Teacher accuses student using linux of copyright infringement!

[bradl]

I was referring to professional tech support. Who do you call when you have linux, a forum?

RedHat 24x7 Support.
SuSE 24x7 Support

Just for starters. You'll find that most software distributions, should you pay for them, offer professional technical support for a subscriber price, or for the duration of time the distribution is supported.

Some of the software you pushed up there is what I'd call unacceptable for the task, namely gimp and open office. But I don't really want to get into it, I want to go get my macbook pro and a new hdmi cable.

To each his own, but you can not deny that your belief that there isn't any software equal to the software you buy, just because you bought it.

I honestly wonder if you've used the Gimp or Open Office? Especially O, seeing that it is more standards compliant than MS Office?

What I find particularly funny is that people think that computers have to be handed to them on a silver platter and expect them to work without any sort of education on them. And when you have to learn something on how they can be used, people don't like it. It really shows how.. well.. dumb people really are. No implication that you're dumb, don't get me wrong..

BL.

 

[Brien]

What if the kid was using a Mac? Would she have reprimanded him for 'not using Windows' as well?

Grow up (the teacher, not the students).

 

[Aea]

Not to derail this thread further but "standards compliant" means nothing when the "non standard" has 95% market share. It's reasonable to discuss for browsers as Microsoft is slowly losing market share, it's not reasonable to discuss it for other software where the "standard" isn't really a "standard," it just aspires to be one.

 

[bradl]

Not to derail this thread further but "standards compliant" means nothing when the "non standard" has 95% market share. It's reasonable to discuss for browsers as Microsoft is slowly losing market share, it's not reasonable to discuss it for other software where the "standard" isn't really a "standard," it just aspires to be one.

But that's the funny thing. the ISO standard that was submitted and approved, was Microsoft's own standard (OOXML), which they aren't compliant with. They finally are becoming that with Office 2007, and will be with Office 14.

BL.

 

[drichards]

I honestly wonder if you've used the Gimp or Open Office? Especially O, seeing that it is more standards compliant than MS Office?

I've used the gimp, if you can call it using it. More like fighting it. Its unintuitive and in my opinion is about as remarkable as Paint.net is for windows, but with an awkward install and an even less useful interface. And as for open office, I've used it and the star office that came before it, and never did it manage to display my documents in a satisfactory manner. I'm openly not a fan of alot of software that people tend to hold onto on the internet because its freely available open source. I could care less if software is open or closed, I just want it to be consistent, and unannoying. Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, Autodesk, and so on; industry leaders are so for good reason.

 

[bradl]

I've used the gimp, if you can call it using it. More like fighting it. Its unintuitive and in my opinion is about as remarkable as Paint.net is for windows, but with an awkward install and an even less useful interface. And as for open office, I've used it and the star office that came before it, and never did it manage to display my documents in a satisfactory manner. I'm openly not a fan of alot of software that people tend to hold onto on the internet because its freely available open source. I could care less if software is open or closed, I just want it to be consistent, and unannoying. Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, Autodesk, and so on; industry leaders are so for good reason.

You may want to try them again now, especially those alternatives that are out there. You will find that they definitely match and on some cases exceed the 'industry leaders'. What is funny is that the UI for most to all of them is pretty much the same. The GIMP is the same. O is the same. Acrobat and Flash are the same.

But I guess if it doesn't have a Brand name attached to it, people won't like it..

BL.

 

[drichards]

When my industry starts using the gimp as its standard, I'll look at it again. Any day now I'm sure...

 

[bradl]

When my industry starts using the gimp as its standard, I'll look at it again. Any day now I'm sure...

Lessee.. Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, Warner Brothers... Highly used in the Film and computer animation industry. All 3 Shrek movies were made with it, IIRC.

BL.

 

[sushi]

Major FAIL!

Yep!

Nice. Someone deserves a smack-in-the-face.

A reality check, that much is certain.

Hard to believe that this story is true.

Guess the saying is true then, some teachers teach, because they cannot do.

I hate that saying, but in reality it is true sometimes.

That's pretty funny.

Funny as unbelievable.

But not funny when you have to deal with people like this.

Wow, the level of stupidity and arrogance held by that teacher astounds me...

People can't help their own ignorance. What pisses me off is when they attempt to talk about something they have absolutely no knowledge on.

Agree.

That was beautiful. Wait until her name gets out there.

That will be interesting to see.

There's nothing wrong in believing that software shouldn't be free, there's nothing wrong with not knowing that linux is an open source project, hell there's nothing wrong with not knowing what open source is.

Disagree with you in this day and age.

But understand your point.

But, there is a problem with being so unbelievably arrogant and having such a high belief in your sense of truth that you can't be bothered to even try and get at the truth. If this teacher was totally computer illiterate but had decided even to dedicate a few minutes to learning about what she confiscated this problem wouldn't exist. But no, she decides to write an offensively if somewhat politely worded libelous letter. And her job is to teach children to think, oh dear.

Agree.

My brother's friend is in the IT dept at AISD. I'll see what he has to say about all of this.

Waiting...(if you can share.)

Today's Linux distro (I like Ubuntu) have installers that makes it a breeze to set up.

Ubuntu is pretty nice these days. Definitely improved over the past couple of years.

Digging into the guts still requires one to be steep in Unix lore though.

That's true with any OS. It can get a bit complicated under the hood.

Support, eh? Let's go into that.

Scanners.
Printers.

