I Knew This Was a Bad Week to Stop Drinking. . .

I know we've had a lot of stories (read "rants") about stupid users or not-so-clever family members doing strange things with their computers, but I think this story truly shows the depths of how the road to hell really is paved with good intentions:
Austin teacher threatens to sic cops on Linux group because "No software is free"

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Comments

dynamik

Yea, I believe I saw that on /. earlier. Did you go through to his full response? It made the entire story worth it: http://tinyurl.com/5bxczy

rubberToe

Funny, I came across that today as well. Maybe it was good Ol' StumbleUpon. Probably.

That guy would mess himself to know most web servers, corporate backends, Hollywood (effects rendering), portable electronics, VMware ESX etc etc are all powered by Linux or FreeBSD.

skrpune

wow. I mean...wow. And these are the people teaching our children?

astorrs

rubberToe wrote:

VMware ESX etc etc are all powered by Linux or FreeBSD.

No it's not.

Sorry I have to jump on this every time I see it... must stop that misconception too.

Oh and you've got to love these kinds of fights. I want to be a fly on the wall at that meeting with the superintendent.

dynamik

To be fair, it's running a modified version of RHEL 3, right? I think he was just saying that Linux has lead to some cool products.

I heard they were moving away from that though. Will that be gone in v4?

Devin McCloud

I am going to go against the grain and call bs on this one! I mean I like linux to, but this looks like pure propaganda story BS. One of those story with out links to the school or reference that gets every linux fanboy all rilled up and ready to comment. Come on, do you really believe this story? My Aunt teaches in Texas and they use all Mac computers. Sure maybe in Austin...they use Windows but this has fake written all over it. It reminds me of the same propaganda Mac uses to promote it's pc's!

Darthn3ss

RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

msteinhilber

Devin McCloud wrote:

I am going to go against the grain and call bs on this one! I mean I like linux to, but this looks like pure propaganda story BS. One of those story with out links to the school or reference that gets every linux fanboy all rilled up and ready to comment. Come on, do you really believe this story? My Aunt teaches in Texas and they use all Mac computers. Sure maybe in Austin...they use Windows but this has fake written all over it. It reminds me of the same propaganda Mac uses to promote it's pc's!

I doubt it's fake. If it is, the author did fairly good at researching the area and nailed the abbreviation of the district which there is a Karen who works at a middle school there. There isn't much about this to me that has fake written all over it. The individual has a seemingly credible blog with a lengthy and active history with posts highlighting various things occuring in Texas. I don't doubt the story one bit, more than likely the teacher was just misinformed about FOSS truly being free and genuinely thought the student was condoning piracy. Then because of her misinformation and apparent strong feelings that any alternative to Windows would be detrimental to the student, she went and fired off a letter and let her emotions fly. Many teachers are very passionate about their jobs, so she probably does genuinely want her students to prosper, which probably added to her emotion she used in writing the letter.

(misinformation + presumptions) * emotion = teachers letter

maumercado

Im looking forward to hear the conclusion on this one...

dynamik

Given he is the owner of a company, I find it hard to believe that he would fabricate such a story. That would easily do more harm than good. I'd be more skeptical if it was from an anonymous source.

http://www.fixedbylinux.com/about

I thought I recognized a similar story. It might be the same guy. The site is down, but Google's cache caught it.

astorrs

dynamik wrote:

To be fair, it's running a modified version of RHEL 3, right? I think he was just saying that Linux has lead to some cool products.

I heard they were moving away from that though. Will that be gone in v4?

You need to finish that I&C coursebook. The service console is based on RHEL3, but ESX itself was written from scratch. Remember the SC is nothing more than a very privileged VM (and it handles booting but then swaps out like Netware did). There is no SC in ESXi, but ESX (with the SC) isn't going away until VI 5 probably and you'll still be able to choose between the two hypervisors.

dynamik

Thanks

Back on track, here's the follow-up: http://tinyurl.com/6kxalm

gorebrush

"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.

"

LOL at this statement.

Kaminsky

gdam! ..

Like I've always said ... no good can come from *nix ! ... <just kiddin.. really ... oi! ...stop pinging me!! ... ok.. ok.. awk and sed are my best friends (I'm not conceeding to vi though however much you torture me)>

[must write down these links as my own 3 kids go through school for when I encounter the same - and rather than go thump their IT teacher (those that can do .. Those that can't.. teach ... principal) I can send em these links]

However,
Really sorry but (bold and underline) ABSOLUTELY no sympathy with this teacher at all, however smacked ar$e mousey she wants to be.... I seriously object to ignorance teaching our kids <especially mine> ... strongly ! Teachers have 35 hours a week of our kids lives completely at their whim !

Teachers have no choice but to keep up with technology. IT or otherwise. The days of being glorified child minders and going home at 5pm with a great holiday in the summer are long gone... The days of sticking your kid in a school, waiting till their 16 and then starting to teach them something usefull are very long gone. We expect them to be taught for what they will walk into when they are 16 even though mine are still only 6, 8 & 9 right now. As parents, we simply will not accept anything less.

Surely we should cut them a break .... but ... with so many other preassures in each of our own lives, teachers do make a very easy target to vent on !