On Dec 9, 2008, at 12:59 PM, Stephen P Rufle wrote:

> http://digg.com/linux_unix/Linux_Stop_holding_our_kids_back
>
> Interesting article about how a teacher took away Linux disks from a  
> kid
> who was passing them out.

I think the poster took the wrong tone with his reply to that  
teacher.  Things like "you've been trained well" are just calculated  
to insult.  If I were receiving a letter like that, I'd be done  
listening to this guy.  A rant feels good when you write it, but it  
doesn't convince anyone of anything.

The teacher he's addressing obviously not aware of open source and  
what it is, but that's a pretty common thing outside of technology  
communities.  If our attitude towards such people is going to be "You  
are obviously idiots!", I'm afraid we aren't going to advance the  
goals of Free Software very effectively.

It would have made a lot more sense to me to say "I can see why you'd  
be concerned about kids passing around copies of downloaded software,  
since copying things like Word is definitely illegal.  But there's a  
whole world of software that doesn't work that way, and Linux is from  
that world.  Let me show you how that can benefit your students..."

alex