Video drivers:
nVidia, ATI. All other cards are Native, or supported through X.org.
Multiple monitors? Once again, supported through X.org.

USB is native. Other peripherals are native. the only thing that isn't supported are Windows-based Software modems. iPhones/iPods are even supported under Linux.

Software: MS Office? bah. Open Office.
Photoshop? heh. The GIMP.

Audio/Video? Amarok, XMMS, VLC Media Player, Xine, among MANY others.

Communications? Pidgin, various other ICQ/AIM clients, Skype.

Browsers? Konquerer. Firefox. Opera. Links. Lynx. Among others.

Mail? Mutt. Elm. Pine. Seamonkey. Thunderbird. Among many others.

Installation? All graphical (save Slackware), and actually can be done remotely and hands-free.

There's a lot of things that Linux supports and does that Windows and OS X does NOT do, so you may want to do a bit more research into what it can and can't do before saying that it is a joke. You'll be surprised.

Also, just because software can be bought, does not mean that it is better.

Nice!

I call schinanigans. I seriously doubt this was actual letter written by an actual teacher. Teachers who care enough to write letters like this care enough to be educated on the subject. If further researched this letter will turn out to be bogus.

Please telll us what you find out.

You may want to try them again now, especially those alternatives that are out there.

Yep, the open source community is constantly making things better in the Linux community. Most Linux installs have greatly improved in the past few years.

 

[dmw007]

All I can say is wow, that teacher is off her rocker - too much MS Koolaid perhaps?

The reply from Ken Starks to her letter is great!

 

[aznguyen316]

Linux: stop holding our kids back

http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our-kids-back.html

"...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
AISD

I guess this is what good has come from M$ marketing eh? Idiot teacher.

 

[P-Worm]

Software: MS Office? bah. Open Office.
Photoshop? heh. The GIMP.

Are you serious? Neither of those replacements are even in the ballpark of being better than Office or Photoshop. Especially Photoshop. To say they are close to one another is just ignorance.

P-Worm

 

[shady825]

"putting on a carnival show for an operating system" HAHA what a idiot

 

[GSMiller]

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.

*Sigh*

That is exactly the problem with the computer industry today. And people have the audacity to call us Mac users sheeple!

 

[toolbox]

I think this person needs to be admitted to the ********s anonymous clinic

 

[No1451]

Are you serious? Neither of those replacements are even in the ballpark of being better than Office or Photoshop. Especially Photoshop. To say they are close to one another is just ignorance.

P-Worm

Dunno, I prefer Open Office to MS Office, I use it on all my machines. It also helps that I need to save as much money as I can to pay for food/school, free wins my heart 4/5 times.

 

[pilotError]

Linux geeks aren't always very user friendly themselves. Apache runs a server really well. That's linux's forte. Are there better server systems? I'd say yes, but those options are often more costly and not actually necessary. If people had to pay a $100-200 licensing fee per unit for linux like most other operating systems, I can't imagine many people would choose it.

Your seriously misinformed about the server side. Only the smaller shops download Linux and do the installs. The larger shops pay for support from folks like Red Hat and a bunch of others. Linux isn't any cheaper overall than any other OS. You still have to retain talent, pay for support and manage licenses same as any other OS.

Linux is good for about 90% of all datacenter use. There are other OS's that are better in certain situations, but Linux is pretty tough to beat.

As a desktop replacement, it can be done, but still with too much pain for the average user. Linux has made HUGE improvements over the last couple of years though.

Its going to take a lot to overcome that Microsoft Mindshare. The Linux folks are still plugging away though!

 

[rdowns]

I think this person needs to be admitted to the ********s anonymous clinic

An entry in dickipedia would suffice.

 

[x86isslow]

My brother's friend is in the IT dept at AISD. I'll see what he has to say about all of this.

How did you narrow it down?

 

[rdowns]

How did you narrow it down?

Perhaps from this sentence form the linked article.

A teacher (from Austin, TX) came to students and confiscated the Linux Live CDs. Next, she wrote an angry email to HeliOS's project founder, Ken Starks:

 

[question fear]

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.

Someone should tell her the Linux that's available now is MUCH more powerful than the Linux she and her friends experimented with in college...

 

[ErikCLDR]

I didn't think the response letter was very professional.

 

[chilipie]

Someone should tell her the Linux that's available now is MUCH more powerful than the Linux she and her friends experimented with in college...

She used Linux in sun, she used Linux in rain, she used Linux in snow... but she did not in hail.

 

[xUKHCx]

Attention grabbing thread title doesn't really represent the whole story.

Of course the entire story is quite a long one and I doubt many people will read the entire thing (before replying/at all) but the final reply is worth reading.

The student did get his Linux disks back after the class. The lad was being disruptive, but that wasn't mentioned. Neither was the obvious fact that when she saw a gaggle of giggling 8th grade boys gathered around a laptop, the last thing she expected to see on that screen was a spinning cube.

She didn't know what was on those disks he was handing out. It could have been porn, viral .exe's...any number of things. When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling. Couple this with the fact that she truly was ignorant of honest-to-goodness free software, and you have some fairly impressive conclusion-jumping.

In a couple of ways, I am guilty of it too.

There isn't any amount of money I will accept to throw a human being into that cement mixer.

The fact that I did it to a profession is bad enough.

All Righty Then

 

[sushi]

Attention grabbing thread title doesn't really represent the whole story.

True.

Glad to see that he didn't feed her to the wolves.