I know quite a few of you adore Linux, so when Canadian Cynic linked to this, I knew I had to share. Hope you’ve had your blood pressure medication today:
This blog is momentarily interrupted to bring you a snippet of recently received email.
“…observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a confrence with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization. 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. 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. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting linux on these machines is holding our kids back.
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 verison of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them…”
Karen xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx Middle School
AISDHmmmm….
I suppose I should, before anything else, thank you. You have given me the opportunity to show others just what a battle we face in what we do. “We” being those who advocate, support and use Free Open Source Software and Linux in particular.
If you find my following words terse or less than cordial, take a breath and prepare yourself…what I have to say to you are soft strokes to your hair in comparison to what you are about to experience.
Head on over and enjoy the spanking. I’m just going to sit back here and enjoy the entertaining mental image of young geeks dealing open source software from street corners.