation, so little understanding of the real world.
I pity the school system that relies on these characters to educate and "guide and discipline" any child.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.
I can imagine a generation coming out of school believing that "free software" is somehow illegal or immoral. Nicely taught to pay the "computer tax" to Microsoft, which is the only solution.
...can take place on the desktop. M$ and Apple have a hegemony on school tech budgets. We use Linux Terminal Services for general productivity. I have a 2:1 ration to workstations in our school. Thankfully the school admin see the value in a free-as-in-speech approach. With the upcoming belt tightening, large districts will be forced to examine the Linux in schools option carefully. Are we ready to meet the challenge?
Here is a teacher, accusing a student and an Open Source software organization of breaking the law (and no doubt intimating as such to her class) and confiscating the student's property for no valid reason. I believe the teacher is guilty of criminal acts. I also believe she leaves herself and the school board open to civil action. I am not an admirer of the US legal system, but this might be a good time to use it to send a message to the world's ignoramuses that, yes, some software is both good and free.
Debian Edu / Skolelinux
...
Debian Edu
* is a Debian project to make the best distribution for educational purposes.
Skolelinux
is the name of a Debian Pure Blend which is produced by the Debian Edu project.
"Skole" ([skuËl]) is the Norwegian form of "school". Both "skole" and "school" comes from the Latin word "schola".
Goals
* Provide a complete software solution using free software and
* tailored for the needs and use-cases in educational scenarios.
* preconfigured for easy installation (standalone, as well as network-wide rollout).
* easy to use, maintain, and administer.
* supporting your language natively.
* Classify and package all free software related to education.
* Write documentation to describe how to use the various softwares (in an educational context).
* International availability, currently being translated into XX languages
The Long Now Foundation
I along with many others tried Linux during college...
LSD, pot, Linux... ah, those crazy college days!
In the article, this hapless bint (how can we stop people like this getting near children?) says "I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods." I think she has got Linux confused with either (a) LSD or (b) [insert adventurous sexual practice here].
This is probably the finest example of how to not win over support from people outside of the Linux and Open-Source community.
I was kind of surprised to hear of the reaction that the teacher had to a student handing out Linux disks, as I don't know anyone who would take personal offense to trying out that software. Almost reads like a joke, but then again there is Rule 36...
However, I was even more surprised by the response that was given to her claims. Did he honestly think he could be persuasive by being condescending, insulting and, well, just downright mean?? His points are valid, though I think one of them is pure opinion. (I don't think Linux was designed to "free people from Microsoft." I think that it was designed as an alternative to closed-source operating systems in general, which being "freed" from Microsoft Windows is a side effect.) Yet, if that teacher was being a bit harsh, Starks did nothing to quench that fire.
With all of that said, I think that Linux is gaining positive momentum in education and public offices. Naturally, it will be a slow transition, considering most IT departments are not too comfortable with the idea of switching all of their computer network to a Linux-based one (and with good reason). It's getting there, though.
it is amazing how uninformed and ignorant school teachers really are, i think government owned & run schools are as bad as any in washington (run by a bunch of corrupted reprobates) shameful!
:D
on another off topic note i listen to ham radio & pirate radio on a shortwave radio as a hobby, more often i hear ham radio operators mention Linux
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
He sounds just as ignorant about unions as she does about operating systems. Microsoft doesn't "pump" money into the NEA. That's just stupid.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
"No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful."
Oh my goodness! Yes, keep that up, and students might realize they can write software themselves!!! What a horrible message that would send.
What kind of an upside-down world does this teacher live in? It's as if they were complaining that if students got free paper, they might start writing. Or if they got free wood and tools, they might start doing carpentry. Or ... learn to do anything.
"I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older version of Windows"
BWHAHAHAHA! That was a good one. Not only would they be unlikely to do this, if Microsoft offered free copies of anything they'd probably offer free copies of Vista :-)
It's interesting that some of her statements are not strictly inaccurate. I might even say enlightened, without the enlightenment.
Amen to this. There is always an associated upkeep to software, alluded to by the reply about releasing improvements incrementally.
Kids aren't a commodity, you have to take the rotten apples with the good ones. School teachers are just people who have a lot of different kids to deal with. Imagine grading kids' papers, errors, and half-thoughts for years. I'll cut that person a little slack for what they get paid. Much like my 6th Grade teacher (with a Master's in Psychology) who was at a loss to figure out how to properly spell Chameleon (stuck in the Ca and Ka sections of the Dictionary), people are ignorant about different things. Welcome to the world. I'm surprised she wrote a letter. I saw it as a plea for help worded in a defensive manner. Now she gets educated. The circle is complete.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Does this mean that I have been *gasp!* pirating Kubuntu illegally for the past 6 years???
*frantically starts digging bunker in back yard*
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
http://www.austin.isd.tenet.edu/schools/staff.phtml?teacher=1600
http://www.karenware.com/bio.asp
I think COW fits..
All hail Windows, and be damned anyone that uses another operating system!
Do school IT departments still think in this day and age that knowing how to use Windows and Microsoft Word makes children some sort of computer genius?
Mid 1980's in the UK, home computers were coming on to the market more, and the school had "IBM compatible" computers, Microsoft was nowhere to be seen. We used what we could run on the machines (or got licences for), not restricted to dogma about which OS to use.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
This fuckwit of an arrogant opinionater troll-witch stole private property, libelled a legitimate company and slandered a child in her class.
And all because Linux must be illegal because free software cannot exist and anything trying to pass itself off as free must be illegal and stolen.
So how could ANY response short of a shagging from twelve hot pop stars would have made it possible to persuade her that she's wrong?
Yep. And the poor can just go fuck themselves.
Ok, the teacher is misinformed and here email is a bit terse. Still, it was a chance to educate someone and make a friend; instead he chose to pen a rude reply and escalate the battle to the school's administration.
I simply do not understand this attitude - FOSS advocates are trying to gain wider adoption of their software and ideas and yet seem to go out of their way to antagonize anyone who doesn't share their viewpoint.
This could come down to a basic question - what right does a teacher or school have to control student activities in the classroom. My guess is that, if push comes to shove, a court would give them broad latitude in such matters. The teacher has no idea what is on the disks; and the school would naturally be concerned about any lawsuits that might arise over that, so they have a legitimate interest in restricting such activities. All it takes is one CD-Rom with something objectionable to a parent or illegal to paint FOSS and it's supporters as somehow evil and a danger to kids. Not that that is right, but winning and losing these kinds of battles rarely hinges on what is right.
FOSS advocates should ask themselves why MS and Apple are successful in getting their products into schools and adopt their approach - working with teachers, teaching them how to use their products to further classroom activities; in short becoming a partner with them. I know a lot of teachers, and most of them just want to help their students learn, avoid hassles from parents and administrators, struggle with the myriad of laws and other things that impact their ability to teach and really care about the kids they teach. Sure, there are some who are useless but most are just trying to do a good job in a challenging environment.
You do not have to agree with or like the teacher's stance, but to further FOSS goals you need to understand it and determine the best way to overcome it. making an enemy is not, IMHO, the best way to further those goals.
I've found teachers open to FOSS if approached the right way. For example, explaining how OpenOffice/NeoOffice can be used for schoolwork by students so parents don't have to shell out cash for MS Office. Give them a disk, with written instructions on how to set it up to save in an MS format and you've made it easy for them to use and helped build credibility for FOSS
The problem is zealots see everything as a threat or challenge; and believe compromise and cooperation is selling out; and that any differing viewpoint or argument against their approach is either flamebait or a troll (as evidenced by /. moderations).
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
As a fellow teacher, let me speak in this woman's defense:
As a teacher, and especially as a K-12 teacher, no one has ever asked her to be anything other than an ignorant, time-wasting simpleton bent on convincing the children in her charge that all adults are blathering morons and that education is for douchebags. In fact, I'm pretty sure "Time-Wasting" and "Self-Righteous Ignorance" are required courses in most teacher-training programs.
There is a reason why most people don't learn much until they get into college. College professors have never had to take any classes in the education department.
So cut the lady some slack, folks. She's just doing what she was trained to do.
I love Linux as much as the next geek, however, I can sort of understand her point of view, even if she doesn't represent herself very well. If a kid wants to play with Linux and learn about how the computer works then s/he should do it, but if it prevents the computer from working properly with coursework or software provided by the school, then that could be a problem. I can see how it would be highly annoying to a teacher, who really has better things to do than to support PCs, to have to explain why some document won't display properly, or something won't work exactly as it should on Linux. In a setting where spending any time at all on helping kids with how their laptops work is a huge distraction I can see how encouraging students to install Linux would be a very big disruption. Some will disagree, and it's better than it used to be, but I still wouldn't advise my mother to replace Windows with HeliOS or Ubuntu or any other Linux. The reason people choose Mac and Windows isn't entirely marketing and bundling, it's also because they tend to be easier to get support for - or even for novices to figure out.
I can imagine a generation coming out of school believing that "free software" is somehow illegal or immoral. Nicely taught to pay the "computer tax" to Microsoft, which is the only solution.
No, they just would pay for Linux... nothing is free, you know.
This is my sig.
I hope she told the other teachers to do the same thing.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Rather than being saracstic in his reply, this guy should've offered to educate the teachers into what other options are out there. Instead he's just turned them off and made them more hostile to alternatives.
Since succeeding in the education system requires children to give the answer the examiners expect - rather than the one that is correct, by closing this teacher's mind to other possibilities the Linux guy has made sure that the teacher will not admit coursework or answers that involve non-MS products. A good opportunity to expand some horizons has been wasted.
[1] yes, yes, I know: yours was inspirational and a credit to the profession. Congratulations, you're in the top 0.5%.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
It could be a troll, yes, but I don't think it's a given.
What if the "Linux" she had used was, say, Cygwin? If the letter isn't a troll, then it's quite clear that whatever it was she used, she didn't pay it a great deal of attention.
She sits down at a friend's computer, sees Cygwin running, asks what it is, and tunes out after about four seconds. Hears POSIX. Hears Unix. Hears Linux. Doesn't really care, minimizes Cygwin, sees the Windows desktop, and does what she came to. (For fun, I'll assume it's using Word to type a paper while her nerd-friend cleans Bonzi Buddy off her PC. Alternatively, she could be using Word while her friend replaces OS/2 with Windows on her PC, given her a permanent distaste for alternate OS's.)
Ten years later, she sees the kid passing out the disks, some old memories dust themselves off---and she draws her conclusions. "Linux" ran on top of Windows. This kid says his disks have everything you need, and you don't have to buy Windows. Alarm bells go off.
Her student's passing out software that to her mind must inherently include stolen Windows code, and it's not even software that's useful to schoolkids.
Lot of conjecture in this post, I admit, but I don't think it's impausible. People really do tend to think this way.
uh... and you sound like a dairy farmer?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Teachers are supposed to embody the spirit of learning, this one is deliberately ignorant.
Did you even read the article? The disks in question are Live CDs that do not have any affect on anything installed on the computer.
I find what works best is to supply examples of fine open source software that runs on Windows and Linux. Once they grasp the concept of free open source software and the missing hurdles to it's use, the next step is to note the OS itself is free software. As an example, this page I wrote concerning an engineering challenge for launching t shirts at a NBA game. The engineering task was to find the optimum length for the launch tube. Note the use of open source software in the solution. When the teacher compared the open source solution to the Microsoft Sound Recorder or other packaged solution, then the seed for the concept is planted. Have the teacher read the license. um End User License Agreement. On a side note, the final and winner announcement will be this Friday. Our team has an excellent chance of winning. The teacher knows that I use The Gimp to size photos for the wiki, etc on a Linux machine. Windows is not needed.
https://inteltrailblazerschallenge.wikispaces.com/Barrel+length+trim+method
When Open Source is the best solution, it gets noticed. It is no longer just hobbiest software.
The truth shall set you free!
I have a brother-in-law named Dave. One day Dave's daughter comes home and says: "look dad, my teacher gave me this free student edition of ms-office 2003." Not knowing any better Dave installs it on the family PC, and just accepts all the defaults.
Three months later, the trial period ends, and Dave can not access his outlook email. I tried an outlook backup, and uninstalling the crapware, and re-installing Dave's ms-office 2000 - it wouldn't work. I had to completely re-build Dave's PC. But, nothing could read outlook trial 2003 email. I had to install the crapware on another PC, read the old .pst file in, save the email in another format, then move the email to Dave's rebuilt PC, then rebuild the other computer. When msft tells us "try before you buy" they don't mean it to be an option.
You could remove the "To Linux In" and the headline would be more accurate for this teacher:
"When Teachers Are Obstacles Education" ?
Squirrel!
The teacher was deeply wrong with her viewpoint but the best way to respond is to politely correct her and guide her to somewhere where she can read up more on it. That's likely to result in a much more lasting result.
Instead he goes on about Evil Microsoft conspiricy theories a stupid "Linux is better than windows in every single way" type rant. It's fine thinking one OS is better than the other but you're deluding yourself if you don't think there are things one OS does better than than the other (cue 'lol windows crashes better' replies).
You won't change people by belittling them and going on what frankly, would seem like crazed ravings to someone unfamiliar with OSS zealots.
Ken Starks is a tedious and shameless self-promotion artist. He won't ever reveal the real names of the teacher or the student because they don't exist. He's a serial troll. The choice of Helios as a moniker is partially apt because he is at the very least *ego*centric, though certainly not effulgent. Free software would benefit greatly if "Helios" and Roy Schestowitz beat each other into dumb oblivion or if /. and lxer and similar just stopped taking any notice of these arseholes. They're embarrassing.
Hear, hear! Answering with a rant about how unions and MS are in bed together does nothing to releive this woman of her ignorance.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
We don't have an IT Department in my school; It's the '"The Microsoft Way" Product Demonstration Department'.
The day I have to stop translating "computer" into "hard disc" to get them to reboot properly (and not power off the monitor) is the day they become something more than MS sales droids.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Let me speak against this woman.
Despite your attempt to excuse her behavior, she is ignorant, vindictive, and has no right to confiscate harmless personal property from a student.
I have had many teachers over the years, in public school, private school, and college, who were NOT ignorant, time-wasting simpletons. They were intelligent human beings who encouraged their students to investigate and experiment.
What you have given us is an explanation, not an excuse. There is NO excuse for this.
And sometimes you can't win people over at all, no matter what you say (or how you say it). They've decided to be willfully ignorant, and nothing you do can change that.
"At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful"
The law isn't just there for assholes to misuse. She's calling him a thief and accusing him of corrupting children. She's also hindering his business and bringing his him into disrepute. I think it would make an interesting case and that it would have merit even if he didn't win.
To the best of my knowledge she's got every right to choose to keep Linux out of the classroom if the laws and regulations of her school, district, state etc. give her that power. However she has no right dictating what software the children use after hours or what their political views should be. So get a parent or two involved as well/
Of course you could use this as an opportunity to demonstrate that she's wrong, but you're not going to win her over, and if you did you'd have won one hell of a prize ally.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
"She's just a low-level drone who is only source of information..."
now, children: please, allow me to correct you in case some grammar nazi (other than myself) comes along and rebukes everything you say, on the basis that poor spelling must indicate poor attention to detail and poor ability to reason. like.
the word you are looking for is "whose". "who's" is, as you know, a contraction of "who is".
as an anal attentative grammar nazi and long-time linux supporter and free software advocate, it would be much better that i get to you first before that teacher, or any of her "slazhdot-readin suhporturs" do.
This doesn't sound like a case study in union corruption, or a sign of some disturbing trend with Linux in education. It sounds like a random funny example of how public school can attract teachers who aren't all that bright, and how IT can attract people who lack social skills. While "Retard vs. Asshole" does have some Godzilla and Mothra entertainment value to it, I'm not sold on any "big picture" beyond that.
I was always laughter when R. M. Stallman start every interview with his 4 essential software freedoms. Now I don't. He's doomed to repeat them for eternity. For people like this "Teacher".
You don't (usually) see complaints departments in stores do you? Even if the person handling the complaint is correct, if you respond to a customer in the way he talked to you, he'll never come back. What's worse, he'll tell all his friends and they'll think twice about shopping there.
A polite, friendly, smartly written letter correcting her will educate this teacher more than 100 ranting letters ever will. If you change her viewpoint, she'll start talking to other teachers about "this linux thing" and you'll spread positivity.
Hate to burst your bubble, but one links to a Karen Ciesla and the other to a Karen Kenworthy. Your google-fu needs some work, grasshopper.
But if you feel strongly about this, the only e-mail I could find on the web-site was
Ombudsman@austinisd.org
If you feel compelled to respond, please be polite. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
Are unable to make the key distinction between free (as in beer) and free (as in freedom) that RMS is always harping about.
People have a habbit of wanting to entrench themselves the more they feel oppressed or belittled and they'll look for allies to join them.
And hence the reason that all successful IT companies have marketing and PR departments that do the talking...
Very rarely is social change made on the basis of its inherent rightness or wrongness. Usually social change comes about because charismatic leaders inspire others to adopt it. For every Thomas Jefferson you have an Adolf Hitler. One was clearly in the right and one was clearly in the wrong, but both were followed by many. Linux advocates won't change the world simply by being right.
Maybe this teacher is a lost cause. However, the harsh response will likely tick off not only the teacher but her 10 colleagues who might otherwise have been on the fence. The superintendent is also less likely to intervene since he'll feel like he's stuck in a war between two zealots.
If the response stuck to the facts and how linux can be used to the advantage of education, he'd have done better. He could have pointed to the many careers that use linux, and the fact that it freely and legally gives student access to many professional-quality tools (compilers, servers, math packages, scientific simulation software, etc). Its ability to run on older hardware could enable parents to pick up a cheap computer at a thrift store and get decent word/spreadsheet/etc capabilities out of it. He could point to many educational initiatives both in the US and abroad that make use of linux. He could also point out how the free software community cares greatly about copyright - they developed alternatives to commercial software precisely so that they wouldn't need to violate the law, and they also use copyright law to enforce their own legal rights.
I agree with many of his points, but not the degree to which they were stated. I don't think that bringing the NEA into this was particularly helpful either - as much as I hate the NEA I doubt they'd have all that much interest in mounting an official anti-MS-competitor campaign for a few million dollars. the NEA might allow MS to present at teacher educational forums on the dangers of software piracy, but that is probably about it.
When you communicate you should communicate for a purpose. When you communicate with an adversary you should communicate even more deliberately. That purpose generally shouldn't be to "vent" - communicate with your spouse or your pillow or something other than your entire world or the person you are angry with if you want to vent. Or type up an email to yourself and then delete it (do NOT populate the TO line in such emails - I've seen them accidentally sent far too often).
"Teachers sacrifice" "Teachers give of themselves" "Teachers cultivate minds" "Teachers are heroes" Just some of the myths about teachers that the media bombard us with.
Call it a profession or vocation if you want. Teaching is an occupation. A way to pull down a paycheck. A job. And many do their job very badly. Just as there are bad programmers, bad mechanics, bad doctors and bad ditch-diggers. Where did we get the impression that teachers are somehow immune to ignorance, bias or incompetence? In fact, you could make argument that incompetence in other professions is *_because_* of bad teachers.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I see a teacher or school claiming this is their stance, I call bullshit. This has to be a lame attempt at trolling for support/blog hits.
i might not be the pin up boy for linux, but even i have to respect the right of others to give away their software. i have to say this kind of moronic prepackaged response is what i expect from teachers, both when i was at school and now when i deal with them outside of it. for people who are meant to teach our kids to think, they don't do much of it them selfs.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Not all teachers are members of NEA. My wife is a teacher in Georgia, and she is not a member. Considering that Karent is a teacher in Texas, I would bet she's not in a union. Unions have never been strong in southern states.
it took my some time to find it, I wonder how the students came across it. here is the link: http://www.fixedbylinux.com/
US Taxpayers? Unless you live in texas, your tax dollars are not getting spent by this teacher.
