Ignorance and incompetence rule

Many might have seen this already but it was too good to let it pass without a comment. From the Austinist: A teacher in Texas saw a student demonstrating Linux and handing out free Linux operating systems on CD’s. The teacher was shocked, confiscated the discs and asked the student what he was doing. Upon hearing that he was handing out the discs in cooperation with a local Linux group the teacher sent a letter to the group’s contact:

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.

Ignorance and incompetence rule! Even if we give the teacher the friendly interpretation that she is totally ignorant of computers… even then her overreaction takes monster proportions. Not only in her confiscation of the discs but in her letter. I agree “children look up to adults for guidance and discipline” but it is really amazing that she sat down and wrote her letter without taking the trouble to question or learn anything about Linux. It is not enough that she was ignorant of Linux but she is also incompetent in that she could not take the trouble to learn the truth before spouting her opinions and threatening others.

Read the whole thing exchange between the teacher and Linux group here.

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