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Linux - Stop holding our kids back

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49 pointspossiblemat28 comments

Is this real? Or did someone make it up to generate a strawman argument?

I'm willing to bet it's a stawman argument. I've read a few letters in the past with a similar tone and I do believe some of them are real. There is a level of ignorance where even in my IT shop at work they think I'm pirating MySQL and want me to port anything that runs on a lamp stack to Microsoft Windows.

You'd be surprised at how stupid people can be. Every time you say "but no-one could be that dumb", someone somewhere will prove you wrong.

This must be made up, because the person admits to trying out Linux then goes on a ridiculously over the top pro Microsoft slant (without argumentation). Somebody so clueless wouldn't even know (if) they tried out Linux in college...

Two possibilities come to mind: Satire, as mentioned by other people, or the original teacher is lying about having used Linux. As anybody who has been around on the internet (or BBS or Usenet or...) for a while has learned, some people take a very scorched-earth approach to argumentation, and if lying about having tried Linux bolsters the argument, in it goes, regardless of whether it's true. (Maybe.)

...some people take a very scorched-earth approach to argumentation, and if lying about having tried Linux bolsters the argument, in it goes, regardless of whether it's true.

I find this idea onerous, though I strongly suspect it's true.

I wonder if someone could start a public forum that's a "Truth Zone?" Is it even possible? Wikipedia works well enough. Maybe their techniques would enable this?

It's also possible that the she was forced to use Unix in college. As she is not a techie, and probably wouldn't pay a very large amount of attention to the details, mixed the two up.

The way I read it she had to use the command line when she was in college, and thinks the GUI is "stolen" from Windows. (Hence the concern about legality)

Somebody that clueless would probably confuse telnetting into a Unix box and checking their email with PINE (common in colleges before webmail) with "trying Linux" in college.

From the comments section

Well, I am a school teacher in the Austin Independent School District and while I don't know any "Karen", I am intimately familiar with the rhetoric and attitude. The author here is uncomfortably close to knowing what he's talking about when he speaks of the NEA. We are "encouraged strongly" to discourage the use of anything other than Microsoft products in the school district and between the Tech folks fearing for their jobs and the ignorance of all the "Karens" I deal with daily, it's a wonder the boy wasn't publicly flogged.

I have been trying to get our school district to use Linux for 3 years and I've been told that I am to desist with this quest if I want to keep my job.

Those who questioned the email's authenticity owe him(?) an apology. Of course as I peruse the comments of the sort, I note with a wry smile that you don't have the courage to sign your name to it.

Cowardice is easy. I wish this author well.

Tim Daily

There is no "Tim Daily" that is employed by the AISD.

http://www.austinisd.org/inside/directory/index.phtml?alpha=...

Hey, maybe it's all made up and someone on the Linux side is going nuts trying to make that school system look bad. I don't know.

Now there isn't ;-)

There are 3 Karens...

Yeah, the whole thing seems a little pat.

Plus a real world response would be more along the lines of "I'd like to meet with you to allay some of your concerns regarding free software."; most definitely not the "Super Flame Powers Ignite" response he claims to have sent.

I believe it. I had a computer science faculty member tell me that Linux had no GUI and therefore was not recommended for most uses. This was about 3 years ago.

This is very, very old satire. If this really is a recently received email, then the person who responded got punkd. I'm gonna go see if I can located the oldest such letter.

Balanced updates:

http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/aust...

I can understand the subtle anger in the response... but belittling someone is not the way to win new converts.

conversely, i've seen worse responses

Old:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22called+a+confrence+with+th...

Did I miss something? There are 2 parts, one which is pro microsoft and then a defense post which is pro Linux...right?

TRS-80 was good enough for me, should be fine for today's kids.

Wow, Karen is an embarrassment to society.

Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college...

Anyone else hear a tone alike one admitting to past drug use?

Hey, it was college. Everybody experiments. I used to swing both ways... dual booting that is.

What does it say about your sexuality if you also had BeOS on there? I hope my wife doesn't read HN.

When I read that, I knew this was just some dated satire.

It was sort of amusing 5 years ago, but now it's just "hyuk hyuk authoritarian teachers who don't know anything hyuk hyuk".

That line alone tweaks my fake-o-meter the most...

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