That there are two different kinds of free.
Surely an American can appreciate the concept of Freedom and the concept of Free Beer, and the distinction between them.
Eighteen years ago, I discovered emacs. I got hold of a printed copy of the whole manual for it, which was pretty thick, even back then. I took it to a copy shop so I could have one for myself. (Remember, this is back when a 4-foot wide line printer in the terminal room was about all I had access to.)
The girl working the counter flipped open the binder to the very first page, and saw a copyright notification, and promptly told me that she could not copy the manual because it would be illegal to do so. I told her to simply READ what she was looking at. In about thirty seconds, she was copying the manual.
I understand that people want to respect copyright law. I do too. But any sort of ignorance to the fact that it's actually copyright law that MAKES open source work ought to be able to be remedied quickly by just reading the copyright license to the software. Any questions about the situation could then be resolved within about 5 minutes of Googling.
And, just to threadjack my own post, I just-as-quickly forgot about emacs, and allowed myself to be beat about the head and shoulders by vi until now, to the point that I won't go anywhere near emacs. ;-)
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
With all those 5-16 year olds from poor families hanging around with no school to go to you have the perfect cheap labour pool: time to reintroduce them to joys of working in the mills, down coal mines and up chimneys.
You are an idiot.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
That's not the HeliOS I remember working with many years ago (Perihelion RIP!) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeliOS
Funny how product / project names come around and go around...
Pretty sure you've got your definition of "factoid" messed up there champ. Like most people, you have assumed it means "little fact" or perhaps "little-known fact". Possibly due to abuse by CNN using the word in this sense.
From Wikipedia:
A factoid is a spurious - unverified, incorrect, or fabricated - statement formed and asserted as a fact, but with no veracity. The word appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as "something which becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true.
It muddies the intention of the sentence when you use this word, because its meaning has been overloaded like this. I would have gone with:
"which contains an argument I have not seen mentioned before"
[dons flame-retardant suit]
You put that same comment above. Do you realize that the two have different surnames? Karen Ciesla vs. Karen Kenworthy.
Put identity in the browser.
What if every Slashdotter that does Linux were to send a variety pack of disks of various Linux distributions to that school?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Probably not. Please do not e-mail this person. She doesn't even appear to be a teacher, just a writer and part-time programmer.
Put identity in the browser.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
I doubt the teacher is spouting a union-sponsored line (although that is a fairly typical mindset). Instead, the teacher is most likely ignorant of Linux and FOSS in general. She's not, however, ignorant of piracy thanks to ads from folks like the BSA, MPAA, and the infamous RIAA. Thus, when she sees software being handed out on home-made discs, she assumes it's piracy. She's been conditioned to that response like the good union myrmidon she is.
There was a time when I'd be shocked at this level of idiocy in a government school, but no more. I'd have been more shocked had she understood and condoned what the student was doing.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Yes, we all know the mantra: Windows is Evil, Linux is Robin Hood.
Howeer, is Linux really FREE? If you are using it and have a problem who gives you support?
1: Ask on the web and get a responses from people who don't have time to answer your questions but have time to say you posted in the wrong forum/you are stupid/the question has been answered elsewhere. You then walk away feeling frustrated with no answers. (Been there done that)
2: Buy support which makes the product no longer FREE
If you need a change to the software what do you do?
1: Beg/pray/hope the community makes the change you want.
2: Pay a developer to do it which makes the product no longer FREE
The point being, is the software really free or is there a hidden charge associated with it?
I understand there are Linux Guru's out there who don't need support since they know everything, and if they'd like to come do work for me for free than I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
Oh, and one other point - how do you know if your Linux Kernel is authentic? For example, if an angry employee adds code to the kernel to cause everything to crash when they are gone how do you tell? Sure, with a lot of work and knowledge you could look into it, but is an average business manager going to be able to do that?
Using something for fun in your parents basement is one thing. Using it as the foundation for your business is something else. How does Red Hat make money again? When something is "FREE" you'll find out you can't really afford it.
The fact that a teacher would confiscate Linux CDs from a student isn't half as shocking to me that the teacher would take the time to write a letter to the creator of the software bashing him for it. It sounds like the teacher has to much free time on her hands.
The teacher's sentiments are common. Many, many people believe that any software that someone is willing to give away must be little more than a toy. Many of them will assume that Linux is pirated. (For that matter, I know more than a few people who insist my Mac is simply a toy, incapable of matching Windows in computing power.)
Remember, too, that for all the attention Linux gets in its little part of the world (people interested in tech), it remains almost unknown elsewhere. This teacher clearly has never heard of it.
That's not the teacher's fault. Those who want to evangelize Linux need to do much, much more work in the "real" world.
Teachers prepare students to exist and work in the world outside the school. In that world, Windows dominates. it is a simple fact that students will enter a workforce that expects them to know how to use Word and Excel.
The rant about the NEA was bush league and self-defeating. The teacher almost certainly has no knowledge of who contributes to the union, and Stark has no assurance that the teacher is an NEA member. Linux can't be sold by ideologues chanting anti-corporate mantras.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=XON&q=Karen+Ciesla+computer&btnG=Search
entry #2.
ceisla is her maiden name i believe.
In a world where many people speak two or three languages, it would be the ultimate crime to teach American children versatility. Frankly, it explains a damn lot about our culture.
I always keep in mind, back in the day, when the MAT was a grad admission test that the typical grad acceptance raw score for an education MA was literally _half_ that of a psych PhD grad acceptance. Don't expect high school teachers to be the brightest bulbs to have sat through four years of college.
Apple used to own the schools. Every major company targets the education market (or used to). If you can get people hooked on your system as students then they will want it as paying or decision making adults. I've seen discounts as much as 90% off for educational markets, sometimes hardware sold well below production cost. This may be less important these days as most people encounter their first computer at home instead of schools.
What I find shocking and offensive is the teachers belief that "no software is free". Attacking teachers on their ties to Microsoft (known or unknown) isn't nearly as effective as educating them on open source software and its benefits (there is a term for this, "teaching the teachers").
Think Deeply.
Speaking as a UK school ICT Technician / ICT Manager for 7 years...
1) Some/Most teacher's are stupid, even in their specialist subject
It's a gross generalisation, but even most IT teachers cannot understand licensing, copyright, installation, administration of network machines, IT best practices, simple programming etc. I have seen heads of IT in secondary schools that have less knowledge of computers than my own mother, who can just about turn on a Wii unsupervised. If you think I am exaggerating, I'm really not. Couple this with the fact that *real* IT teachers (those who have taken computing degrees, and not some "business *with* computing" degree) are fewer than you think, that those who are still current on their IT are even less, and then those who can actually teach *AND* still understand anything vaguely technical are rare, if not non-existent.
This applies from kindergarten up to a lot of universities - their theory is sound but their IT is actually run by a real Network Manager (who will be denigrated and earn half their money because they don't have a PGCE or other 1-year-extra course that enables them to teach officially). If it isn't run by a real techie, disaster ensues - I know - I used to charge by the hour to clear it up. If you want to pass ICT GCSE, ask an ICT teacher. If you want to know about anything other than Word or Powerpoint or, indeed, anything that might ever require you to click the Help button, don't ask an ICT teacher. Guess who they'll ask.
2) 99.9% of people have never heard of Linux, even if they use it everyday (Google).
In my time working in IT support/network management for schools, I have met precisely six other people at work who have *heard* of Linux, and precisely *one* who actually used it more than "Yeah, installed it once, it didn't play games". That one was a fellow IT Technician. (Additionally, I have met three people who used any browser other than IE at home). Bear in mind that the average school has at least 30 staff (part/full-time), that I've worked in LOTS of schools (freelance support for five years), that this includes IT departments at large secondary schools / Academies, that it includes the Borough ICT support teams, sales people who called me etc. and I think you start to get the scale of the problem.
Now consider that most of those schools had Cachepilots or similar Linux-based hardware, ran on external shared services that were mostly hosted on Linux, Squid, Apache etc., used Asus EEEPC's, and even in one case the entire school network operated off the back of proxy caching servers and firewalls which ran Linux and even the IT people didn't know it until it was pointed out to them.
3) Free stuff has two connotations to the uninitiated:
a) Argh! It's rubbish. Because everything free is rubbish.
b) There's a catch. (i.e. it's illegal, it forces you to do things, it reads your emails, etc.)
A previous (and very IT knowledgeable) IT Manager of mine, who used to manage mainframes in the financial sector for about 20 years, actively resisted me using Linux inside a school for months before I was allowed to bring in a couple of experimental projects I had built previously using it. Purely because it was "free" and therefore, no good. The "Free stuff isn't Microsoft" isn't a new phenomenon and it scares even the most technical of people who haven't tried it themselves.
4) In schools, nobody cares.
Educational software for Linux sucks. Completely. I've just started a job at a school where the head and bursar actually do *get* Linux and OSS and we were in instant, unanimous agreement on this while still in the interview. So, as far as most schools are concerned, it's not even worth touching. Yes, office apps are there, you can print, save, email, and all the usual. It's great for remote terminals, for getting basics done and for re-using old, cheap machines. But you're still having to buy new machines to run the fancy Windows content that you want because there isn't any Linux
Getting opensource into schools is a hard process. it took me three years before my school moved in that direction. A good stepping stone is the openeducation disc. they can still hold onto their windows installs and software and you can slowly slip the programs into the curriculum, also a great way to dstribute the software to parents for a very small overhead.
"all through my house i set up traps, it seems like the rats have a map, so now i feed the rats crack" - Donald D
I'm a High School teacher and would be very uneasy about putting bootable linux CDs into the hands of teenage boys on the school network.
Having Linux at home is fine, honestly - but - the things that a teenager could get up to with a copy of some other operating system range from the somewhat cheeky (using it to play a few video games while the teacher isn't looking), to the naughty (browsing websites outside the 'safety' filters), to the illegal (accessing private & sensitive student data) to the destructive (reformatting sections of the school network).
Like it or not - giving advanced access to school computers is a very very bad idea.
The vast majority of students will do no harm but it only takes one to spoil a few days, or even a whole year's education for the entire school.
Think - what if a student used advanced access to delete a whole year's coursework?
Teenagers don't have the maturity or self control to understand the wider effects of their actions, and schools don't have the money to bring in the level of security experts we need to protect against the kids.
Whatever the case in with this line about "no software is free" (sounds like a load of bunk to me) the idea that kids need Linux in highschool is ridiculous.
The HeliOS response is just as bad or perhaps worse. To the point that this whole thing sounds like two children bickering in a playground.
Tying the ignorance of one man the people who fight for worker's rights is just plain offensive.
The struggle of teacher's unions is in place to ensure a number of things like for example: the person standing in front of the room is highly qualified. The person standing in front of your teacher is not overworked (and therefore will have the patience to deal with your children calmly when they step out of line) and so on...
Teacher's unions are good for your children.
All things considered - they're both wrong.
My wife is a teacher and routinely refuses to use the Windows XP boxes in her classroom for anything other than what is required for the students use. In fact, she's pushing to get Linux in the classrooms since they are less susceptible to viruses and spyware and can be monitored and maintained with much less pain.
Pax Vobiscum
Am I the only one who finds it more than mildly amusing that this enlightened teacher calls Austin, Texas her home? Doesn't Austin perenially rank in the top five cities nationwide for information technology careers? Ha ha. Not A Jew
I'm posting AC because on /. saying that I have a Lab of 20 Ubuntu 8.10 workstations using Likewise-Open to authenticate to AD would be karma whoring - but I do.
Teachers ARE obstacles, but an even more nefarious opponent to the deployment of FOSS are poorly trained support staff in the district who object to anything that innovates in the classroom that doesn't come from approved sources.
The fact that you seem to believe that Microsoft is the end all and be-all is actually funny in a sad sort of way. Then again, being a good NEA member, you would spout the Union line.
unsupported claims
Microsoft has pumped tens of millions of dollars into your union.
and makes dubious inferences and another personal attack
Of course you are going to 'recommend' Microsoft Windows.
falls a long way short of being eloquent.
Just because you agree with someone's crude rant doesn't mean it's elegant.
Personally I'm more inclined to think the teacher is quite sincere. Ignorant, certainly, but there's no reason to put their attitude down to malice or even corruption.
After all to most people, including teachers, the most important thing is that it works with Windows/Office which means it has to be Windows/Office.
The ideals of Free and Open software are pretty much irrelevant to the vast majority of people. Why should they care that they could, if they wanted to, get the source code any more than we, as software developers, would care if we could get the schematics for the latest Intel chip. Where's the "Freedom" when it comes to hardware, beyond having drivers?
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
"When Teachers are 'Goon-ads'"
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
>>"The whole free software thing should also be explained..."
That will just cause eyes to glaze over. Most people don't even know, or care, that software is licensed. Ranting on about the GPL is the last thing you want to do.
Stop playing at being copyright lawyers. Stop yapping at the choir about the wonders of intellectual freedom. No one cares if programmers can share source code any more than they care if plumbers share wrenches.
No one is going to be convinced to abandon Windows simply because a lot of other programmers don't like Microsoft or closed code.
And when you try to tell a school or a teacher that they should teach Linux bcause "children should have the skills to compete in the workforce", you'd better name an employer or two in the local area, not just make unsubstantiated allusions to "government and so forth" using Linux. (And skip all the server use. It's irrelevant in an effort to convince normal folks to use linux.)
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
...A "teacher" who doesn't know shit... Let's hope she's not the one instructing the computer class. I hope Slashdot can keep up with this and that Helios will post the results of that meeting with the Superintendant after the holiday break.
Yeah, I agree there's definitely a contingent of folks in the Linux camp who are snide and condescending (and proud of it). Personally, though, I classify the main division as a dichotomy between Free Software adherents with Stallman as mascot on one end of the spectrum, and Open Source Software more centered around Torvald and Co at the other end. One group considers themselves revolutionaries for liberty (and have the personalities necessary to fill this role), and the other group is fascinated with pushing the development of technology to the limit like any good hacker, scientist or engineer. The blog post was clearly written by one of the revolutionaries. Which approach is "better" is a can of worms I don't want to open, but the Open Source community seems to have more, friendly people involved, who might be more capable of interacting with a layperson.
Is there a better example of this old story. The reaction was one of an old economy not understanding the realities of the new economy. One based not on the scarcities of a product but on the service. Give the product away sell the service. She doesn't understand that that could be a more viable way to make money. Her student should be commended and HeliOS's Ken Starks should send that kid and school more free LiveCDs.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
I once had two managers asking me what is this Linux company and if it is as big as Microsoft...
In the end, the year of Linux on the desktop will come not when technology matures, but when it is advertised appropriately...it seems Linux has a marketing problem!
I would suspect that most kids exposure to (school) operating systems would be similar to that which I see in our local libraries; you can point and click the applications that you need to write your essays and view white-listed content on the Internet. In other words I don't think it matters what operating systems children are exposed to because they will likely not have a chance to use them at any depth other than beginner level.
That's an awful car analogy, let's try something more sensible.
It's like teaching someone only how to drive an automatic. They'll never have a problem getting a car, but they'll be hopelessly lost if they ever get into a manual.
Don't forget to wear your daemon shirt to the school.
... teachers weren't supposed to take sides on religious issues.
Here we have a story of a teacher who has a valid concern (in theory) over what might be going on in her classroom and then reacts out of ignorance.
No effort was made by the teacher to actually research the subject before jumping to conclusions and sending off what must be one of the silliest, most ridiculous emails I have seen.
A thought that might have helped prevent the teacher avoid the ridicule that will follow:
"Better to be silent and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
In truth I am not entirely surprised by the teacher though.
Nor am I too surprised by the blogged response that perpetuates the negative stereotype of linux users as arrogant, obnoxious know-it-alls who might be a little bit crazy... (Conspiracy theory? Please.)
Linux improves all the time.
The amount of POSITIVE media attention and awareness linux gets continues to grow, as does marketshare.
The response posted in the blog reinforces my belief that what holds linux back the most is
some of the users.
Too bad, really, because linux users and the community is also one of the greatest strengths we have.
Linux computers, watercooled, photography
Stop pushing OSS / FOSS / Linux etc in the same way that religious people do. At least certain very large groups of religious people. Why do Linux have to be so fantastically morally superior all the time? Why do everyone who doesn't run Linux have to be unfaithful and evil and bad? I don't run Linux (actively) on any of my computers, am I a bad person somehow? Why push Linux as if you would go to hell unless all computers on earth runs it?
It's enough to burn a CD or DVD and offer to help with installation / usage. Make them dual boot. Show them an alternative and then let them make their own choice. That is freedom, that is choice. Which is far from the GNU/GPL is morally superior crap that just pisses me off. I personally prefer BSD that way.
If a kid wants to play with Linux and learn about how the computer works then s/he should do it, but if it prevents the computer from working properly with coursework or software provided by the school, then that could be a problem.
Where exactly does it say that the software was being installed on school computers?
Is that most teachers, indeed most people in general, don't really give a shit about computers. They are a means to an end, a tool to get a job done. Thus they are not at all interested in the intricacies of copyright law, free vs non free software and so on. They don't care about that any more than someone cares about how their hammer is made. They just want to use it. So this idea that they should go out of their way to know is silly.
Also you have to understand that in every case but information, the principle of TANSTAAFL, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch," applies. With real products, someone always has to pay. If you come over to my house, and I give you a free sandwich, yes it didn't cost you anything but I paid for it. I had to buy the bread and meat to make it happen. Supposing Safeway gave me the bread and meat free, well then they paid for it, they had to pay the distributors to get it, and so on. NOTHING is free, at some point someone had to spend the money and/or effort to make it happen.
It is only when you enter the virtual world of information that isn't true, where you can make a copy of the information at zero cost (technically there's a small cost from running the computer I suppose, but you do that anyhow). All of a sudden there can be a free lunch. Someone can create something and everyone in the world can have a copy for no addition effort/money than just for him to have a copy.
Well, given this, it isn't surprising that many people don't understand that. It's a rather new concept, really.
You have to add to that that students are not always trustworthy about this shit. I work at a university and we have problems with copyright infringement all the time. Not only do students do it, but then they lie about it as though we don't know. For example the guy virused up a lab computer really bad. We looked at it and quickly determined it had a bunch of unlicensed software. He claimed to his professor and to us that he had downloaded it from his "home university" (he's a foreign student) and that it was all ok. Ummmm no, 2 minutes of investigation on my part revealed it had been downloaded from a Chinese pirate site and was indeed the source of the infection.
Now, I work for the tech group and we understand all about free software, in fact we run Linux on a number of systems. However you can see how someone who's not so informed might get the attitude of "There's nothing free," when dealing with liars like that. They claim "Oh no this is free, it's all ok," only to have it turn out they are just flat out lying. Thus if someone else comes along and starts handing out real free software, well their claims of "But it's free," sound like a lie too, even though they aren't.
As you pointed out, this is a time to try and educate, not to be a jackass. It's possible the teacher is a close minded asshole and it won't help. Ok but then nothing really will. It is however more likely that they just aren't informed. So, you work to inform them. You show them that indeed there IS free software out there. First just showing them that there is software that doesn't cost anything. Firefox might be a good starting place. Or perhaps Open Office or Java since they are backed by Sun, a major company. Then once you've got them understanding that, you give them an article on free software and the GPL, so they can understand the open source concept.
When you are an ass about it, well they are just going to assume they were right: That they caught you doing something you shouldn't and now you are trying to weasel out of it.
