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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.
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.
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.
"What none sense;"
I have to ask, was this a joke?
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.
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.
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?
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 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.
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!
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.
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/
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
Now how did I end up replying to the worng article *smack*
Time for more coffee...
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
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
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"
Your point applies to why the students should not be allowed to simply wipe Windows off the school computers and replace it with Linux, without permission from the school authorities responsible for managing the computers. Demonstrating that Linux is fully capable of running from a Live CD/DVD by booting that disk on a school PC may even be a policy violation (if the school authorities were smart enough to realize such a thing could even be done, which I highly doubt).
Mere possession of such disks by a student is in no way the kind of wrong thing the teacher makes it out to be.
If the teacher didn't want the student doing what he did, she should have told him (even if making it up on the fly) that school policy does not permit running an operating system on school computers that is not authorized by the school, and then told him he is not allowed to put those disks in the computer in the future. If she's wise (which I highly doubt), she would extend that dictate to cover USB keys and other external storage devices.
Instead, she confiscated the disks as if they were some form of piracy. I hope the kid's parents sue her and the AISD if she fails to give them back soon. In the mean time, as soon as we can track down this kid, or any of his friends, I'm sure he will get plenty of replacements.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
When I arrived at university, the computer society ran a small network with around half a dozen ancient Sun (SPARC32) workstations running as dumb X servers, all connecting to the same server. Unless you were running 3D stuff or video, they were fast enough - and they were all running over the same 10Mb/s network segment (no switch). Old Pentium-class systems are more than powerful enough to act as dumb X servers, and the average modern computer can drive quite a few of these. We added a couple of 1GHz Athlons a year later and made each of these drive two others. This is a great way of extending the life of some older systems.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
... 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/
... 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?"
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!!!
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.
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.
Considering that we killed more people firebombing Tokyo than we did with both atom bombs, and the firebombing of Tokyo didn't convince Japan to surrender, I doubt that using the atom bomb in the desert would have accomplished much.
Especially given that we had only the two bombs. Blow one off in a nice, symbolic way, and we only have one left. If the Japanese look at our nice symbolic gesture and ignore it (the way they did the firebombing of Tokyo), then we're left with popping our last bomb on a single city, and hoping that that convinces them (while doing less damage than the firebombing of Tokyo did).
After that, of course, we invade. Which results in hundreds of thousands of American dead, and millions of Japanese dead. Lose, lose, if you ask me.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
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.
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
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.***
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
-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
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?
Trinity was a plutonium-implosion device, just like Fat Man that destroyed Nagasaki. So that one was already tested.
It was Little Boy, the uranium gun-type device, that was untested. The physicists thought they knew the physics so well, and the mechanism was so straight-forward, that there was no need for a test.
There is a theory that Japan surrendered because they were faced with invasion from the USSR. Add a few more million Japanese dead to the above expected consequences of a US invasion plus a nastier occupation and you'll see why some historians think that way. In school I was taught it was the bomb and didn't even know the USSR was preparing to invade but it looks a bit more complex than just the bomb.
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.
...has my vote for the next net.bozo catchphrase.