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Re: [LUG] The teacher / Linux does not exist story

 

On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 11:08 +0000, Julian Hall wrote:
> Henry Bremridge wrote:
> > couple of extra articles that give some background to the story. Not quite sure 
> > what the truth is
> >
> > http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/digitalsavant/entries/2008/12/11/breaking_local.html
> >
> > Quote
> >
> > Now, Starks says he regrets the whole incident. "I don't think I've ever 
> > committed one act       that made me feel like such a schmuck," he said in a 
> > phone interview with the                    American-Statesman today.            
> >                                                             
> >
> > "Starks says he has spoken with the teacher twice since his Monday post and that 
> > "Karen" was      crying when they spoke. What she failed to mention in her 
> > initial e-mail, he says, is that she   gave the Linux discs back to the student 
> > and was more concerned that there might be              pornography or other 
> > suspect material on the discs than about a non-Windows operating system   being 
> > introduced in the classroom."
> >
> > "Nevertheless, there's a bit of a silver lining in the story of how an angry 
> > e-mail could rile the entire Linux world: on Saturday, Starks says, he has been 
> > invited to install the Linux       operating system on Karen's home computer. "
> To me there are two ways of looking at this;
> 
> 1.  'Karen' is a teacher who is incapable of expressing herself clearly 
> in writing.  Note her original email didn't even *hint* at pornography.  
> That doesn't make her look good.
> 
> 2.  'Karen' realises she stirred up a hornet's nest and is now trying to 
> find an excuse for her original actions that is acceptable to the 
> masses.  Claiming she was worried about pornography in the classroom is 
> one such excuse.  Having said *that* she is therefore accusing Starks' 
> kid of potentially distributing pornography.  The words 'frying pan' and 
> 'fire' spring to mind.
> 
> It surprises me also that *if* as claimed there are 12,000 non-Windows 
> computers in her district's education department (assuming either MacOS 
> or Linux), how can 'Karen' be so ignorant about the nature of what Linux is?
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Julian
> 

"Karen" may well be a first class drongo. But we cannot know on the
basis of someone else's blog what she actually said. Unless we have full
access to the exchange I don't think you can be justified in drawing the
inferences above. I very much doubt she feels anything like the above. I
would imagine that to her, like 99.9% of the planets population,
arguments about software licences mean less than nothing.

A hornets nest, excuse for the masses.. I don't think so. I would
imagine she knows nothing about all this frantic keyboard bashing.

As a non techy person why should she care what the servers in her school
district run. Why would she know about software apps that don't inpact
her. Why should she even be expected to know what OS they run on even if
she does access them. To most people this stuff is a matter of profound
indifference.

S


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