Operating under the assumption that Karen X is a real teacher in Austin, and the events described in TFA are true, I'd like to share my own thoughts on the matter.
...but then... it is Texas.
What I find incredible is that a teacher who "tried Linux in college" could be so terribly misinformed.
True, in an existential sense, no software is free... neither is love, compassion, or lunch... but.. come on.
This is little more than DMCA-induced anti-piracy terror topped with a generous portion of Post-9/11 paranoia. She's a FUD Zombie running amok.
You've obviously never seen the copious amounts of information out there showing that education majors--the majority of public school teachers--are one of the bottom five majors when ranked by intelligence and test scores...
Generally, education has gaps, particularly in technology. Not all is bad, it went in phases. In Junior high, they explicitly called me into the Library whenever the DOS computers acted weird to get me to fix it. However, in my first high school days, I was disciplined for 'harming' the school's computers. Some examples of what I did that got me banned from using their computers:
-Windows 3 displayed a blue screen, instructing to hit control-alt-delete. I did so. Evidently, their policy was to put an out-of-order sign and call the local computer company on a per-incident fee because that company told them those screens required such action.
-On their new Win95 computer, I opened a full-screen DOS window. They claimed I had deleted the OS and I barely had time to exit and show them it was still there before they called that company again to fix it.
-They had brand new deskjet printers that printed at minutes per page for simple text. I figured out their misconfiguration, and was called down for 'making the printers go too fast'. They said they were lucky they hadn't broken from going too fast and they called that company to 'fix' them back too slow (which they did all too readily, they knew how to exploit the ignorance).
For trying to develop and exercise my professional skillset of choice, I was actively precluded in instructing myself. My second high school refreshingly reverted to my junior high days of being explicitly called to assist the faculty.
As to Linux, I'm actually married to a teacher. Students were generally surprised to see Linux on the Desktop (didn't look like Mac or Windows) and the IT guy was happy to see a teacher using Linux. None of her peers would make this mistake.
All that said, the response was pretty dumb. don't be belligerent. You don't fix the problem by being an asshole. You provide education, links to the legal content of popular licenses and a layman's explanation. Provide reasonable motivations that lead to no-cost software development. Saying 'oh, MS bought you off' doesn't provide the requisite context to counter. Educational and other public institution contribution would be a good starting point, as it hits close to home. Corporate contribution in the name of marketing leverage, development costs (particularly for companies for whom the software is not their revenue source) and in order to obtain some government contracts would be another source perceived as both logical and quality. Finally, personal contributions for personal marketing (resume building) and hobbyist rounds out the major motivations. Mention companies like Dell, HP, and IBM doing open source to move hardware and services. Mention that even Microsoft invests in Novell and others due to their recognition of Linux as a legitimate market participant (assigning no value judgment to that, the statement is true regardless of whether you dislike or like the agreement). Mention that most supercomputers run the platform, many without paying explicitly for it.
You can craft a well-thought out, educational response that may actually spread in a positive way. Telling a teacher she is a bribed shill for MS is going to make her warn her peers in the teacher lounge more about this 'free' software rather than get her perhaps to discuss some interesting stuff she learned. You only have the get one teacher in a school interested enough to talk to get an entire school to at least basically understand Linux.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Perhaps one should remind said teacher that it was but a couple of decades ago when Apple ruled the classroom. Microsoft puts out another "quality" product like Vista, they soon will be again. Apple has already started taking over the college campus.
Never before have I wanted to grab my Apple IIc by the handle and slap this teacher clean upside the head. Unbelievable level of ignorance, not only to FOSS, but to any other vendor (Apple) out there.
Consider the commercials currently running on television. Are you a Mac or a PC? Of course it's a false dichotomy that there are only two choices, but nevertheless that's the message being presented to millions of people each day.
The answer to ignorance is education. I would love to turn on the television one day and see an "I'm an Ubuntu" commercial.
Indeed. Believe it or not, I still get people, looking at my PowerBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.4, asking which version of Windows it is.
We're talking about a company that's over 25 years old with lots of publicity on the television and in newspapers.
And yet there is still people who still think Microsoft makes everything on the planet run, except for the Nintendos and the Playstations.
Don't be shocked that people never heard of this "Linux" thing.
The pay really sucks. Frankly you'd probably be better off managing a fast food restaurant.
If you put up with the crappy pay and the stifling bureaucracy, then you're probably not doing it for your own selfish purposes, but rather because you feel that it's the right thing to do. Which means that you are genuinely interested in teaching people.
Unless you are applying for a job as a unix/linux admin.....
I have NEVER used Microsoft office. Well ok, I guess I should say that I have never used most of microsoft office. I used outlook in the past, I've used access in the past. But I have not used Word, Powerpoint, Excel, etc. Never had a class on them, never used them in my job.
What I was brought up on was wordperfect. We didn't have classes in high school that covered spreadsheets. I did learn dbase in high school. What my computer teachers taught me was how to use a graphical interface, how to research information, and how to understand technical writing.
So when I got my first personal computer with windows 98 on it and finally had a need for something other then the blue goodness of wordperfect I found star office. I didn't need any training to use it. I just figured it out.
This year my job required us all to receive a IC3 certification (http://info.certiport.com/yourpersonalpath/ic3Certification/). It consists of three exams. One covered basic windows/computer knowledge, one covered basic internet knowledge, and the last covered microsoft office 2003. I did not even have microsoft office installed on my work computer. I walked into the testing center, took my test, got 100% and walked out.
Why? Am I a computer genius? Hell no! I was taught how to use computers, and not how to use a piece of software.
This is a mindset I'm fixing where I work. I'm in the works of switching the campus to Open Office 3. I dream of a day where we stop teaching how to use Word, and start teaching how to use a computer as a tool to get your job done.
A lot of people want to focus on high ideals as motivation for Free software, and that's just not easy for most people to believe. Most people who do contribute either would not be able (no time, contracts forbidding) to or wouldn't want to without other conditions being met.
Is listening to the radio free? Watching broadcast television? Reading an article excerpt on the front page of a newspaper in a vending machine? Free software represents to people and corporations a good advertising mechanism. There often are services or other products that cost money and augment them.
Was going to high-school free? Not in the strictest sense, as tax money funds it, but the same applies to many Free software. Institutions often contribute software open-source in order to best serve the public trust. Given the nebulous nature of the funding (all taxpayers), open source is most often a best-fit model to reciprocate that investment in that specific scope.
If a repairman had a hard time with a particular bolt, and lent you a wrench and asked you to hold the nut as he tried to turn the bolt, would he charge you excess for access to the wrench? Of course not, he isn't running a tool rental business, it just happens in the course of his actual job. This sort of incidental work is common in the technology world. A company needs an email server. They aren't going to hire an army of developers to write from scratch, and they might not buy a commercial solution. They'll have their administrator download an Open Source email server and that administrator has no motivation to keep required code changes private. On the other hand, getting local modifications accepted upstream absolves them of maintenance efforts on a local patchset.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
In a state where this happens I am not suprised:
Q: What is the most common language is spoken in the United States?
6 students wrote "American" as an answer. My friend, a temp teacher there marked the answers wrong. The Dallas school district's answer is AMERICAN is a language. In that state, the level of stupid is beyond reasonable. I worked for a hearing aid company and we closed all of our corporate stores in Texas due to ... well... stupidity and an inability to find qualified staff. I remember looking through resumes with HR and 1/3rd of them we threw in the trash, the submitter didn't bother to include an email, phone, address, or any know method beyond astral projection to contact them. Now based on this teacher I can see why. It isn't stupid people, it's stupid teachers teaching stupid to others.
Perhaps we need to quarintine Texas until we can determine if stupid is contagious and what possible cures and treatments are available.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I had to read this a couple of times through, especially some of the responses. Not everyone is as enlightened to the use of Open Source as we are. Obviouly, some people have never even heard of the concept and equate it with "piracy". One simple way to point someone, especially those in the education field in the right direction, is, of course some simple, explanative web pages (RE: Wikis) on Open Source, Linux, etc. Another way, for those who might think certain web pages are not proof-positive enough, you can always tell them to go to their local MegaRetailChain Bookstore and check out the computer section and look at a few of the titles there. I also know that sometimes in education, a teacher is given a class to teach whether they have a background in it or not. You could ask them if they know anything aside Windows? What do they think about Macs or Unix? If their eyes start to glaze over, you have already gone above their level of expertise.
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
as an anal attentative grammar nazi and long-time linux supporter and free software advocate, it would be much better that i get to you first before that teacher, or any of her "slazhdot-readin suhporturs" do.
The word you're looking for is 'retentive', not 'attentative'.
Please turn in your Grammar Fascist Certificate.
Shouldn't your sentences begin with capital letters and "i" be capitalized too? /ducks
Humanity has two basic options for government:
Cooperation and control.
In cooperation, we support each other and do not require institutions and Nanny State/Authoritarian governments to tell us what not to do. It's obvious murder is wrong, if you get something give something, etc. PROBLEM: cooperation requires the ability to kick out or kill non-cooperators, and it requires a strong innate culture, an "organic state."
In control, enough people are reckless with their desires that a strong institutional state emerges, mainly to tell them what not to do. Don't kill, don't steal, no nonconsensual sodomy, etc. They're ideal for unifying a whole bunch of people of unknown values. PROBLEM: control requires increasing amounts of control, because people learn to expect society to wipe their asses and so they stop thinking critically about their own actions, making them more not less reckless.
I know which one I'd prefer. (Portions of this message are paraphrases of the text of Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, approximately page 112 in the new edition.)
Futurist Traditionalism
M'kay.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
So this one teacher dislikes Linux and banned it from his classroom. I dislike Brussels sprouts and ban them from my kitchen. It's a free country.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
ANY teacher who is ignorant of Linux, has ceased to LEARN, even a smidgen of an overview of what has been going on for over a decade in computing as reported constantly by the media.
And by media, I mean the tech sections of magazines and newspapers and then just overview sites on the web, ala Wired & Technology Review amongst hundreds and hundreds of sources.
This is what has happened to our schools, sadly.
Trust me, I work for the government.
We buy them Macs?
Like I was saying :)
Ok, so she found a kid handing out software in class, she had no idea what it was, assumed the kid was lying (since a lot of them do), etc. Assuming there were computers in the room that belonged to the school, she also almost certainly had visions of having to deal with her district's IT staff of there was now a problem, which is often far from pleasant. She just didn't want to deal with some kid handing out crap in her classroom. Writing the letter was dumb, but the reply wasn't much better. And, by the way, with what a lot of school districts pay for IT people? You're not going to get linux in there any time soon. Oh, and also, they have a need for specific software that runs on Windows, and you're not going to get them to use virtualization, dual-booting or WINE. The first two would require maintaining additional configs or VMs, and the last just isn't going to fly.
Don't blame the teacher. Yes, we all know teachers are not getting a good rep, since they get paid next to nothing and have a union. Those two items alone would be enough for me to lower my expectations a little, but then they are often government employees, hired by other government employees. That also leaves me less than impressed in the process which hired them. I could be completely wrong.
On the other side teachers have to deal with unwilling students, the school staff, government "organization"(think forms, and loads of nonsense), and crazy less than bright, but vocal parents. One teacher was almost put away in prison for using the computer given to her by the school, which was infected with porn ads.
So, teachers don't get paid, don't get credit with things work, and have to deal with more crap than anyone else on the planet. Beyond that everyone is out to get them.
Then we should be willing to give them a little credit for not going postal every day they come into work. And when they act paranoid we should give them slack.
In my 11th year of school I had a teacher which took my handcuffs away after the last bell. They was paranoid about having such a thing on campus. It was a prop for a play. However the guideline about handcuffs(there was one) said that a teacher could take them only during school hours. I did some lawyering with that information and got them back, since the teacher took them after school hours. We used zip-ties for the play.
Teachers are in the worse place on earth, next to being in the path of an oncoming Chair Balmer(tm). This teacher just needs some reassurances, and so will others. The best place to start is with the PTA. I know first hand how hard it can be to get a teacher interested in education. After all they are working full time on survival.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
...for DECADES.
Let's cut the conspiracy crap and simple put it down to the case of the average human being being afraid of what they don't know.
You could quite objectively argue that the premise the teacher is trying to espouse is actually correct. It's also incomplete, and depends entirely upon the student(s) involved. If I was one of those kids being shown and starting to use Linux in the classroom, it would have benefitted me. If it was a particular friend of mine, it would have simply confused him.
Each instance of something like this comes down to information that nobody on Slashdot has access to, what *actually* happened. Perhaps the student in question claims that Stark's group told him "show the other kids in school" (kids are extraordinarily good at both playing dumb and confusing things - such as a forum post saying "it would be so beneficial for schools if...") Now, remembering teachers somewhat, creating a disturbance of ANY kind results in confiscations and scoldings, even just showing kids what's on your laptop if your laptop is supposed to be doing something else or not doing anything at all.
Anyhow, Stark, who is certainly expected to be educated about the greater context of the Linux versus other OS (primarily Windows) debate, actually comes off as a smug jerk. For example, the teacher didn't say the kids were doing anything illegal, but Stark responds as if the teacher implied conspiracy involving "his kids". Apparently this is a personal experience for Stark in the sense that it involves his family and/or friends.
The teacher is obviously not subjective, Stark is obviously not objective, so we should be admonishing them both - and Stark especially because he SHOULD know better.
Anyhow, mountain/molehill/whatever.
Ridiculous that Stark's blog gets prominent notice on Slashdot. Ridiculous, but not surprising. There are very few people who treat operating systems as they should be - tool boxes. The right tool for the right job for the right people at the right price in the right amount of time.
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I am the Program Director for the CS/IS and MSIS school at my College. Anyone can give out free linux at any time, and if someone wants to come along and do so, they are welcome to contact me. That is insane, and very deeply disturbingly wrong.
Apologies - that should read "the teacher is obviously not objective"
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Telling a prospective employer that you know Linux but not Word is not the way to get a job.
I hate to admit it, but my knowledge of Excel/Office gave me better entry lever job opportunities out of college than my Linux, Novell, and OS X experience combined.
"He is so stupid. And now back to the wall!" Moe Szyslak
If you want to show them how Linux is a legitimate OS don't tell them its free right of the bat. Tell them it runs on many of the servers they use to access their school's databases, websites, and security. Here is a fun fact: Many of the planes used by our government have a unix backbone. They might be surprised to learn that what keeps planes flying are systems built on versions of Red Hat/Fedora. Tell them that most computer science majors must have some background in Linux to graduate. It is an operating system most (probably all) computer science majors had to learn. Tell them that the NSA (National Security Agency) aka the authority on Network Security for the DoD (Departement of Defense) uses Linux on many of their systems. Tell them all about SE Linux and why the NSA supports it. Tell them that Linux and Windows are not so different and that you can use many Windows programs on both operating systems. Introduce them to Open Office (you won't believe how many people you will convert with Open Office). Again don't open with "It is free" the response will almost always be negative.
Wow. Just damn.
There's just no way to defend this sort of behavior by the teacher in question - decisions based on ignorance are almost surely bad...
That being said, I'm a high school science teacher, and I'd be *thrilled* to see a student passing out linux cdroms. Perhaps I'm an edge case though -- I'm on the development team of an "old" linux distribution and have started a linux user group at the high school where I teach :)
So, then, we need to teach Linux in schools because one in one-thousand students might once apply for a job as a Linux admin?
That's a speciality.
It's interesting to see you are dreaming of the day when you can talk people into abandoning Word and adopting a clone of Word. What's the point, besides the differing development and distribution models? Why should someone who is happy with Word and doesn't care about free software use Open Office?
Here's the thing: You support Linux for a lot of reasons that most people simple do not, and will not, care about. There's nothing wrong with your reasons, but it is obvious that's not enough to sell Linux to mainstream users.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
(Yet another analogy)
Ask him if he remembers the days when people would show up to build a neighbor's barn without getting paid. Why did they do it? Well, some did it because someday they'd need a barn raised. Others did it because it was "just being neighborly."
Well, FOSS is a "barn" that everyone gets to use. And the "catch" at least with GPL, is that you can't sell a community raised "barn" to other people, you have to give it away.
But there are still a couple ways for barn builders to make money. Some people don't like to clean their own barn so there are maintenance contracts. Some people want custom barns, so they hire people to modify the barn. Some people will make things that work with the barn, like silos, and they sell the silo while giving away the barn.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
That's especially true if you are not in a tech field. How many banks or law offices or accountants or doctors run Linux on their desktops?
When was the last time anyone went for an interview for a non-tech job and was asked if they could use OpenOffice?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I wouldn't hire anyone who "just knew word", i'd expect them to be able to learn any program they were given.
If you're using Linux or have Linux experience then that shows your ability to learn new things in my book.
I once put Firefox on a relative's Windows laptop after he'd complained about "viruses" locking up IE. He wouldn't use it and took it off. Why? He didn't trust it.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
We all know there are lots of anonymous slashdot trolls that like to regurgitate the same old baseless anti-union propaganda. But what does that have to do with the claim that NEA is bribed by Microsoft? BTW, in the US only about 10% of the workforce is organized, in the rest of the Industrialized world it is between 40-80%. But please, continue to blame your suckiness on evil devil worshipping unions if that makes you feel better.
Football Odds
This is Texas. After all, the kids have to learn to be good ignorami rednecks somewhere, no? Better it to be in school than in some disreputable hovel where you don't know what kind of bad redneckness they'll learn...
The whole reply letter is a good read. I hope all of it is true. (You can never be too sure).
It seems the teachers in my part of the country are still preaching the Gospel According to Steve Jobs. While the school districts are suffering, they gladly pay a premium for the latest and greatest Apple hardware and software.
I did a bit of consulting with the area schools this past summer. The admins would gladly switch to Linux (ideal) or Windows (less ideal but less of a headache administratively speaking compared to Apple). The only problem is the teachers. They have been bowing at the altar of Jobs for too long. And with the economy the way it is and the mass exodus from this part of the country, it would behoove them to switch to F/OSS.
The game.
Or straw man?
The email in the article reads like BS.
No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows. Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods.
That smells like trolling.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
I am currently a student.
All I can say is, there's not reason to be surprised.
I had to fight a suspension my sophomore year fore downloading open source software because the software was "proprietary." (It was, in fact, an open source project released under the GPL.) Fortunately for me, I'm stubborn and was a constant pain in their ass until they finally dropped the suspension. Others aren't so lucky.
But please, don't simply write off the school system as a helpless mess full of incompetencies. Some of us are still stuck here, and some direction from members of industry is the only way we're going to receive a meaningful education. Email the administration at a local school and offer to come up and help start/continue a programming/whatever club after school. It's an hour every couple weeks I can guarantee you won't regret, and we'll really appreciate it.
How the fuck is this insightful... This would take the situation from the Teacher being wrong to the student being jailed for threatening murder.
I'm not complaining about the comment, but maybe a funny mod would have been more appropriate. Or maybe some mod was just spreading unnecessary karma.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Yeah....that would work.
As a Texan, what surprises me most about this is where it took place. Austin's way more open-minded than the rest of Texas (the quasi-official slogan is "Keep Austin Weird") and a large segment of the population works in the electronics/computers industry. Even if the teacher disagrees, you'd think she's at least heard of the concept. Then again, I'm probably ascribing too much competence to the AISD teachers.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
"No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. ... This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all."
I see it as a simple problem with a simple solution that needs a little blood and sweat (hopefully no tears): Linux needs a network of evangelists (who do more than just read Slashdot) who can stop these "myths" in schools nationwide. I think the local town Linux User Group would be a good starting point and could perhaps start by demonstrating using a bootable LiveCD, gimp and openoffice. Followed by a workshop teaching how to install linux on dualboot systems. Once you teach a few students, they can be the cool kids who inspire and teach other kids (and their parents) how to do it.
