..those who can't, teach.
Ok, a slightly provocative title there, I'm sorry. But I have to rant a little about a story I've come across. Bascially, a teacher in Texas reprimanded a pupil for handing out CDs containing a distribution of Linux. She then emailed the distro's founder to complain. The email contained gems like...
At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.
..and..
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.
It's at times like these that I'm glad our daugher uses both OS X and WinXP and is already aware of the concept of choice.
Full text, and reponse here: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our-kids-back.html
Flame bait taken: I would like to redress the balance as a Linux SA and an ex IT teacher*.
You can draw what conclusions you like from the past tense of that statement, however, not everyone in education is backward.
However, I ran into a lot of "we need to be teaching M$, these are all we can support, these are the skills that are needed". Sure. Hell - lets skip binary, Bakus-Naur Form, Polymorphism as well as hell, we don't need programmers/admins ?
I think what is most important here, is someone was spreading the word, a small person... not that ignorance was getting in the way.
Preaching / Converted / Choir / Singing / Page / Reading - but do these people know that the only real foothold/credibility the not OS mighty M$ has is in the end users?
Choice is free. Use it. Get an opinion. Get a life.
* I know its meant to be ICT, but its only ever called that in education, and it's 'La-hame'. I was also the ONLY ICT teacher in the borough with a background and qualification in a computing related subject... go figure.
Whilst yes I admit that my rather sensationalist title there suggests I'm directing my angst at the teacher involved, I'm more than aware that the issue lies further up the chain of command.
Luckily I've seen other examples (in a large local police force, for example) where the attitude is more or less the opposite and they use non Microsoft where possible, and only use it if there's no viable alternative.
It's just worrying that teachers like the one in the story are affecting the attitudes of numerous students based on their own limited domain knowledge and not, I suspect, the national curriculum.
That link and the quoted text sent me into chuckling mode, I always remember the heated debates in so call ICT about which OS is better, most people for windows had never tried anything else or say they did but when you ask for a valid reason why they don't like say OsX they just say because i don't.
On one of my many visits to the bank i have seen behind some of the door the atm's are kept behind with them having a nice LCD screen sitting on the back that the workman is working from with the nice standard installed WinXP desktop sitting there you know the one with the fields.
Also in the many reboots that i have seen at b&q where i am currently working the tills are currently running off a version of linux i believe it to be SUSE, as you see the nice Novell splash appear before the transaction software opens.
Hmm i see it as strange that banks trust XP to count out our money for us, and most businesses prefer Linux to take it off people, what a topsy turvy world, i'm pretty sure Microsoft could make a better piece of software for taking people's money oww wait isn't that vista? "Ba Dum Dum Tish"
I guess I need to adjust my spam filter to look for dodgy jokes as well :-)
I suspect the reason for ATMs using Windows has more to do with Microsoft's huge marketing budget than it does with XPs suitability to the task. As a quick Google will show, there are many many examples of comedy blue screen appearances. (More recently at the Beijing Olympic closing ceremony.)
There isn't a logical reason for doing it, so it must be either politically or 'old boy network' driven.