Why do you think Microsoft visits colleges, gives away edu licenses for almost free and throws free pizza and Xbox parties? Sure MS pays its evangelists and student volunteers, but I think we should think of Linux evangelism as another way of giving back to the Linux community and to society. All you need is a few laptops, a projector and a few burnt CDs. If you succeed in one school, you can give the same presentation in other schools. Do not be surprised if you get requests! Its critical that you know your audience and do a good job the first time.
the old "If it is any good you know it does not come free." argument from a teacher.
Does the air we breathe come free? Some day someone will figure out a way to charge for that too. :)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Telling a prospective employer that you know Linux but not Word is not the way to get a job.
It is if you want to be a Linux admin.
Wen Teechers our obstucals two edumacation,
Yes. For instance, one imprisoned innocents and forced them to work all their lives as slave labour, while the other... er...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
A teacher who is in any way involved with computers should be aware of major movements in the computing world. Considering the impact GNU had on the software world, I would think that a computer teacher would be aware of it.
"Alos, if I was teacher, I'd need to be convinced that I had a valid educational reason to put Linux in my lesson plans. "
Except that this had nothing to do with the lesson plan. The teacher confiscated LiveCDs because she thought they were illegal.
"The world does indeed expect new graduates to know Windows."
First of all, we are talking about a middle school, not a high school or college. The world does not expect middle school students to know anything about software.
Second of all, there are schools that provide job training. We call them vocational schools, and you can get a 2 year degree from them, and get a job in some specific trade. High schools and universities should NOT be in the business of training their students for a job. Doing so would undermine the educational value of such institutions; after all, why bother with courses in the history of African kingdoms or classical literature if it is just about job training? There is an inherent value in education, which unfortunately most Americans seem to miss.
"Telling a prospective employer that you know Linux but not Word is not the way to get a job."
Clearly, you are not very familiar with the job market for engineers and programmers. Speaking from my own experience, I found that emphasizing my Linux skills was a boon for job applications. Ask a VLSI designer what system they use for their work -- chances are it is either some Linux or proprietary Unix. To be honest, if I ever found myself in a position to hire someone, and they emphasized that they were experts with MS Office but had no idea what Linux or BSD is, I would be very sceptical.
One final comment: on many occasions, someone has asked me questions like, "How to I turn this Word document into a PDF file?" or "How can I concatenate these 4 PDFs into a single document?" They are amazed at how easy it is to just use free software to accomplish these tasks, especially when the other people in the room are either clueless or think that the solution is to purchase Acrobat (or pirate it). There is value in just being AWARE of free software, even if you are not an expert. It is a disservice to those children to try and convince them that GNU, Ubuntu, or whatever else, is illegal.
Palm trees and 8
Employers expect new hires to come onboard already knowing how to use Windows and Office. Perhaps they might think that an applicant who knew Linux but not Office can learn new things, but they would not hire him because they aren't interested in teaching people how to use Windows or Office. They don't need to.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
This sounds too 'good' (i.e. bad) to be true. I suspect it is more along the lines of an urban legend.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
From many years of repairing id10t errors,
I'd say the porn sites and scammers are slowly training our users for us.
I don't think they are getting the full view,
they are just becoming jaded.
users in the late 80's and 90's were more willing to try anything to save some money.
Now it must be a scam.
That reply constitutes eloquent? "The fact that you seem to believe that Microsoft is the end all and be-all is actually funny in a sad sort of way" isn't eloquent. It's an elitist, condescending statement from a person who is more interested in appearing superior than in persuading someone. The teacher, although misguided, obviously believed he/she was doing the right thing and cared enough to contact him. He could've used this as an opportunity to educate and win over someone, but instead opted to pen a snotty letter to smack down the teacher. Eloquent? I think not.
Anything cooperative is hurting society and clearly illegal. Individuals producing for free are breaking the law; only corporations are legitimate suppliers/producers, and only those who pay should have access to society's production.
I had the experience in high school way back in the late '80s and early '90s before "OSS" was a term.
I was suspended for writing software and sharing it with my friends. My own source code. The administration of my school told myself and my parents in no uncertain terms that I was breaking the law by writing software and giving it to others, and they were having none of it on school property.
They suggested that to be "constructive," my dad could help me to "start a company" and sell the software to my friends in the computer club, which would be legal, and, they suggested, if priced properly ($5-10 was what they suggested), still affordable to other students and not in violation of the "law," which forbids giving away goods for free. They mixed up anti-socialism/communitarianism in their heads with some kind of Sherman anti-trustiness and applied it to a 13-year-old kid.
My parents allowed me to leave school immediately and I finished my education as a home schooled student, went to a university CS department at 15 and eventually to the University of Chicago for grad school.
Those same administrators still run the local high school, which has 5,000 students and is an inner city campus.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
And it all makes sense.
Especially the I tried in in College line...
It's interesting to see how polarised people's comments are in this thread. Some think the reply should have been kind and constructive, trying to correct misinformation. Others think she's beyond hope and should have the book thrown at her. For what it's worth, I fall somewhere in the middle.
I agree with the parent post that there is no need for ranting and being rude. It is perfectly possible to explain that the teacher was mistaken about free software not existing, by giving popular real world examples, and to point out politely that in fact it is her disinformation that is the harmful thing to spread here. I suggest that it might be better to focus any such feedback on the concept of free-as-in-no-money software, since this is easy for non-technical people to understand. In any case, freeware has been around for as long as there have been computers, long before the GPL and such came along and tried to claim words like "free" for their own purposes, so there is no need to get into the political/ethical side of things.
On the other hand, she didn't just object to Linux. She accused the children in her care of breaking the law, threatened a completely innocent third party, and confiscated property without good cause. There is no excuse for that kind of behaviour from anyone, much less a teacher in a position of trust. Given the poor attitude she exhibited, formally reprimanding her (and requiring her to give back whatever she confiscated) is entirely appropriate.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I don't think anybody who lacks the experience of teaching can ever speak on what that experience is like. Teaching means waking up at 5 or 6 am, working the whole day until 5 with children who for the most part have no desire to be in school and trying to convince them that they actually want to learn, meetings with teachers, parents, students, bosses, grading assignments, preparing lesson plans, and editing lesson plans because they aren't good enough for the bureaucratic system. You're lucky to fall asleep by 11 so you can feel some iota of rest and rejuvenation for the next day.
Many teachers are not actually teachers. They indeed are looking for a paycheck, and in difficult times, that means turning to what has become a money-oriented institution. Many schools have weak criteria for their teachers because there is a lack of good teachers (Why might that be? Because teaching may very well be one of the most difficult professions that exists, next to medical professions).
But that does not imply that all teachers, or even a majority, are ignorant, money-hungry, leeches.
Check your assumptions at the door. K thank you.
So this is your logic? Open Office = How to use a computer as a tool to get your job done MS Office = Not how to use a computer as a tool to get your job done By design, these progeams are very similar - Does anyone actually believe what you are touting?
It is also the counter culture of Linux, which is the problem. It seems like the teacher picked up the counter culture of Linux not the primary one.
There is one culture who see Linux as a viable alternative to Windows then there is a extension who is a lot more vocal see it as a replacement for Windows. There are people who are against DRM, then there are people who are against DRM because they want to break copyright laws. There are people who believe software should be free, there are people out there who make software free by pirating it.
I think most Linux users are like myself, who use it for when it fits the job it needs to fill. Not out to destroy Microsoft, but see Linux as a valuable tool in areas where a Microsoft license is too expensive for the bundled services where I only need a small subset. Or I require a high degree of flexibility.
But the vocal extremes makes linux seem like a run of a bunch of idealistic hippies. While Linux has about 1% of the Desktop market its Server market is closer to 20% - 30%
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
>> A teacher who is in any way involved with computers should be aware of major movements in the computing world.
Why? If you are teaching anything other than a specialized course in running Unix/Linux servers, why would you need to teach Linux?
Besides, Linux is not a "major" movement on the desktops of the mainstream. Frankly, outside the computing world, Linux is essentially invisible.
Look, if I was a teacher, I would not want someone handing out Linux CD's to my students. Why? Because they'd try to install Linux on the machines in my classroom. I'd feel the same if those machines ran Linux and Bill Gates came to school handing out free Windows.
>> Clearly, you are not very familiar with the job market for engineers and programmers.
More aware than you seem to think. But, the fact that a tiny percentage of the workforce actually need to know Linux is not an argument in your favor. Mainstream offices and other white-collar employers expect applicants to know Windows and Office, not emacs or vi.
>> on many occasions, someone has asked me questions like, "How to I turn this Word document into a PDF file?" or "How can I concatenate these 4 PDFs into a single document?"
That's hardly a reason to expect people to want to use Linux. If it was, Adobe could eliminate any reason to use Linux by releasing a free version of Acrobat.
Besides, I worked in a large Windows-based organization for years and years and no one ever asked those questions. If they needed Acrobat, they got the company to buy it.
People making a living from computing have a reason to know about Linux. People making a living doing anything else do not have a reason to know about Linux. They won't as long as Linux fails to deliver some unique capability they want that Windows can't deliver. (I don't think that will ever happen because anything Linux can deliver commercial software can also deliver.)
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You missed the OP's point entirely. He was taught and well drilled on concepts common to all Word Processors and windowing systems. He was able to ace a test on Office 2003 without touching it because he understands how word processing works on a higher level than a recipe book approach to MS Office. I'm the same way. I often help people out with software I've never used because I tend to have a high level understanding of the job they are trying to accomplish and need only find the appropriate UI or items in the help that pertain.
What usually happens once I suss out how to help the user is that they get out a Post-It note and start creating what amounts to a recipe for accomplishing that task. I call such people "brittle users" because very small changes in software or procedure suffice to break such people.
The OP is advocating imparting a better level of understanding on how to use computers rather than turning our schools and colleges into vo-eds for MS products.
No we shouldn't teach Latin - because, let's be honest, the old Romans really haven't made much of an effort to promote it.
Come to think of it Science isn't great a promoting itself either. It's pretty much either you accept than gravity exists or you don't.
Religion - now that's a good one. They're big into promotion. That should be taught in schools.
Facetiousness aside: teachers have a responsibility to educate themselves first and the pass that knowledge on to other. There are lot of organizations in the world (past and present) that have big budgets, but that doesn't make them right and a good teacher has an obligation to know the difference.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Seriously, this has hoax written all over it. I can't for 2 seconds believe that people are taking this seriously.
The teacher started out by leveling legal threats. I'd left out the MS conspiracy stuff but I'd roasted her to a smoking crisp too....and I'm a K-12 admin.
I'm the director of IT for a small private school, and I've seen, first-hand, how some teachers respond when they are asked to learn, or teach, something new.
We were a Windows shop for many years, and still are in some respects. We use a bit of Linux here and there, but we are transitioning to Mac OS on the desktop - for reasons that I won't get into here.
The initial pushback was bad, lots of teachers did not want to learn anything new. Eventually, the doubters saw how attracted students were to the new platforms - the smart teachers used that to their advantage - holding out use of the computers as a reward for doing other non-computer related tasks.
We finally have most of the school moved over to Mac OS. I'm sure Linux would have received a similar welcome. It's not Windows VS Linux VS Mac OS - in the minds of many teachers it's "something I already know" VS "something new that I have to spend time on".
-ted
Lovely.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Texas teachers are not unionized.
-former Texas teacher
Have you ever known an employer who expected employees to buy their own software?
To all intents and purposes, the "free" part of Linux isn't much of a selling point. The cost of running Windows and Office on an employee's desktop is a tiny, tiny fraction of that employee's overall cost to the employer.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Say that to any teacher anywhere in this great post-9/11 nation and YOU WILL BE ARRESTED. And rightly so. A better approach would be to tell them "you are in the wrong, and I'll be asking the principal (your boss) to have you return my property which you have taken from me against the law." Now, if you were screwing around on your laptop instead of participating in class, and the classroom rules stated as such, then the teacher has the right to confiscate your laptop and return it at the end of the day, just as if you had a cellphone, iPod, gum, whatever would be against the rules to use in class.
"Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by ignorance." Tell and show the teacher that they are wrong. If they resist, go to the principal. If they resist, the superintendant. If they resist, the media. Don't go around threatening people's lives just because they made a mistake (even this stupid and arrogant).
THAT is how it SHOULD be handled.
PERL:
All of the power of Voodoo with most of the understandibility!
I got your point. it doesn't bear on the fact that employers expect applicants to know Windows and Office. You could be 100 percent correct (and you almost are), but it makes no difference. You want people to change how they think about computing, and that's not the same thing as convincing them to use Linux.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
whats wrong with the NEA?
How in the hell did this get modded insightful?
Verbal threats like that are against the law (at least in the US where this occurred) and written threats are even worse because they can more easily be proven?
All this kind of reaction does is make you look like an ignorant child.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Wow. As a native Austinite, I'm completely ashamed of this teacher's actions. Nothing pisses me off more than stupid teachers spitting out condescending "teacher talk" in the guise of doing whats right for the children. This teacher has no clue what she's talking about, but sure as hell doesn't jump on the chance to swing around her proverbial dick. I just hope by the time I have kids, I make enough money to afford sending them to private school. Public schools in the US are nothing more than a glorified daycare.
One more time for effect.
If you teach a howto class on MS that is not learning how to use a computer. That is learning how to use word. If word changes (and Microsoft HAS to change how word works in order to get you to buy a new version ever few years) then your skills are now worthless. (Just like all my howto books on macromedia products from the past, or how to use VB6/visual studios books).
If you teach them how to use a computer, it won't matter if they sit down behind a machine with office xp, 2000, 97, star office, or openoffice. they will be able to get their job done.
My push for openoffice has nothing to do with it being a better learning tool then microsoft office. My push is that it will save money (and in Michigan the budgets are getting cut like a slasher film). But the switch to open office is going to require a different method of teaching. You can't just teach a howto class on openoffice. that is not a benefit to the students. They are going to have to teach the students how to use a computer. Then they will truly be prepared to use one in the business word.
I'd rather have a user who has never used office 2003, but knows how to use a computer, then a user who is office 2003 certified, but doesn't know how to find mail merge on office 2007.
Hell I'm officially certified by IC3 to use office 2003 and I've never installed or opened it. That is either an example of how easy the test was (in which case why did so many of our staff have problems and so many students fail it the first time), a testament to my awesome l33t skills (doubtful), or a testament to my proper education in high school about how to use a computer.
I don't think it was meant as funny.
It's right. No one should take your stuff without an overwhelmingly compelling reason. "I think he might be doing something wrong" doesn't come close. If this happened to me, I'd be loud, obnoxious, and threaten physical violence if he tried to touch my computer. As far as I'm concerned it's theft, and if he tries to take it from me by force that's assault (and maybe mugging? IANAL) too and I'll see him prosecuted.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Does anyone else find it ironic that a F/LOSS advocate (as I am as well) uses a blogspot blog as his face to the world? Way to advocate there buddy! Spread that message on a closed platform!
Try wordpress.
My Babylon
>> The OP is advocating imparting a better level of understanding on how to use computers rather than turning our schools and colleges into vo-eds for MS products.
All well and good, but irrelevant to the issue of how to get more people to use Linux.
Besides, try going to a school board meeting and convincing it to spend resources teaching about software that few of them will have heard of and all of them will be convinced none of the students will ever have a reason to use in the real world.
Forget about the free software philosophy. Forget that you don't need to pay for Linux. Forget about the warm fuzziness of increased awareness of something that isn't Microsoft. Those are issues that most people do not care about. Then, find a reason for those people to use Linux. What does the average white-collar worker want to do that can only be done in Linux?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
How many kids can count on getting jobs as Linux admins.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
How many kids can count on getting jobs as Linux admins.
I did, but of course my highschool teacher had actually heard of Linux so I had a little bit of an edge.
And our point is....?
Maybe you had a classmate that got a job as an acupuncturist. Is that reason to teach acupuncture to kids?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
exactly all you need to do is include things about how linux is a $25 billion dollar industry for a start http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2008/10/linux-ecosystem-worth-25-billi.html .
Point out how widely used it is in universities, how much it's used in the industry
Oh and your average unix admin earns about $80000 a year http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_IT10000152.html
I've never been asked if I know windows or office. It is assumed I do because of my education.
I've worked collections, data entry, phone support, software support, programing, report writing, systems administration, network administration, and in this latest stretch even adjunct faculty. I've never had an interview where I was asked if I knew how to use word. I've never given an interview where I have wondered if a person know how to use windows. That is similar to me asking a applicant if they know what a computer is. If they are under 50 they have used windows and office and if they have any background in a white collar field they have been using it for most of their career. If they are fresh out of college or high school you know they used office and windows and was educated on it.
What I have been asked however:
1) How many words per minute can you type?
2) Do you know the formula for X (math for a report job).
3) Can you explain to me what a CNAME is?
4) How much experience do you have with cisco networking equipment?
5) Do you have experience using visual studio in a team environment?
6) How many years administrating solaris do you have?
7) How many years have you been programing in X language?
8) How much do you expect to make?
9) Here, (hands me a length of cable and supplies) make me a crossover cable.
That is just a small sampling and the most common/memorable. My mom who is a personal assistant has over the years has had to move from wordperfect to microsoft office. It has never cost her an interview when they asked if she knew microsoft office and her reply was X years of wordperfect.
Most of these requirements are silly and arbitrary anyways. A good candidate will be able to explain why his lack of direct experience is not an issue, and in doing so show how valuable he is as an asset. A good employer will know talent when it sees it.
It does remind me of a job interview I had when windows xp was released. XP has been out for about 2 years when I went for this interview. It was a shop that made custom business applications for windows. The man interviewing me asked how many years experience I had using windows XP. I told him my home machine was still windows 2000, and my current employer was still using windows 2000. He stated that he was really looking for someone with 5 years experience using and developing windows xp. I quickly thanked him for his time and got out of there.
If they teachers were half-way good, they'd have high-paying software jobs in industry. The saying is true: "Those who can't, teach".
... I can tell you they have a right to be paranoid.
1. The BSA have been real assholes and love to double dip on software installations on computers that are in storage and not even in use at various school districts. THey will try to charge us for software students are holding because its on school grounds.
THey even have training on this and piracy.
2. Teachers can get into hot water if students hack and load unauthorized sofware or hacking into school computers.
3. Students are there to learn and not to use alternative operating systems or anything that is not in the districts circulumn is not allowed to be taught. With No CHild Left Behind they have to move very very fast in order to raise test scores and the pressure is huge and its only about reading, writing, and math as this is how the school makes money now. COmputer education is not on the standardized tests so its not taught that much or at all anymore.
Schools are not the same as universities. Basically they are dictatorships because the students can not be trusted yet as they are not adults and its about control in order to create a learning environment.
CDs are great but I would want the principal to decide to pass them out and not put the burden on the teachers if a student loads the software and the school is found liable. The teacher does not know whats on those cds and should not be in a position to care.
http://saveie6.com/
It seems to me that what they're calling "confiscation" would also amount to theft if brought up in the courts.
... what can be explained by stupidity. I've been in and around universities for decades. Not schools, admittedly, but they're not that much smarter just because they have Ph.D.s. :/
a) Most people in education barely know linux exists. I was running XP in virtualization under Ubuntu one day when a guy from IT came over to put Active Directory on everyone's computers. (Long story.) This guy in *IT* had never seen anything like it before. "That's so cool," he said.
b) For the faculty, using some other OS is inconceivable. Literally. Trying to explain some of this stuff to them feels just like going all the way back to teaching kids the alphabet.
c) They're so far away from having a clue, they don't know they don't have a clue. The teacher in the post probably felt about like you would if somebody removed all the books and computers from class and substituted comics. I mean, look at the ga-ga reaction: "How dare you try to feed these children drivel instead of Solid Practical Experience?"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Unless you are applying for a job as a unix/linux admin..."
Well I would hope that you have a better than middle school education by then.
While I am a Linux user I can see her point.
She is being paid to teach people how to use Windows and probably Office. Most computers still use Windows and most places of work still use Office. Somebody that leaves High School and goes to work will most likely need to know how to use Office and Windows.
Microsoft practically gives schools Windows and Office. The Teacher is teaching course that doesn't include Windows. I do think that this teacher made many wrong choices but I can also see her reason. I think that schools should encourage kids to push past the class limits as long as they don't disrupt the class.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It'd be best if they forced everyone to know how to drive on icy or wet streets in a manual transmission vehicle with no traction control devices and standard brakes.
Similarly, if you teach someone how to use linux, Windows should be a cakewalk. That's how it worked for DOS, for the most part. People learned how to use the hard way to get places, so the easy way became easy.
It's been a long time.
And our point is....?
Maybe you had a classmate that got a job as an acupuncturist. Is that reason to teach acupuncture to kids?
No but it is a reason not to write angry letters telling people that acupuncture is illegal.
I'm going to disagree here.
Working in customer service, I always found that matching the tone of a customer was a great way to build rapport, allowing you to help the customer help themselves.
Being polite and friendly will get your face knocked in.
It's been a long time.
The same is true for the NEA. They have made public schools into terrible places where kids are merely warehoused until they turn 18. Their heads are filled with as much propaganda as possible, and they lack critical thinking skills. When they graduate, they're basically ejected into a world they're wholly unprepared to face. The average to above-average ones will attend college and/or start a business, or pursue something to give their lives meaning. But they majority of them will just stumble through life reminiscing about the good old days of living in the high school cocoon and bitching that their government doesn't do enough for them. Thanks, NEA.
Citation needed.
While I won't say that the actions of NEA have not contributed to the lowered standards in the current US education system, I strongly disagree with your implication that NEA is solely responsible for it.
There is plenty of blame to go around. The following is not a comprehensive list of those to blame:
As I said, plenty of blame, and I know that there are many many more that could be put on this list. Feel free to add your own contributions to this list.
there is a free operating system... and it's not illegal!
What rant?
No, I'm not a teacher.
Yes, there is no Linux community.
This entire thread is typical of almost every Linux post here. It immediately devolves into a bunch a screeds about how stupid everyone else is for not using Linux and an equal number of screeds outline reasons to use Linux that have nothing at all to do with using Linux.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Again you miss the point. If confronted with GUI Linux or OS X or anything else an organization may deploy, a user shouldn't be a deer in the headlights. When speaking of organizations, what workers want or think that they want is irrelevant. They'll use what the organization provides; and no this isn't arrogance. The same is true when it is MS products that are provided.
The issue in this case is why should a school or workplace use Linux and that is a separate set of arguments though there are good ones for it. That a major argument against is that people can't use anything but MS products points to a failure in so-called "computer literacy" education. That MS and the BSA has successfully imparted a blinkered idea of copyright can and cannot do is another.
Incidentally, it isn't that things can "only be done in Linux". There is very little under the sun that is the exclusive domain of one vendor's product. The issue is that things can potentially be done at lower cost while giving vendors less control over how your organization does things and those are items of legitimate concern.
Whiles Starks refers to the NEA, he could easily be making an assumption that the teacher is a member of the NEA or a union. Just because Starks knows Linux doesn't mean that he knows the ins and outs of any given school district.
In fact, given his phrasing, he seems to think that the National Education Association is a union or a union like organization. (ie 'spouting the union line')
Now unless being a member of the NEA keeps you from holding a teaching job in Texas, there is a possibility that the teacher in question IS a NEA member.
I have my doubts though. The response of the teacher tells me that she may be one of those drones who shouldn't be teaching because she is no longer learning.
Either that or it is all a hoax.
The idea that the basic usage of Linux programs is somehow so estrangely different from using basic window programs is laughable. OpenOffice may not be exactly the same as MS Office, but to most people those differences mean jack because most people are only going to be using the tool to its minimal extent and that is to write a document. Besides most people who have "experience" in basic usage of Linux probably also don't live under a rock and also use Windows from time to time as well. I don't think anyone has suggested you forget everything you know about windows to use Linux.
Nothing says "moral high ground" like cyberstalking eh?
I can understand wanting to take this arrogant woman down a peg. But this sort of thing isn't the way to do it.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Open Source software (including Linux) is kind of like those free tomatoes. Your neighbor grows them for his own use, but ends up with more than he can use so he offers them to other people. With open source software, your neighbor (and many other people around the world) work on it for their own reasons, and rather than hoarding what they've done they offer it to other people.
The reasons for people to work on open source software are many:
fencepost
just a little off
what do teachers do for control?
they stand you in front of the class. they embarrass you. when they catch you doing something 'wrong' they make you do it 'over again' the right way.
give her a taste of her own medicine. stand her in front of the parents and ridicule her (in an adult way, of course). make her apologize publicly (the embarrassment feature). make the class re-enact the scene and have the principle watch over this 'act' to ensure she 'did it right' this time.
I'm completely serious.
I remember a story about a guy who was stopped by a cop. the cop had a 'teacher complex' about him and told the driver 'now go back and do that stop PROPERLY!'. see, the teacher-complex again - many authoritarians have it.
make that teacher feel her own medicine. make her 'do it over' but in public, this time.
maybe SHE will learn a lesson (!) from it.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Although this is astonishing it is at least relatively straight forwardly explained away by a fruitcake teacher. In the UK as the Government's multi-billion pound "Building Schools for the Future" - or BSF - scheme rolls out - schools, and local authorities are being leaned on (by Partnership for Schools - PFS - a government agency) to sign up to fully managed services as part of the pre-conditions for drawing down the many millions required to build new schools. These on 5 years contracts and involving all schools within a local authority area. So typically every school will be tied into a network which will be admittedly very powerful - but which will be screwed down tighter than Fort Knox. Already we (I'm a headteacher - in US read 'Principal' ) we're being told that in future we'll only be able to use memory sticks that are encrypted and high strength password protected. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it goes against many years of the same Government's commitment to giving schools more autonomy and the freedom not to buy into local authority services if they don't wish to. I can well imagine that some schools and teachers will buy into the managed service only to by-pass it completely by purchasing their own computers, and subverting the system - which is what ICT users are very good at. Remember where you heard it first
Sure, some people may get it. But unless there's a NASCAR team with "gratis" in one of their logos or slogans, or if ESPN uses the word, people won't get it.
I get all kinds of very puzzles looks when I wear my shirt that says:
Libre
Gratis
Linux
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
1: Technically the software isn't free. However, if the things they're asking you to "pay" have little to no value for you, the cost is negligible. Things like "if you sell the software, you have to provide copies of the source, don't claim the software as your own", etc.
2: Computers ARE like that. You DO have to reboot them once in a while. The power distribution systems in most countries aren't dependable to five nines like computers are. So, once the power burps, if you aren't running a decent UPS, you have to reboot.
3: Windows IS the best OS evar. At lock-in.
4: They are. Just ask them!
[/snark]
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That's not the teacher's fault. Those who want to evangelize Linux need to do much, much more work in the "real" world.
I'd only say that if the teacher is in any way involved in teaching tech/IS then they are at fault for not knowing better. I'm going to take the lazy /.er way out by not RTFA so I have no clue what the teacher 'should' know.
If they teach history then they are off the hook. But even say a math teacher would be getting close to someone who should know better.
Because keep in mind the context of what the teacher did. If your going to flaunt your ignorance that explicitly and claim to be a teacher...well...
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Not necessarily. You can make whatever changes you want to GPL software without having to "give away" the modified version (i.e., distribute source code) as long as you don't distribute the binary based on the modified code. The GPL [wikipedia.org] only requires the modified source code to be distributed if the modified executable is distributed. An "in-house" application can use GPL code without having to distribute the alterations. And you can modify BSD-licensed [wikipedia.org] code and include it even in distributed binaries without having to distribute the modified code. All you have to do is be sure the distributed binary reproduces the copyright notice and disclaimer from the original code.
Yes, that's a great idea. When the guy who had trouble understanding "free" software asks you what the catch is, start right in with the differences between a GPL and BSD license.
Good luck with that.
typing too fast.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
After reading through the teacher's email, I don't really think the root of the problem has anything to do with Liunx at all. As a father of 3 school-age children, I have seen a lot of teachers. Most are good, some aren't, but occasionally you come across one that is just a petty tyrant by nature. I don't think there is anything that can be done in that case, other than to pray for their charges. That's pretty clearly the case here.
This line tells you all you need to know about Karen:
These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline.
This is a person who not only belives this, but apparently believes it is an important enough point that the reader needs to understand. Imagine going through a whole school year under the thumb of someone who has always has this thought running through their head while dealing with you.
Badmouthing the NEA wasn't a good idea.
Why not? The NEA is the biggest obstacle to improving education.
Rather than improving, the NEA and state teachers' unions keep asking for more money and smaller class sizes. But private schools with less money and larger classes get far better results.
I've tried, in the past, dealing with stupid people via the "polite and correct" method. Yes, in a couple occasions, when they're not COMPLETELY clueless, it'll work.
These rare occasions are the exception, rather than the rule.
Unfortunately, those firmly entrenched in their idiocies cannot have their views "corrected". At that point, the best you can hope for is the "smack across the nose" approach to set up a pain-aversion response in them. This way, when they go to open their mouths and remove all doubt, the mere memory of the last "smack" they got for "yapping where they know naught" will usually cause them a moment or two of hesitation (and in some cases, actual amelioration) of their unacceptable behavior.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Even someone who "barely uses the net" must be familiar with Google. So there are two very good arguments here:
First, Google provides their service for free. Ask them what they think about that. Where's the catch with Google? Obviously, it's possible to have a business model in which some products or services are given away.
Second, point out Google as one of many large corporations -- along with Amazon and IBM -- which not only use Linux, but use a lot of Linux. On the order of tens of thousands of machines. Obviously they are too big to get away with breaking a law, and too successful to be caught in some sort of catch.
A good way to cement the believability is to explain the "catch" -- what the disadvantages of Linux and open source are.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
This guy in *IT* had never seen anything like it before. "That's so cool," he said.
Hilarious. I'm a school counselor. Yesterday the school's IT person handed me an ethernet switch and asked me how to use it.
For the faculty, using some other OS is inconceivable. Literally. Trying to explain some of this stuff to them feels just like going all the way back to teaching kids the alphabet.
Ok, so during that very same visit to the IT office, the IT person gets a phone call from head office, "somebody on your network is running ubun-2 (that's what she actually wrote). Who is it?"
I said, "I am. I brought in a laptop to use while you spend all morning trying to figure out why the one you gave me won't connect to the domain". In a situation like that you just bite your lip and be glad it's not you.
The free software culture hasn't adapted well to the role of desktop OS. People expect to use a desktop system that is managed by some entity not just as an OS, but as a platform:
There will be defaults that are amenable to the expectations of the user *and* the application developer. There will be a default IDE with a comprehensive set of APIs and best practices that are promoted to the developer base (whereas LSB is mostly ignored in the FOSS world). There will be a CLEAR concept of what hardware is supported (Linux only states what CPU is supported; compatibility for anything else requires try-and-see investigations). There will be hardware for which drivers can be easily installed (whereas drivers supplied for Linux may occasionally appear, will require CLI use, and will disappear as soon as the kernel receives an automatic update).
On 'Linux' there is confusion about 'Linux' user interfaces (not just the Desktop env. question, but the defaults used from distro to distro), which makes tech support for an independent application very difficult and expensive. There is the constant moving target of 6-month release cycles (not security and bug fixes that mostly keep backward compatibility, but 'new versions' with new features and changed defaults that interact in ways that app developers can't anticipate).
There is also the really rotten expectation that most users have to limit themselves to the apps that are offered in the distro's repository. Likewise, OS distro maintainers/packagers are expected to be the first point of contact for handling bugs and many fine-grained aspects of those apps which those package maintainers are unqualified to handle. As a result, apps features keep getting regressed and fat-fingered by maintainers while app developers become more isolated from their Linux user base.
If an app developer wants to mold their dream into a reality, the roiling sea of Linux-based distros is not likely to be their first or second choice of platform. OTOH, end-users aren't likely to even be able to recognize "Linux" any more than they could tell what brand of gasoline is in a car by looking at it; yet we keep idiotically marketing "Linux" to end users (thankfully, Google does not partake in that mania with their marketing of Linux-based Android).
Here is what must be done:
Define a personal computing platform, not 'distro', distros were for coders and techs and the concept couldn't be adapted to novices).
Make sure all levels of system development (even the kernel folks) are aware of the main use cases for desktop users. Don't have use cases with your requirements? Then draft some! This is why we've had terrible video and audio architecture for over a decade.
Choose a default IDE and market the platform to developers, whose target should be something like 'LSB Desktop 4.0'. Make it clear that the platform is a good common ground for them and their target audience to interface.
The platform must have a standard way to install packages from ISVs. An RPM file format is not good enough... package names and versions must be synchronize, and there must be a built-in command to start the install.
The platform must not shy away from full desktop functionality. It must specify what happens when my software rings while the MP3 player is running and I'm in the next room. That spec must show which components in the platform fulfill that behavior. (i.e. Linux + GNU + X11 = Not specific or meaningful enough to users and app devs).
Get a trademark (not the penguin, that's for the kernel) and market/license it (for a penny, if necessary) to hardware vendors: Give them a clear path to validating and then SHOWING compatibility with the platform. I want to be able to walk into a store and see that logo next to the Windows and OSX logos on a Wifi or 3G device.
Finally, yes I know that Windows is awful. I've got an HP printer driver installed on XP, but have to add another instance of the printer to get the settings right... lo and behold, Windows can't find the driver for the 'new' equipment even through the driver is already present. Terrible!
But - Windows is relatively predictable and accessible. Those are the two main requirements for a general-purpose desktop platform.
Now if you'll just step over here where we will fit the implants so you will be an effective drone ... er, uh ... community member.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
You didn't read the article. The teacher said that she used Linux in college.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
It's interesting to see you are dreaming of the day when you can talk people into abandoning Word and adopting a clone of Word. What's the point, besides the differing development and distribution models? Why should someone who is happy with Word and doesn't care about free software use Open Office?
That day happened in 2005 in my company. Let's turn that around: why should a company that's not in the business of word processing pay good money for a program with lots of features they don't need? Maybe your corporation doesn't mind shelling out for unneeded software, but at my small company, a cut in software expenditures turns into a bigger Christmas bonus for the whole office.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
While there's a whiff of tinfoiling in Helios's reply, I thought I'd point out:
Last I checked, MS has cut-rate licensing deals in place with many schools -- *on *condition that they adhere to an MS-only software policy.
It is not that farfetched to think that there's a deliberate "Windows only" mentality in these schools.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Can I suggest an alternative course of action?
1. Invite Japanese ambassador, heads of state to middle of nowhere.
2. Demonstrate nuclear bomb.
3. "Let's end the war before we have to burn silhouettes of your civilians into their local sidewalks."
4. ???
5. Profit!
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Uh, think you mean "post-Columbine" there pardner. You know, "bowling" not "Farenheit".
WTF? If your school needs the cops to keep discipline you're fucked.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Bush, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Reagan...
Or for those who don't understand that, try:
Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia...
Or for those who don't understand that, try:
WTO, GATT,...
Or for those who don't understand that, try:
Limbaugh, Imus, Brittany, Ben Lo...
Okay, I give. Can Americans appreciate the concept of Freedom? Can they understand the concept of free beer? Can they understand the concept of distinction?
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Some really good points were made in the reply. None of those will be taken seriously due to the sarcastic and mocking tone of the response. Why not save the oh so clever biting wit for the *end* of the conversation, not the beginning?
I am a non-union Administration/Support person (IT Manager) for a public school system in Michigan. I am also a member of a group whose goal is to educate K-12 CIOs on the benefits of Open Technologies (you can find more information out about us at www.k12opentech.org). I find the "factoid" that the author of the note includes stating that the NEA receives funding from Microsoft and is thus influenced by Microsoft laughable. Here is a link to the NEA's positions on Technology in schools: http://www.nea.org/technology/index.html I am sure Microsoft gives money to the NEA (I have no idea if they do or don't), but in my experience the classroom teacher has never been the problem with adopting Open Technologies in K-12 education. In fact, Open Technologies are almost always adopted from the classroom up in sort of a grassroots fashion. Classroom teachers (and the NEA) want one thing - access to more technology in a classroom. Ask any teacher if they would rather have 3 Windows or Mac machines or 6 OSS machines and they will always ask for the latter. In my opinion the roadblock is always the federal, state, and county leaderships. My state, Michigan, seems to have some freakish, unbreakable alliance with EDS and Microsoft. Every solution that they push on us always seems to require some sort of Windows box. Another example, look at Maine. Their 1:1 legislation was basically authored by an employee of Apple at the time, Mark Whesten (now works for Dell). Of course, you could say the same thing about Indiana's INACCESS program, but this is more about the economics and not the application. I do not know what is going on in Texas (of course Dell is in their backyard), but this story contradicts everything I have witnessed nationally in the classroom.
I thought they were supposed to be the kinds of people who research something a little before spouting random facts. They are in a position where doing such things can probably make them liable to slander.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Free software would benefit greatly if "Helios" and Roy Schestowitz beat each other into dumb oblivion
Hear hear.
However, COLA is still one of the groups that entertains me most. Where would I go to get my 15 minutes of side-splitting laughter without Roy and his hillarious flamefest of a usenet group?
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
considering the oppositional attitude we see in kids (some of them anyway) this action by the teacher may be the best thing that has happened to Linux for kids! They will check out the OS in sheer defiance of authority. ;-) bb
Most "teachers" I had in high school were first class morons (with one honorable exception). I have seen nothing in the intervening years to suggest that things have gotten better.
Under our current rule of law^H^H^H government by random action, when people commit illegal actions and get burned, then the government uses a new law to make their loss good on the backs of the rest.
In this case, you get the guy to try to "be clever". Then when he gets sued, he goes running to uncle Sam? "Sam! Sam! It's not fair! I was cheating, and I cheated in stupid ways, but EVERYBODY ELSE IS DOIN' IT, and I lost everything, and you've got to make that system proprietary so I can steal it like everyone else..."
And in case you don't believe that Congress would feel they have to do sumpin, and pass a law to do exactly that,
look at
Bailout #1 (forced sale of Lehman bros to preferred company #1)
Bailout #2 (Official bailout)
Bailout #3...45 (Paulson acting in extension of what the official bailout allowed)
Bailout #46 (forcing banks to take cash loans at 5%, 'it was a take it or take it offer, quote')
Bailout #47 (focing banks to pay out money from cash loans to directors as dividends and bonuses)... Bush says that that is good for the economy.
Bailout #48 (Automakers loans).
Each and every one of these bailouts was enacted by the Executive or Legislative branches "because we have to do something", nominally in good faith that they would be used appropriately, in good faith that they would magically save the economy despite every evidence that they wouldn't; many of them were illegal; resulted in complete and utter shock when nothing happened as promised, and put the burden of the bailout of the illegal, greedy, and stupid, on those who had not been illegal, greedy, and stupid.
In other words, those who seek power at all costs are now undone by the threat of realizing that they are not in control, and they are desperately wiggling every joystick they can find, in order to try to "get back in control."
In line with that, your advice is quite possibly going to hand all OSS over to Micro$oft in bailout #4797, the Computer Software Bailout.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Indeed. Maybe get a superbowl commercial talking about how linux/open source/open office/etc break you free from microsoft yet are still backwards compatible with them.
And then someone make Ubuntu idiot-proof edition, where, over time, Ubuntu slowly weans you day-by-day into how to do common linux operations. Over like 90 days, changing from an XP Desktop clone into a normal install of ubuntu.
Or we could go get chips and dip :)
I'm surprised Stark's reply didn't include the phrase "see figure one". My reply certainly would have!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Here's another example of what little intelligence our public school teachers have, but sometimes a particular teacher's idiocy is indeed shocking.
I often help people out with software I've never used because I tend to have a high level understanding of the job they are trying to accomplish and need only find the appropriate UI or items in the help that pertain.
Back when I used to do software support I ran into the same thing. Some user would call in and ask for help doing "yadda yadda" in Publisher (or Pagemaker) or whatnot.
I'd show up, figure out how to do whatever it is they needed. The line that they almost ALWAYS threw out was "it's just hard keeping up with how to do this stuff when you only use the program every few weeks". While I was (and still am) always capable of smiling and keeping up the pretense that I care, the whole time I was thinking "You know, I haven't seen this program in 6 months myself, and the only reason I learned it in the first place was helping out dumb users like you!".
If you know how software works at a higher level, then for any decently written program it's easy to just figure out how to make it do what you want. Of course you also have to have the willingness to actually look through things and try to figure out how to do something rather than make a phone call as soon as an unknown situation crops up.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I'm sorry to hear what your sister in law makes. I have a relative who teaches in a private school (college prep too) in California, who makes less than your sister in law. If he moved to the public schools, he'd get a 50% raise even if they paid her as an entry level teacher. I'm sure there are private schools that pay more than the public schools, but they aren't all like that.
"The problem is zealots see everything as a threat or challenge; and believe compromise and cooperation is selling out"
This is a perfect description of the teacher in question.
If the reply wasn't confrontational in the same way, then it may have been more receptive.
It's like meeting a drunk woman in a bar that calls you an a$$hole because you're a man and that they're all no good. Sure, you could tell her to go f'erself, but if you sympathize and buy her drinks, you can find out that she just got dumped and can work your way into her pants in no time.
"I'm a High School teacher and would be very uneasy about putting bootable linux CDs into the hands of teenage boys on the school network
...
..
What school would that be?
Not using Linux didn't save Julie Amero from losing her teaching license or a conviction for disorderly conduct, where was the union in this case ?
"Think - what if a student used advanced access to delete a whole year's coursework?"
If you're relying on Windows to protect your coursework then you are deluding yourself.
"schools don't have the money to bring in the level of security experts we need to protect against the kids"
Like how is it less expensive to protect Windows against attacks?
"the idea that kids need Linux in highschool is ridiculous"
Using Linux, kids learn about computing, using Windows and they learn that the right-mouse-click is dangerous. And it would show them that there is more to computing than Windows.
"Teacher's unions are good for your children"
imho, Unions are good for the executive officers of said union, and no-one else
davecb5620@gmail.com
It's interesting to see you are dreaming of the day when you can talk people into abandoning Word and adopting a clone of Word.
Whoa, what? That's not what he said. He said, "I dream of a day where we stop teaching how to use Word, and start teaching how to use a computer as a tool to get your job done." Seriously, don't stick words in his mouth.
A cat is no trade for integrity!
"I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older version of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..."
I was LMAO at this. If I wanted to get the get the goat of Ken Starks, I'm pretty sure this is about what I would say.
Then he goes on to counter that she's pro Microsoft because her Union told her so LOL.
I'm not sure which is more comical, the prank letter or his response.
Uh, think you mean "post-Columbine" there pardner. You know, "bowling" not "Farenheit".
Whatever. You got the point, though.
WTF? If your school needs the cops to keep discipline you're fucked.
This doesn't just go for schools. If you seriously threaten my life, you'd better fucking bet I'm going defend myself AS ARE MY RIGHTS. The first step is to get the cops involved -- whether I am a teacher and you're a student, or I'm a bank teller, and you're a guy in a ski mask with a his hand in his coat saying he has a gun. The words "I'm going to kill you" carry the same weight in either case in the eyes of a court of law.
Oh, and one other thing -- <sarcasm>Yes, let's not have law enforcement in schools at all. Let's leave that to teachers and administration that have very little experience in law or the enforcement thereof.</sarcasm>
I went to high school in a district that had some fairly bad gang activity. All it took was one cop (in full uniform) to stand in the cafeteria during lunch, and be around school grounds at other times to keep a an eye on it. Those 98% of us that didn't want anything to do with throwing down with a bunch of wannabe thugs felt markedly safer with the officer around. Go troll elsewhere.
PERL:
All of the power of Voodoo with most of the understandibility!
If you ignore then 1000 things that could save the company 1000 dollars each, you've just lost the company a million dollars.
It's been a long time.
It's the typical struggle between our inner virtual and self-interest. If we in a society would be governed by our inner virtue, we would voluntarily take care of one another -- your cooperation model. However, if we allow self-interest to rule, we need laws to keep all the self-interest in check and we lose freedom. Only a virtuous society can be truly free.
"No free government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles" -- George Mason
"Statesmen...may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand." -- John Adams
A Profession is a teaching. Things like engineer, teacher, doctor... can all be professions.
A Career is a course of jobs, from one to another.
A Vocation is a calling, with specific reference to being a calling by God. Arguably, Mother Theresa had a calling, Pope John Paul II had a calling, Maximillian Kolbe had a calling.
It is a bad mistake to use the words Vocation and Career interchangeably. Vocations are things that, if missed by the recipient, badly damage their chance at salvation and holiness. Vocations are also things that are sometimes claimed by wolves in sheeps' clothing, to help them get more clothes, cheap -- whether the vocation is real, or just claimed, comes out eventually. Vocations shape your whole life, not just 8 hrs, 5 days a week.
My vocation, for example, is to work far below my education, in a concrete yard, and live in a trailer home, and help coworkers and fellow trailer-park residents, while quietly (not silently) evangelizing Christianity. My claim (you can believe it or not) is that I got here through direct directives from God in prayer, followed by events happening as He said they would. That includes Him telling me in the middle of prayer "get your stuff together, because I am moving you", followed by -- 3 minutes later -- a supervisor walking into sight, discussing with another supervisor, and then coming up, and asking me to come up to the office, where they moved me to another location.
Now, you can believe me or not -- but if I am lying, making claims like that is really going to backfire badly. If I am telling the truth, making claims like that won't. That's part and parcel with the nature of the word "vocation".
My career, though, would have been to be an aerospace engineer. Of course, that never got past the B.S. AE/OE. Careers are like that -- kindof random.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
This is a critical thing that people don't realise.
Eecol Electric up here in Canada uses Linux and OpenOffice. You don't get to use Windows, because that's not what they run. At the end of the day, if you're not an idiot, that's never a problem because an office suite is an office suite is an office suite, an e-mail program is an e-mail program is an e-mail program, and if you've grown up with this attitude, you'll never have a problem. If you understand what you're doing, you never need to be trained for a particular piece of software. If you don't understand what you're doing, God help you even if you are trained for years and years.
It's been a long time.
In cooperation, we support each other and do not require institutions ... PROBLEM: cooperation requires the ability to kick out or kill non-cooperators, and it requires a strong innate culture, an "organic state."
Actually, in the primary example of social cooperation, raising children, this isn't true. There are hundreds of social species on this planet, and none of them expect their infants to contribute, or even "cooperate", for most of their childhood (however that's defined). Of course, part of the upbringing of species like ours is to teach the kids that cooperation and sharing are expected. Others (e.d., bees and ants) have builtin instincts that "force" them to cooperate when they become adults.
Of course, non-cooperating adults do tend to be evicted from social groups in most species. But "freeloaders" have been documented in many species. This may be a social inefficiency, but not necessarily. One could argue that, in software, it's advantageous to have freeloaders. They are regularly viewed by developers as testers. Software with lots of non-programmer users can be among the best, because such users can contribute bug reports ("complaints"), and this information can be used to improve the software. So the FOSS crowd doesn't kick out (or kill ;-) non-cooperators, they just relegate you to the status of guinea pig for software ideas.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
neither is this .. :)
...
"I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows. Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting linux on these machines is holding our kids back"
Snort!!!!, I do believe this requires further investigation
davecb5620@gmail.com
Frankly, outside the computing world, Linux is essentially invisible.
Outside of the vehicle world, Ford is essentially invisible.
Sort of goes without saying, doesn't it?
It's been a long time.
The quickest way to change that teacher's mind may be to send her a link to this forum so she can see just how many people responded to this story, and how strongly they feel!
You have said yourself that almost every person in almost every school has little or no IT experience.
Consider what would happen, therefore if you plopped them into a Linux environment - where support means reading the source code. They'd be absolutely helpless. In fact, by saving them money and changing them to "free" software, you'd in fact make all their IT unusable, as they would not have the skills to use it, nor the experience (to say nothing of the time) to find out how. It would be a completely inappropriate level of technology: not better or worse, just wrong.
For people in this situation, who just want to get things done, Microsoft and a support team - from a 3rd party or easily recruited staff are more important than the cost of the kit.
Maybe the secret is to step back from the bits and bytes of the technical aspects and consider that what they really need is ubiquitous, seamless computing that allows that to teach their children, without messin' around with installs, upgrades and reconfigurations.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I doubt teachers have free reign to confiscate whatever they wish from students. If the teacher thinks it is stolen ask him to prove it. During the process he will hopefully learn something about FLOSS. In the end the student should get the CDs back and the teacher should learn something. If the teacher refuses and the student is a minor ask they should ask their parents to address the issue. The teacher is within their authority to tell the student not to demonstrate it in class but outside their authority to confiscate perfectly legal CDs. I highly doubt the issue is one of conspiracy. A much more likely cause is a closed-minded, authoritarian teacher. Taking the action described above should hopefully remedy both issues.
(note: I'm not really into Linux at all, I used it for a couple of years as my exclusive OS, then got burnt with it, and am now a Windows junkie, so I'm not biaised toward Linux).
I'd say still that even if Windows was superior in every ways, shape and form (even on price), its still important for people to know the alternatives. It can only make things better for everyone. Even you decide to be on Windows in the end (like I do), it is important to know the strength and weaknesses of your choices, at least superficially, otherwise you become a slave to marketing departments, and thats bad (no matter which field, not just in IT or for operating systems).
So even if the kid tries Linux, make it work, get pissed off and leave, at least they know it exists and what it looks like...so they can at least -marginally- evaluate their choices and pick whats best for them in the long run. At least a little.
Ugh, sad attitude. How does one reason with a fool without becoming a fool themselves? She obvious likes to judge things on a snap. Maybe that was just a day/week for her ;)
Any the experience will also prevent the moronic misconception that all software must be paid for by end users.
I agree with you completely. Computers are a tool. The software and operating systems on them are also tools. Some software solutions are more elegant than others, some have a more complete set of tools, while others offer an easier experience for a smaller set of common problems. Let's get in the business of matching people to the proper tools.
Your experience with the IC3 certification is not unique. A while ago (2001) I took the A++ certification for a job requirement. One of the questions was to identify the USB port in a picture of a motherboard riser. Although the picture did not include a USB port I had to make a selection before continuing. I selected the LAN port instead, because back then the LAN port was optional on many motherboards and many people accidentally plug their peripherals into it because the plug fits and wonder why it doesn't work. I of course passed the exam with flying colors. I will acknowledge that I gained the certification, but will never really flaunted the certification on the fact that it was obviously a flawed exam.
I am pretty sure that by non-cooperators the OP was referring to somewhat different behavior than you are. In FOSS terms, my understanding of what he meant would be the people who modify and distribute the software without releasing the source code.
The mechanism the FOSS crowd has for dealing with this group (essentially ostracism) is not very effective. Fortunately, there exists a mechanism outside of the FOSS community to deal with them (the courts).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
"Why would you use photomanipulation software for ***producing artwork from scratch***?"
Who said that, where and when? Surprisingly, I was trying to manipulate some images in what I believed was supposed to be an image manipulation program but turned out to be an exercise in "guess the command and how to apply it to an image/layer".
AISD - Austin Independant School District - Austin Tx
High tech land
Dell, Siemens, and a million smaller companies, mostly running on Linux.
They should call Mike Dell and ask him what OS their servers boot from, or what the Mini runs
Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave. -Guy Kawasaki
Your emails are not property. Period.
No law anywhere will sustain such nonsensical view.
Even if you would put them in media, the data is still not subject of any property law, but of copyright and perhaps trademark or patent law (which have nothing to do with property law).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Linux isn't Ford. Go ask people if they've heard of Ford. Then ask them if they've heard of Linux.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The pay really sucks. Frankly you'd probably be better off managing a fast food restaurant.
If you put up with the crappy pay and the stifling bureaucracy, then you're probably not doing it for your own selfish purposes, but rather because you feel that it's the right thing to do. Which means that you are genuinely interested in teaching people.
How much can you earn managing a fast food restaurant? Is it more then 40k a year? A teachers pay puts them in the top 50% of wage earners. Not great money but the pay DOES NOT SUCK. And the bureaucracy tends to drive out people with options, talents, youth, and abilities. People interested in teaching will eventually be driven out like everyone else unless they have no better options.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-06-25-teacher-salary-raise_x.htm http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States
What's that got to do with getting more people to use Linux?
The record of the last 15 years shows pretty conclusively that the vast majority of businesses would rather buy Microsoft than acquire Linux for free. And that's ignoring the fact that initial software license costs are a small part of the total cost of that software to a company.
The response of the Linux community cannot be that those businesses are stupid. The community needs to examine why so many people are not responsive to its Linux pitch.
Linux has many good points, but few people in this thread have mentioned them.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I used to be the sysadmin for a high school. The district standard was Windows 2000 or XP on all workstations, with Altiris Deployment Solution to manage it all. My F/OSS experiences:
- We somehow wound up with a massive number of Ubuntu install CDs. I left them in a help-yourself tray in the library, until it was pointed out to me that SOME student is going to install it on a home computer, format the HD, and the parents will be calling the school for MY head on a stick. This wasn't too far-fetched, considering that I was frequently blamed for problems with teachers' home computers.
- I pushed out Firefox to lab computers, until teachers started to complain. Turns out there were several websites teachers sent students to that required MSIE--including educational software running on my own servers.
- All my lab computers ran Office XP. Because of my experiences with teachers who tended to be idiots, I did not also install OpenOffice.Org, lest I be blamed for installing something that doesn't work. One time, one student came in with a OOO document on a USB flash drive. I used this student as my catalyst to install OOO on lab computers. Surprisingly, no complaints from teachers.
Now, Altiris did support Linux imaging, and if a teacher wanted Linux across their lab, I'd jump on the opportunity. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case, as the teachers with computer labs under their control had the combined IQ of a tree stump. Example: the web design teacher told me her computer was "out of memory" because she had the entire desktop filled with icons.
One could argue that, in software, it's advantageous to have freeloaders. They are regularly viewed by developers as testers. Software with lots of non-programmer users can be among the best, because such users can contribute bug reports ("complaints"), and this information can be used to improve the software.
In this case, they really aren't freeloaders, are they? Real freeloaders are people like Google, who take, and then never contribute ANYTHING back, not even mailing list comments, but instead have their own internal world where everything occurs.
So I suppose they are breaking the law too:
The site of the Austin Independent School District:
http://www.austin.isd.tenet.edu/
What they are running:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.austin.isd.tenet.edu
OS: Linux
Server: Apache/2.2.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.6 PHP/5.2.5
Last changed: 10-Dec-2008
IP address: 206.77.0.250
Netblock Owner: Austin Independent School District
The parent was presenting an old argument, i.e., that people need to learn computers, not software.
I've never agreed.
People don't use computers. They use software. It's the software that needs a computer.
Knowing the intricacies of computer design and structure won't help you learn to use a single new piece of software.
However, for example, knowing Word Perfect will make it easier to learn Word, because both share many functions.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I'm not putting words in his mouth. He was referencing Open Office.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Humanity has two basic options for government:
cooperation sometimes works if you have 2-4 people, but sooner or later an arbiter is needed. The question is how much power is given to that arbiter. The larger the society, the faster the rule of law becomes absolute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX8yrOAjfKM
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
Or you could be doing it because it's something you can do and you can't find a better job. There's an old saying:
Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
>> ...why should a company that's not in the business of word processing pay good money for a program with lots of features they don't need?
No reason why they should. But if the only things that make Linux attractive are free clones of MS software, then that's damning Linux with faint praise.
Linux has many attractions, but people seem to keep beating on the same dead horses that most people don't care about.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
My point is that for 15 years the Linux community has been trying to get normal people to use Linux by talking about freedom, free as in software and free as in price.
That hasn't worked very well. Maybe it's time to reexamine assumptions and plot a new course.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
OpenOffice is a clone of Office explicitly created to provide a free alternative to the Microsoft product. So, sure, users can easily transfer from OpenOffice to Office. But, not so much from emacs or vi or other typical GNU and Unix tools.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
If your company decides to ignore every way that they can save money because it's a small saving, then your company is going to move to China and you'll be unemployed.
Mills, factories, mines, they're shutting down left and right, around the country, around the continent, around the world. The reason is that they're not competitive with mining and manufacturing in countries like China. Either work smarter, save every penny you can, or you'll disappear.
If Linux and Free and Open Source Software can save you a few hundred dollars per workstation, then it's not good enough to say "Oh, that's not a large cost". The world isn't the same one we had in 1970. Adapt or die.
It's been a long time.
>>In the end, the year of Linux on the desktop will come not when technology matures, but when it is advertised appropriately...it seems Linux has a marketing problem!
Well, now we know that Windows and Linux have at least one thing in common...
Mark Williams, District 5, President, Austin Independent School District.
Dear Mr. Williams:
As you may or may not be aware, it appears that a teacher in your district recently disciplined her student for demonstrating open source software to his/her classmates.
IMPORTANT: The article http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/08/12/10/001236.shtml about this is going viral on the web.
I can assure you that educators need to understand that Open Source Software is, by it's very nature, free. Free to use, free to distribute and free to copy. Further to that, Open Source Software can save your school board 10's of thousands of dollars in licencing and royalty fees. Replacing Windows and/or Microsoft Office is now easy. Furthermore, going forward, upgrades are free too.
More and more schools and school boards are adopting Linux and Open Office http://www.openoffice.org/. Open Office is a mature, fully-featured, standards compliant Open Source office suite which adheres to fully open document standards and can open and create virtually any MS Office document, spreadsheet or presentation. Linux is virtually virus-free, stable and secure. Special versions of it are designed for schools. Here's one: http://k12ltsp.org/
The most important thing about Open Source Software is that it helps to level the playing field. Less advantaged students can take home legal copies of software and use and install them legally at home.
All I would ask is this:
- Please educate your teaching staff about the advantages of Open Source Software.
- Please have your IT department review its costs and look at the savings to be had.
- Please do what you can to help give all kids the same opportunities.
Thank you in advance for your time in looking into this matter.
*** Don't be dull.***
Then, all to the better. You've cited a benefit of Linux that's distinct from the free software/free beer argument.
Remember, I've not been arguing that Linux has failed, only that the way it's been pitched as failed.
It's worth noting, however, that Office has been allowed to define how an office suite is supposed to look and behave. If OpenOffice wasn't an Office clone, would Eecol Electric use it?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
My point is precisely that people have been ignoring that argument, and others, for the last 15 years.
Your response simply says that people are making a mistake of they don't save money. I agree. But if that fact has potency, why is almost everybody still using Windows?
Distinguish between the success of Linux as software and the failure of the effort to get people to use Linux.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I never cited any benefits. I just re-affirmed that if your CTO tells you to use product X, you're going to use product X, by using a real-life example.
It's been a long time.
My school (in Germany) had a cobbled-together pick-of-the-litter CIP-Pool running under Suse.
When I went through physics the CIP Pool ran on Suse and DEC Alphas.
I did my diploma thesis in an MPI and we were/are running Suse on P4s and the number-crunching is done under Suse on some old Alphas and Opterons.
Now I am on Xubuntu on an EEE - well, that's what you get when you head out for a year abroad.
So there was definitely no shortage of Linux in my education.
However, e.g. most of the Architecture department has never heard of Linux - the CAD vendors make sure of that. The same with the Business department. And I know that the CS-department gets free licenses from Microsoft to avoid them "going Linux" [many still do].
Marx ist die Theorie, Murx ist die Praxis
Fair enough. I'd submit that at this point it's really more of a, shudder, marketing issue than anything else. Yeah FOSS on the desktop still has some technical issues but nothing stopping it really from large scale adoption.
I can sit someone down in front of an Unbuntu install and they often will say something to the effect of, "Oh is this a Mac?" They know it's different but the learning curve is so low it's no real barrier to use.
And so in so much if we follow with the idea that it's a marketing problem now FOSS does not really have the mechanics to employ the marketing it really needs to push past where it is now. The model of FOSS just does not lend itself to that. Instead we just have to rely on some of the 'parts' of FOSS like Red Hat, Unbuntu, and such to do that job. I would say that for what they are capable of doing they are doing it well. However I think, if I'm reading you right, what you really want is beyond what FOSS as a whole is capable of doing.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
No reason why they should. But if the only things that make Linux attractive are free clones of MS software, then that's damning Linux with faint praise.
Well, you could say that Microsoft does little more than make paid clones of FOSS and Mac software. Considering that I was using word processors, GUI desktops, and GUI word processors for years before MS got into the game, I'm not willing to cede originality to them.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Having been the guy who decided what software people were stuck using, I agree.
However, that does not negate my point that employers expect, and assume, that new hires knows how to use Office. That's the reason Eecol Electric can deploy OpenOffice.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
She tried Linux in college. Unless she is confusing Linux with some sort of punch card OS then I can't imagine that she is a member of the generation you are referring to.
Schools are funded by the department of education as well as at the state level, if I'm not mistaken. That's how NCLB is enforced.
It's been a long time.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't shudder. If you don't market, no one knows you exist.
I don't believe FOSS is inherently limited in how it markets its products or how successful that marketing might be. I think the teacher's letter is just one piece of evidence that FOSS has failed to counter the notion that Linux is tainted software, or that it can't be any good because it's free.
Some issues that hold Linux back are out of its control, like proprietary drivers. Others are not, like the sophomoric notion that Linux users are smarter and better because they use Linux.
Finally, we need to remember that choice of software isn't that big a deal to many, many people. They bought a machine and Windows is on it. End of story for them. They don't want to talk about software any more than they want to talk about plumbing fixtures A lot of people will put up with a lot of crap before they even think about abandoning Windows.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
What GUI's were you using pre-Windows, i.e, the early 1980's?
Regardless, it's irrelevant to the issue of popularizing Linux. The fact is that OpenOffice and other projects are cloning Microsoft products, which represents an acknowledgment that Microsoft, not FOSS, is determining user expectations. Otherwise, Word would behave just like emacs.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It used to be I assumed by default that anyone I met under a certain age could use a computer. A couple of the girls I've dated have blown that hypothesis out of the water.
I have to guess it's "Either you learn how to do this or you're fired".
It's been a long time.
Maybe this one instance was a good thing, "If the teacher doesn't like it I want to know more" or at least, when I was a kid and authority figures denounced something it made me want to know more about said thing.
Hopefully kids still question authority.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Tons of Christian organizations will just give out Bibles, absolutely free of charge. Producing them costs money for the printer, the binding, the shipping, and so forth. Yet they ask for no money in return. They do it for two reasons:
1. They hope you'll like it and come around to their way of thinking.
2. They hope they might get a few secondary benefits in the form of, say, church donations or volunteer work.
The exact same thing applies to FOSS. Where the Christian might say "Here, have a Bible, I think you'll like it and ditch your current religion," the FOSS advocate might say "Here, have a Linux CD. I think you'll like it and ditch your current OS."
The FOSS organizations also hope for some secondary benefits. Instead of church donations they hope for support contracts. Instead of volunteering at the church bake sale or soup kitchen, they hope you'll volunteer to contribute patches or bug reports.
But, with both the Bible and the Linux CD, you're more than free to just take it, use it, and not donate anything back.
This cannot be difficult to understand for anyone of any age. Everyone's familiar with churches. Let them see that it's essentially the same thing.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
What GUI's were you using pre-Windows, i.e, the early 1980's?
I owned an Amiga, but played around with Macintoshes. My mom's office sprung for a Xerox Star system even earlier.
The fact is that OpenOffice and other projects are cloning Microsoft products, which represents an acknowledgment that Microsoft, not FOSS, is determining user expectations.
In what way is that a fact? I know this might sound strange to kids today, but Microsoft didn't invent GUI word processors. Let me put it this way: StarOffice dates to 1984, and Word came out in 1983. That's not exactly an overwhelming lead time.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
One of my cousin's teachers instructs her students to vandalize Wikipedia and claims everything in it is false, so while at first this shocked me, after I thought about it a bit, didn't strike me as odd at all.
It is unrealistic to expect that everyone that could be significantly important will do the appropriate legwork before making incorrect assertions. In this case, the response was the first opportunity for a non-student to provide active feedback and educational data. Teachers sadly are inherently distrustful of their students justifications, so this may have been the most opportune moment to prove that mature, intelligent people are behind the movement. Instead, she got a response that in her mind essentially proved her expectation of selfishness/immaturity. Even if her mind is unreachable, there is nothing to be gained from that response.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You do know that Emacs and VI work on Windows as well, right? Emacs in particular is quite popular. So your argument is just stupid. You might as well say "learning Word is no good because it won't teach you Emacs, which is also used on Windows".
IANAL, but if I say "I'll sell you my email for $1" and you say "OK, here's $1" and I hit the "forward" button, then "property" has been exchanged.
If a burglar breaks into my house and starts erasing my emails and I shoot him claiming he was destroying my "valuables", no DA will press charges, at least not around here.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
I noticed in the comments section of TFA, there were some other anecdotes of similar experiences... so it seems to me this phenomenon was being under-reported before this (and is probably still going to be under-reported for some time to come). Here's the one that struck me:
Unfortunately, lots more folks are claiming this has to be a fake letter, that "Karen" either doesn't exist or that she couldn't possibly have written this screed verbatim. Not that skepticism is a bad thing -- I wish more people were skeptical! -- but folks seem very willing to give this teacher a pass, or to claim that Helios is making stuff up. We worship teachers as heroes in our society, even if we don't pay them well (or even enough).
From my own scholastic experiences, I can say that even in a private (Catholic) school, I still ran into my fair share of small-minded bureaucrats. They are everywhere. (I still remember the time that Mister Deburro corrected me when I was asking permission to do something -- he insisted I should say "Can I...?" instead of "May I...?" and wouldn't even let me finish my request until I phrased it how he wanted it. On the other hand, he did introduce my class to the word "umbrage." But he was still being a douchebag pedant, and he was wrong! Even though this guy probably did way more right than wrong in his career, I'll forever remember him as the asshole who corrected me when I didn't need correcting.)
Usually social change comes about because charismatic leaders inspire others to adopt it.
Well, the free software movement has RMS!
If the masses don't like our charismatic leader figure they probably just need more education!
I don't believe FOSS is inherently limited in how it markets its products or how successful that marketing might be. I think the teacher's letter is just one piece of evidence that FOSS has failed to counter the notion that Linux is tainted software, or that it can't be any good because it's free.
I fully agree that FOSS is not limited in how it can market itself. Rather that by, for lack of a better word, design FOSS just does not lend itself to being marketed. And that most likely came out poorly so let me say it again in a different way. Marketing on a large scale works best with a relatively simple message. FOSS as a whole is not exactly simple. For that matter IS is not simple so when it gets marketed it's very on point. Market X product at Y target. And to that end like I said when Unbuntu markets it's product it can, and imo does, do well. But the idea of marketing the whole concept of FOSS is just way too much.
So ok, you say lets just market the idea of a FOSS desktop OS. Well...which one? Do we market all of them? Do we include BSD derivatives? Do we explain how it's really a combination of a kernel that then has a X windows system sitting on top of the CLI OS? I mean we have already gotten wayyyyy too complicated for even some 'power users', never mind the general population.
So I go back to the idea that if we market FOSS it has to be done at a very target able level. Unbuntu markets it's OS at users who want an alliterative OS. OO targets users who want an alternative office package. Those are manageable X to Y targets. But I just can't see how doing it for all of FOSS is viable.
Don't shudder. If you don't market, no one knows you exist.
I agree, but it's just the general direction that marketing wonks want to take things that brings the shudder. Were I to explain that I wanted to market FOSS and listed the complexity of it's nature they might respond with something along the lines of, "Well why doesn't Red Hat buy up Debian since they own Unbuntu and then we can market both those products." Which just would make me /facepalm.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Real freeloaders are people like Google, who take, and then never contribute ANYTHING back, not even mailing list comments, but instead have their own internal world where everything occurs.
Did I miss something?
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/
I've found that nurturing one's Zen nature is vital to dealing with technology. Violence is pretty damn useful too.
/me tried to find a "FAIL" tag like from fark.com. Dang... I can't seem to find it around here.
I think the problem lies that with manby other fields of study, there are people of a certain camp of thought that no matter what will not be wrong.
He could not be convinced that FOSS was legal and genuinely free. There had to be a catch.
There is a catch (with most of the licenses): If you improve the code and distribute your improvements you have to distribute the source of your improvements, too, and can't keep others from distributing it further. (The ones without the catch often started out with institutional funding - where somebody's taxes or endowments came with a "distribute it to benefit society" string, like many other research projects.)
The people who built it are being paid in kind by those who chose to do more coding, and all the coders get far more code from others than they write themselves. Meanwhile everybody else who drops by gets to "use the mall's elevator and drink at the drinking fountain" for free, as the coders try to bait other coders into doing neat stuff for them. B-)
Explain it this way and maybe he'll get it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is exactly how you reply to people. There is no persuasion, no reasoning available. You are dealing with someone incapable of independent thought, who takes orders from authority figures, particularly religious ones. The satisfaction of counterattack is all you have.
While I am not sure that this is a conspiracy, I do believe this could be contributed to an uninformed educator.
As a relative of mine is an educator, they do not always have the time and effort to keep up with the latest technology for the education of our children. After speaking with this relative, I have also realized that it is not always the educator, it is also within the parents' responsibility as well.
Educator's responsibilities are to provide an environment and tools to allow the student to learn
Materials to provide the information:
Classroom
After School studies
Environment to allow for discussion, exploration and environment to provide for Problem determination:
Access to information
Where to find information
Validity of information
Viability of information
If it were me, I would question the reason for the confiscation and if no viable reason was provided, then I would demand the CD's back and inform the educator to not react without proper knowledge of the situation (i.e. LINUX is free)
It reads as incoherent ranting and gibberish to me.
What's this "soft strokes to your hair" stuff all about? That's weird, and that paragraph should be dropped.
Then there's "To think that I would involve my kids in my "illegal" activities is an insult far beyond outrage". For one thing, the kid is obviously involved to some extent in his activity, handing out Linux disks. And what's this "far beyond outrage"? What exactly is far beyond outrage anyway?
Then there's a couple of irrelevant paragraphs ranting about a teachers' union. Not helpful.
Followed by "A teacher who cared about her students would do that". Translation: a teacher who cared about their students would follow my agenda. That's just insulting. As is "Don't shackle your students in your prison Karen."
The final paragraph is full of threats instead of a polite request for the disks to be returned.
Sorry Ken, you missed an opportunity to provide a polite response that could have pointed out how and why software can be free, and instead publicly insulted one of the people educating your children.
Great Windows SFTP Server!
My wife is a teacher and we were going to try to get a hold of some old surplused computers for her classroom for the 1st graders to do things on. The trouble we found when we considered Linux, was the inavailability of standards-aligned educational software (e.g. companion software from textbook vendors), or early-mid primary school tailored software (aside from maybe some of the features of the XO laptops). Kids at that age given the start requirements benefit more from more structured software to keep them on task and has minimal UI interaction (e.g. the program works and acts like a book). Unfortunately, that software is usually custom to the written material. The second problem was the lack of support from local IT (all Windows/Dell shop, securing desktops with GPO).
Unfortunately, K12 education is not very platform agnostic, though it is better than it used to be with the online-resources, but even most of them require Non-OSS or poorly implemented Linux software (e.g. Flash Player, IE Only Sites, ActiveX) to work properly.
Thirdly, trying to get wireless connectivity configured was a pain given that they change their protocols like most people change their underwear.
All in all, it was a discouraging prospect because I *know* I could get more computers for the kids if I could get them under-spec (therefore less expensive) and run Damn Small Linux or OpenBSD with a trimmed down package list of a simple paint program and internet browser. However, with all the problems we ran into meeting the specific need for early primary kids, we found it just wasn't worth it when Windows isn't that expensive for academia.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
-but that doesn't turn the information itself into a physical good.
A good example of this is the Traveling Knot.
Take a piece of twine, and attach it to a rope. Attach the other end of the rope to a piece of thin chain.
Now tie a simple overhand knot into the twine. Work the knot across the length of the combined assembly. The same knot is expressed in twine, then rope, then chain. It's the same knot, but it's proven to be independent of the medium.
The knot itself is only a curve. It requires some medium to manifest, but is not directly tied to that medium. You can draw a number of conclusions from this simple relationship, such as (a) the knot requires a medium to express itself in a tangible way, that (b) it isn't tied (sorry) to any particular medium, (c) that it's primarily information, and (d) that it can traverse (be copied) across a medium while leaving it effectively unchanged.
This means the knot is definitely not a physical good, although a knotted string can be. I guess I should add (d) that in general, the properties underlying an apparently simple, tangible thing are often highly complex and non-intuitive.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
"The problem with the "no such thing as a free lunch" theory is that the assertion is much to strong. " Right. There is a "food bank" here in town where a lot of poor people get free lunches all the time. Nothing about the food is substandard. It is commercially produced stuff you would find at any super market. And I have personally received many free lunches from friends, family, neighbors, etc, etc. Indeed, free lunches do exist!
Students are there to learn and not to use alternative operating systems or anything that is not in the districts circulumn is not allowed to be taught.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. God forbid the kids are allowed, you know, to learn stuff on their own.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
My guess is you were interviewing for a tech job, not a mainstream white-collar job.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Dude... As an Anal-Retentive Grammar Nazi you should really grammar check your posts. You don't have a single capitalized letter in a post with no fewer than four sentences (I'm not sure if "like" qualifies), and several proper nouns. You've also comma spliced in at least two places. Get a new job.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
>> ... any teacher as ignorant as this one...
That's an example of how the Linux community turns off prospective users.
Explain to this teacher why she is misinformed about Linux and you might win a convert. Tell her she is stupid and you win an enemy.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You market FOSS products by forgetting about the FOSS bit. Forget about all the kernel and X business. Market software, not FOSS. No one outside the community cares. They care what software does, not how it does it.
OS X has all that -- a kernel, a windowing system, etc. It's just as complicated as any Linux distribution and Apple never makes any of that part of its marketing and they seem to be doing just fine.
You can't succeed at marketing Linux if you believe you need to run prospective users through a course in OS design first.
Then, someone decides to market a particular flavor of Linux. All the different distributions are confusing, and dilute the brand, just as would happen if there were scores of different versions of Windows or OS X on the market.
That kind of decision is not a "we" decision, it is not a community decision. It is a decision for the company selling or giving away that distribution.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Yes, I know emacs and vi are available on Windows. Do you know anyone working in a white-collar job for someone who expected them to know how to use either one?
Here's the point, which you seem to have missed even though it's been repeated over and over: Employers expect and assume that new employees will know how to use Windows and Office. If you are interviewing for a white-collar job and tell the employer you don't know Windows, do you think you have much of a chance?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I owned and Amiga, as well, I've owned several Macs.
The first Amiga was released in 1985.
The first Mac was released in 1984.
The first Windows release was in 1983.
First Windows, then Mac, then Amiga.
No one has said Microsoft invented the GUI. I've only pointed to the fact that Open Office began as a deliberate clone of Office.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Why do you have to switch to linux just to save office licensing?? Did open office suddenly stop running on windows and macs?
It may of began that way, but it is so much more now. There are many benefits to using open office beyond it's interface being similar to microsoft office.
For example, being able to read formats microsoft office sucks at. Being able to save as a pdf without installing a 3rd party plugin. Being able to install a plugin to edit PDFs. A consistent interface on linux, mac, and windows (allowing you a migration strategy). I can keep going if I felt like it.
Let me put it this way. I bought and paid for iWork. Recently my work gave me a copy of MS office 2008 for my mac. I now use open office 3 by choice.
Oddly, before that I never used office. But after spending a few minutes with MS office 2008 I enjoyed iWork much more. Then after getting OpenOffice 3 I never looked at iWork again.
I have those IC3 certs in a drawer in my desk at work. If I leave that job, they will stay there. I fought that program so hard it was disappointing to finally cave and take the exam.
I mean I would hope you know your IT staff knows how to browse the internet and send email BEFORE they were hired.
9.41. PROTECTION OF ONE'S OWN PROPERTY. (a) A person in
lawful possession of land or tangible, movable property is
justified in using force against another when and to the degree the
actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to
prevent or terminate the other's trespass on the land or unlawful
interference with the property.
(b) A person unlawfully dispossessed of land or tangible,
movable property by another is justified in using force against the
other when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force
is immediately necessary to reenter the land or recover the
property if the actor uses the force immediately or in fresh pursuit
after the dispossession and:
(1) the actor reasonably believes the other had no
claim of right when he dispossessed the actor; or
(2) the other accomplished the dispossession by using
force, threat, or fraud against the actor.
9.42. DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. A person is
justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or
tangible, movable property:
(1) if he would be justified in using force against the
other under Section 9.41; and
(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the
deadly force is immediately necessary:
(A) to prevent the other's imminent commission of
arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the
nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or
(B) to prevent the other who is fleeing
immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated
robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the
property; and
(3) he reasonably believes that:
(A) the land or property cannot be protected or
recovered by any other means; or
(B) the use of force other than deadly force to
protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or
another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.
Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 883, ch. 399, 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1974.
Amended by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, 1.01, eff. Sept. 1,
1994.
Since the teacher can bring arbitrary force to bear against the student via a summons for help, demanding the return of his property at gunpoint seems approrpiate as does killing her if she tries to flee.
In Liberty, Rene
No proof this actually happened.
People do get upset easy and fast.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
She works for the Austin Independent School District. It's an all union shop. She can't work there unless she's a dues-paying member of the Teacher's Union. As a close friend of several high school teachers (one of whom is the computer science teacher) and as father-in-law to a student teacher, I can confirm that there is no conspiracy theory here. It is fact, not theory. The union has a great deal of influence in what schools do with their curriculum, even down to software choices. Our high school, however, is a 100% Macintosh shop, since Apple offered irresistable incentives to cash-strapped school districts to get them to purchase Macintosh educational computers and software at a steep discount over Microsoft's program. It was a very smart move. Both of my sons are now in college, and they both have Macs. They turn up their nose at my Vista machine, but my youngest son now seems enchanted with my Ubuntu 8.04 media center desktop.
So, then, we need to teach Linux in schools because one in one-thousand students might once apply for a job as a Linux admin?
That's a speciality.
When I went to school, they said the same thing about typing.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I mean, reading it, it is very accusatory, aggressive and rude. As a project founder, you don't have the luxury of doing something like this. That is, unless the tone of your project/general community, is such that this is acceptable. But, is that a tone that is really wanted?
What I mainly associate with Lindt is the awful (yet terribly expensive) truffles.
They are greasy in a very bad way. I think Lindt uses petroleum jelly to help separate the truffles from the equipment. Eeeeeew.
I guess Lindt also sells some crazy-expensive bitter chocolate squares. The label says "XX% Cacao", with XX being something from 65 to 95. This is only edible if used to bake cookies or brownies.
There are several entities involved with the proliferation and development of Linux and its components. One of the more notable examples is Red Hat.
Here are some contributors to debian
One could think of it being like: many people put together computers. Some people build them at home, while large companies such as Dell sell by volume. They have a large array of companies supplying parts and components, and you can't really say that one is more valuable than the other.
The first Windows release was in 1983.
You better update Wikipedia:
That would make it Mac, then Amiga, then Windows.
I've only pointed to the fact that Open Office began as a deliberate clone of Office.
You keep saying that without offering any evidence whatsoever.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
GNU doesn't have a kernel
I herd they had one, it just wasn't quite ready yet...
I'll be here all week, try the veal!
>> " How could she be uninformed..."
This is not her problem. It's a problem for the Linux community. That community talks to itself in assorted online media that have little appeal or relevance for the rest of the human race who are not enamored with tech for the sake of tech.
If this teacher, or anyone else, is unaware of the truth about Linux, that represents a failure by Linux.
You know, there are commercials about people trying out Vista without being told it's Vista and they have a good experience.
Then there is Burger King with their new campaign for find people who have never had a Whopper. The Whopper virgins. We should send geeks out on a Linux virgin tour to introduce people to Linux...
Personally I think that by far the most likely explanation for this whole thing is a hoax. Somebody wrote a fake email to Ken Starks (of HeliOS) that criticised Linux-based OS's in an absurd way. Mr Starks fell for the bait, and published the email on his blog with a mocking refutation. Now Slashdot's linked to it, too, which has made for an amusing discussion but I'm skeptical of its origins without further verification.
That, or the blog owner just dreamed up the hoax himself to bring attention to his project. For a blog that appears to average about 15-20 comments per posting, this new one which features 332 comments (right now) certainly seems popular.
Maybe this teacher doesn't exist. I'd like to see some verification of the email, because at this point it seems most likely to me that somebody's either sent a hoax email to Ken Starks of HeliOS Solutions (and he's fallen for it), or possibly he's even dreamed up the entire hoax to draw attention to his project.
As it stands, the source of this whole issue is an absurd-sounding email with no headers or trace information with which to verify its source, and with the full name and school removed such that it's impossible for anyone to check with the alleged source (because it hasn't been stated).
I have been promoting Linux boxes at the special ed facility I work at for about three years. It just isn't happening. At the beginning of last year, I submitted a proposal that would install computers in each class, fully wired, for about $200 a computer material cost. Of course I would be doing the install and support, which would bring that cost up a little as I don't work for free, but not by much, as I told the principal I would be more than fare with what I would need to be paid. It's like many of these posters have said, the older generation simply can't understand that Linux and FOSS are legitimate options. They know Windows, and they have seen how it crashes, gets viruses, loses stuff, etc and they subscribe to the thought of "you get what you pay for". If Windows is expensive, and it crashes, then Linux must not work at all, because it's free. I'm doing my best to convince the staff around me, but it's just not easy to do. I still have a job to do, and can't relinquish my duties in order to spend my day showing people how cool it actually is. What Linux needs is a spokesperson.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
"...is right twice a day."
What are you even talking about? Software vs biology? Dumb and an AC, like peanut butter and honey.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Your post seemed to imply "using Linux means you are using Emacs and VI", that is what I was complaining about. It is exactly as legitimate to say "using Windows means you are using Emacs and VI".
A quick look at the OpenOffice site shows they now gloss over that heritage, but the fact is that it began life as an attempt to mimic Office. I was there.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I implied nothing. I said emacs and vi skills were not easily transferable to Office.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
So what?
Linux admin skills represent a subset of a profession that only a tiny minority of all students will ever occupy.
To repeat, yet again, most employers expect and assume new employees already know how to use Windows and Office. Knowing Linux, and not Windows, won't get you hired.
A single personal anecdote can't override reality, even on Slashdot.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I said nothing about the virtues of Open Office, only that Microsoft Office has set expectations for what an office suite is.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
We're discussing OpenOffice within a discussion of why efforts to popularize Linux by touting its FOSS roots and its free availability have failed.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. Seriously, the majority of people now work in jobs that didn't even exist when they went to school. Think about that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
...when there isn't at least one cross-distro package standard? How could the teachers release, say, a particular program for the students to use? Good luck teaching them how to compile.... The students would all have to switch to the same locked-in distro. Yes yes, it's true that most of them wouldn't have Linux to begin with and would take whatever distro the school decided upon, but Linux shouldn't have that barrier. All Linux users should be able to choose any "distro" as long as it has a package manager which uses an open standard package format for software accessibility. While this may not be as huge of a problem now for students, it will be more and more as Linux gets bigger. Best to solve the problem now though...
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
Am I the only one who is more than slightly irritated by that?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the majority of servers running *NIX? Or has Windows actually over taken the server market?
A. Thank her for her concern but explain the reality of said software. B. Send her a copy of the EULA highlighting applicable sentances. C. Open a dialog to learn how many students are at that school. D. Send the school X number of copies of said software.
Give her a copy of Revolution OS and a Linux Livecd. Perhaps a copy of the GPL, along with the OSS definition. Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria: 1. Free Redistribution The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale. My 9 yr old took his OLPC Xo to school afterwards we had a couple of the parents call and ask where they could get one. Linux and Open-Source are the future it is time for microsoft to crawl back under its rock where it belongs.
Debian Sid LXDE Firefox 3.6.4
GNU/Linux and Firefox, surfing the internet safely.
Indeed. Maybe get a superbowl commercial talking about how linux/open source/open office/etc break you free from microsoft yet are still backwards compatible with them.
Hmm. Who might be able to afford such a commercial? How about a certain entrepreneur and occasional space traveler who lives in Africa?
That's a very stupid way of thinking.
Sorry to be so direct, but it's simply what I think.
...I really need to punch somebody right now.
Are teachers like this really the people we should let educate our children? First, Windows does not run on almost every computer. There are gazillions of embedded devices which simply can't run Windows due to it's bloat. Not to mention Internet servers. You'd have to be a lot more naive than common sense permits to be able to think that all machines run Windows.
Second, this is the way to go if you want to prevent a to-be computer scientist from actually becoming one. Way to go,(insert disturbing word of your choice here)!
Disclaimer: while this post may lead you to think I'm a violent person, that is not the case.
I guess this teacher himself doesn't have passion, potential and patience to learn Linux.
He might be finding it uneasy to answer the student's doubts on Linux.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias
Slashdot = Sarcasm
...has my vote for the next net.bozo catchphrase.
And you are implying that open office can not meet those expectations. With the only reason I have seen given so far is simply that the product is not made by microsoft.
I would like to say that, as a teacher, I have not seen this. Unfortunately this is not so. I don't think it is a union thing, but it is still disturbing. Even at a college that TEACHES Linux (well, they teach Unix, but we use Linux, as they don't DARE say they teach Linux), I faced opposition. The powers that be treated the class as a joke. They all belittled it, saying that while it was nice that we teach Linux, it is pretty much worthless. They are a Windows shop through and through. Even as my students and I continued to teach the power of the Linux OS, we were continually fought against. I, and my students, were told that what we were doing can't possibly be free, and that it can not possibly have real world implications. We would counter by telling them that the majority of web servers run Linux, and that Linux runs embedded on many of the devices they use every day, like TiVo, and routers. Still they claim we can not possibly be correct. Even when the president of the school made me project lead on the computer scholarship project, getting out free PC's to students in need (running Ubuntu), we found much resistance. Teacher's were afraid that they would not be able to read reports written on the computers, or that the students would get in trouble for running free software. The level of ignorance among the educators in this country in regards to Linux is amazing. I imagine that is just the way MacroSoft likes it. Meanwhile some of the best students are quietly running Linux, and are doing some amazing things. I think Linux should be taught to ALL IT majors. Every semester I would get students sent to my class because their business has a Linux box quietly running in the back room. The man who set it up no longer working there, and the company doesn't know what to do with it, and are scared to shut it down because they don't know if it is vital or not! Eventually that school shut me out of my Linux classes (they had gotten very popular) and has them now being taught by someone who is not familiar with it, just they way they like it, non-threatening.
Open Source: Eroding the Digital Divide
>> And you are implying that open office can not meet those expectations.
I made no such implication. Stop being paranoid.
Your, umm, defensiveness exemplifies the behavior that helps prevent Linux and all of free software from gaining greater mainstream acceptance. Rather than focus on the product that's delivered, there's a focus on the mindset and the ideology of its developers. Criticism is rejected out of hand as heretical. Suggestions are not entertained because they imply that FOSS is less than perfect.
The response to my comments here is typical. I suggest that it might be time to consider new approaches to marketing Linux to the mainstream. I'm attacked by people who misread, misinterpret and misconstrue my remarks. People go off on unproductive and distracting tangents, like this silliness about Open Office. Typical for the Asperger's convention that is Slashdot, people believe they thwart an entire argument when they point to one mistaken minor detail.
If the Linux and FOSS community are so ready to reject well-meaning suggestions from people who support them, then no wonder they are behind the curve.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Once more we see a member of the community using the word "stupid" in regard to a person who said something he disagrees with.
You wonder why people aren't flocking to Linux? You go out of your way to insult someone who supports Linux.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
This is by far the biggest obstacle to using Free Software: people think you have to buy EVERYTHING. That's a sad commentary. Yes, I know stupidity is the real culprit but that's a little broad. Conspicuous consumption (people wanting the newest version of some software, or the newest shiny MacBook) is another huge problem. Obviously people who use Unix-like software have always had other priorities.
On the college note, even though I was a faithful UNIX user during college, I got all the way through college with a degree in _math_ (!) and nobody EVER told me that Linux was available for free. My biggest shock when I really read about GNU and Linux was not that it was free --- that made sense --- but that I was too stupid to have found out about it.
I like the suggestion about showing the teacher Revolution OS; my parents understood much better what I was talking about after they watched it. My dad called me saying that he had just watched it and was trying to boot a LiveCD right after the credits ended!
The most persuasive sentence in the movie is rms saying "...that was a promise to be a bad person." Most people think the opposite, but hearing him say that really hits home with people.
Yeah, yeah, Santayana. Five years from now, everyone is going to be a Linux admin and every office worker on the planet will be using emacs instead of Word. Right.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
On the other hand, 100 scathing letters might encourage her to think before speaking and acting.
More like, "threatening." As in, threatening legal action. Wow. Teachers are supposed to have good general knowledge of the world and of course most do not. Being aware that there is such a thing as FOSS should not be considered some kind of esoteric knowledge.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
Tell me about it. Why the fuck should I use an OS that doesn't support my scanner, printer, or network cards out of the box. Hell, even the chipset drivers are not installed by default. Oh...you were talking about Linux. My beef is with Windows. Practically NOTHING works out of the box after installation. I have to spend hours downloading drivers. How am I supposed to do that when the network card drivers are not installed by default? What's that? My printer and scanner are not supported AT ALL under XP but work fine with Linux. Fucking broken OS.
Time makes more converts than reason
Yes, but probably because I did not mention it explicitly. I am talking about how they have taken things like Apache, forking and internalized them. They do not contribute their changes back or otherwise help the Apache community.
I've been following this thread, and your comments and responses, with interest; though
linux is not ford, the analogy is a salient one, better than most.
On a personal level:
Regardless of role, most everyone uses computers. Sure, there have been comments regarding
the definition of what its use entails; are the results of computing physical or conceptual?
Is that information independent of the medium used to convey it? What does possession
of information entail? What's the relationship between the information (content) and the
software used to produce it? These are not questions that interest most worker-bees;
they simply want to get through the day and go home to their families and loved ones.
Yes, it is about the software, the applications people run that get the job done.
Yes, better to have the broader knowledge of "word processing" than just the
specifics of knowing "Word".
Yes, it is better to have the interest and curiosity to want to learn new things
and overcome the adoption barriers of unfamiliarity == mistrust
Yes, it is better to put people and collaboration and sharing above money and profits
But at the end of the day, its about people with varying skill-levels
whose interests lie mostly in finding the right tools to get the job done with as
little learning curve overhead, insofar as using the tool(s), as possible.
Getting ordinary people to switch from closed-source to open-source, to consider ...
using OO instead of Ofice, may hinge more on reasons to forgo what they are using
more than reasons why they should adopt something new. Like their frustration with
Ofice 2007. This post to my local LUG is a notable citation:
From: Dave Tisdell
To: VAGUE@list.uvm.edu
Date: 12/10/08 02:57 pm
Attachments: HTML
Hi Chris,
"It often saddens me to see FUD type comments from FOSS supporters."
I am a little baffled by this sentence. Otherwise, I agree whole heartedly with your post.
I advocate frequently for OpenOffice in our school district but the leaders of our IT staff seems unwilling to seriously examine it. Office 2007 was deployed without warning at the opening of school with a significant loss of productivity. A few colleagues had me install OpenOffice on their machines and they were much happier. They easily navigated around normal day to day task when they were strugging with Office 2007. I think it is a fact that Openoffice is a much easier transisiton than moving to office 2007. ...
So, it could be application-specific.
But, as with the automobile analog, it could also be about the "means of conveyance".
"People don't use computers. They use software. It's the software that needs a computer."
A computer w/out software is a useless brick. It's as useless as a car w/out a driver.
Most people want their computer to be a black-box appliance and their software to
be their chauffer to take them "where they want to go...."
They have been given that expectation as a result of over-hyped marketing and the fact
that they paid 'good money' in exchange. But even the most lazy or ignorant have come to
realize that it was never the case; from the BSOD, the
endless alert dialogs, the spread of virii and malware, ad-nauseum; just hit the re-start button
and silently fume as your work goes into the bit-bucket!
So here is where the car analog can work. GNU/Linux is a better means of conveyance
than the M$ pinto; both from TCO and from the warm-fuzzies of better security and reliability.
Note: The criteria by which people make their choices is a logically sound process:
The 1st point of order should not be cost but whether it gets the job done;
whether its an application, the OS it sits on, or the hardware it utilizes.
You are correct in that most people only think in terms of their applications;
e.g. what they can do when they've arrived at their d
resist propaganda
So Google sponsoring and contributing to open source projects doesn't count because they haven't released *all* their changes?
I think they've given a lot to the open source community - not as much as they could have, but if they're not redistributing the software, then that's not exactly one of the requirements of the license either. You might fault them for not giving back more than they have, but I'd hardly call them freeloaders.
*shrug* I guess it's just personal opinion.
I've found that nurturing one's Zen nature is vital to dealing with technology. Violence is pretty damn useful too.
"The fact that you seem to believe that Microsoft is the end all and be-all is actually funny in a sad sort of way. Then again, being a good NEA member, you would spout the Union line. Microsoft has pumped tens of millions of dollars into your union. Of course you are going to 'recommend' Microsoft Windows."
As soon as your verbal opponent read that, he stopped listening, and now you have no chance of convincing him you were right.
Mr. Starks missed an opportunity.
Really, I cannot understand why anyone would want to provide a reply to such an email. Some emails should be left unanswered, and this was one of them.
Hey reallocate,
;-)
Sorry there, I shouldn't have called you stupid or insult you.
And while you have some good points, I still have different ones, but I wont call you that again, sorry.
I also get touchy when it comes to Linux
When I assert that Linux isn't Ford, I'm not making a statement about the quality of either product. I'm asserting that Ford is a much, much more better known product.
I haven't been talking about the qualities or virtues or other attributes of Linux.
I have been saying that more people deserve to know about and use Linux, but that Linux has been ill-served by the PR campaign, such as it is, waged by the Linux community for 15 years or so.
This effort typically emphasizes two attributes; the FOSS ideology and free beer nature of Linux. My argument is that neither of those attributes have much appeal to people not already part of the community. (Since Windows is on machines when people buy them, it also appears to be free.)
I used Linux on my desktop for the better part of a decade. (I'm on a Mac now.) I've followed the community closely for almost all those years. The responses in this thread essentially duplicate comments I read 10 years ago. Many members of the Linux community view Linux as a cause, and have made an emotional commitment to it. They apparently see any criticism of it, however positive, as a near-religious attack on their faith.
Linux is a great OS, with still greater potential. The faithful should work to extend its reach by extolling its practical virtues and keeping their mouths shut about the wonders of FOSS. Here's a truism: People who wouldn't recognize source code if it fell on them do not care if their software is open or closed.
Specific suggestions:
1. The interface lacks polish. It looks amateurish, even next to Windows. Those who sell Linux ought to get together and hire some experts to tweak KDE and Gnome until both look like something anyone who spent $2000 on a machine would be proud to use. There is no reason why Linux can't look as good as OS X. It doesn't. It doesn't look as good as Windows. First impressions count, especially in software.
2. Someone needs to write a program that can be run online or from a CD that analyzes a machine and tells the user which hardware components will and will not work with the distribution in question. Nothing kills someone's interest in Linux faster than finding out their printer or their sound card or their wireless card won't work after they've installed Linux. We need a routine that tells users what works and what doesn't before they install. The typical online hardware compatibility lists are useless for those who don't know what's in their hardware, i.e., most people.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
He's posted a response to this and many others.
Very well done and interesting. Pity /. won't post that.
import system.cool.Sig;
I think you're sadly mistaken if you don't think that humans have just as many builtin instincts driving us to cooperate as ants or bees - that's what our emotions are. Sure we're sapient and aren't totally ruled by instinct, but we certainly follow it 99% of the time whether we're aware of it or not...
"When I assert that Linux isn't Ford, I'm not making a statement about the quality of either product. I'm asserting that Ford is a much, much more better known product."
As did I, only about brand recognition and the absence of any real Linux P.R. that can match either
MS or Apple. There is no "Ill served" only under-served; specially insofar as the desktop is concerned.
Most attempts to promote G/L FOSS is thru local LUGS and with limited resources.
I think you're being harsh in your criticisms in that the last 15 years has been mostly about linux
in server-space, not the GUI or I/F.
How the Linux desktop is pitched or whether it can stand up to the other OS's is a matter of debate; but
i have already agreed w/you that it is NOT about Free/libre as much as the quality of the OS and the
apps it runs weighted against the needs of the enduser. So, we concur again, the virtues are practical ones.
As for the interface: I would put my ubuntu box running gnome/E17 up against any Mac OS/X box .... that i need.
anytime. I dont run compiz-fusion any more but it's eyecandy is alluring. Enlightenment suffices
and gives me plenty of desktops, transparency and all the drawers/launchers
That said, most ppl who load someones machine with linux generally fall back on the default
GUI/WM/desktop; and if so, it is pretty lackluster.
As for host dependencies for attached devices: Yes, you are absolutely correct that a borked
install sours the view. But I would argue that 'buntu, fedora, and most all other major distros
have all the drivers most ppl could ask for. Sure there will be exceptions, but the same is true
for windows and mac.
But above is going outside the thread of linux in schools and what it needs to find some measure
of acceptance and is more a birds-eye view of the situation in general.
just my .02
resist propaganda
Could you please notice that? It's not Linux. It's GNU/Linux. (See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html. [gnu.org])