So, after listening to people gripe about this story today, and yesterday, on IRC in email, on various blogs, where Mr Starks was talking about an email he received, I got to thinking. Just to give you context if you don't know what I am on about, click here. People all around planet Earth are chatting about this story, online, in blogs, IRC . . . even over at UDS I heard it mentioned. Firstly, is it really a story? I don't think so.
What it is it seems to me to be happening here is a piece of off the wall publication. Rather than engage with someone who appears to have made a mistake of a pretty high order, of the receiver, the receivers actions, and where the receiver is within the FLOSS camp, the receiver of the mail published it. This is in my books, bad form and very unnecessary. What should have been done? Perhaps, something as simple as a telephone call, asking any of the following: Ask the person did they believe they were right, and explain Microsoft are selling GNU/linux "seats" these days. Ask the person did they believe they were right, and explain to them what IBM are doing these days with their desktop offering. Ask the person them to ask someone who is sitting there with their ASUS eee pc running GNU/Linux. Or ask them to ask the child with a machine from the OLPC project running Sugar. Instead, in its place what we find is that the site vilified the person who made a judgement call about something which did not hold to be true. In my opinion it this would have been smarter. To be told the receiver sent a copy or several of various FLOSS journals with with a few sample live CDs, and followed it up with an offer to demonstrate and install GNU/Linux for "Karen", and in fact I hope it is not the teachers right name. (In fact I really hope it did not actually happen.) Reader numbers for this story would have been a lot lower. So was it a good thing? No, I think not. What we have here is a failure to communicate with someone who does not know what we in the FLOSS community have to offer. So the next time someone does not "get" FLOSS, don't bother to explode, when you tell someone they are wrong the first thing they do is put up their back. Firstly I would urge you to do it better, simply because you can. When others don't get FLOSS, don't get mad, instead treat it as a challenge and ask them simple questions, such as have they ever thought why you have to secure certain operating systems with third party software? Did they know your favourite desktop KDE/GNOME/FVWM or whatever one you run on your GNU/Linux or *BSD desktop does not need these clock cycle hungry? The simple point to explain all this is, not all software is built the same, but I suspect it is. Did they know with FLOSS you don't face silly artificial limits, physics is the main limit of your software? Where limits exist it is not on the number of users or the amount of queries they can perform on a database. Did they know if they wanted to they could have the source code even if they don't use it, and with it they can learn how things work, they can share it with their neighbour, they can run it for any purpose again no silly limits, they can alter it to improve it and share that work too? When they reply they didn't, perhaps you should offer them a live CD and explain that you can install it for them if they want. So they have two weeks to play with it and you will work together with them and help them over the finish line. Welcome them to the community, start working on the next person. |
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Nuh
Karen's attitude is what the problem is here. Her's was full of bile and needed to be shut down. It was.
Next up is her raving ignorance -- Karen may yet serve as the beacon for adoption. This happening is not in a vacuume, it happens all of the time. People spout off when they should be listening instead. Maybe this happening's timing is perfect and the rest of the world can really begin to get curious about Linux and Open Source.
We'll see.
Helios and Karen seem to be
Helios and Karen seem to be equally matched morons. they are both full of the bile you mention, and similarly willing to rant about things they don't understand. Unfortunately, I don't think Karen will be moron enough to continue this rant. I love to see people make fools of themselves in public.
Helios handled it perfectly
ompaul,
Your post is useless because you missed the key point of Ken's blog. Ken didn't and never intended to attack Karen personally. Haven't you noticed that his blog was solely and specifically intended to expose the mentality and mis-perception about FLOSS? I guess we all know who is funding this devious sleazy marketing machine that is creating this mis-perception about FLOSS? don't we?
By publishing Karen's e-mail, Ken opened a whole new communication channel with her and many others in the public education organizations that have similar attitude towards FLOSS, according to many who posted about their experiences.
Please get a clue.
-Abe
First blood and other arguments
Against my better judgement, I am finding it hard to not comment on this story, so I've decided to enter the fray with my own post.
A teaser . . .
So, here's my take on this, and maybe this makes me a bad person. Who knows? But . . . Karen, if that is her name, fired the first volley. She attacked Ken Starks and threatened him with legal action. She attacked his integrity and labeled him a criminal. I don't know Mr. Starks other than through his postings and some of his efforts to promote Linux (e.g. the Linux Indy 500 car). I can't and won't speak of his character beyond what shows up in print. All I can say for sure is that he appears to be a man who is passionate about his beliefs regarding Linux and FOSS and is willing to stick his neck on the line for those beliefs.
Enter Karen. She witnesses an event that she interprets as potentially illegal, largely due to her ignorance on the subject. Ignorance in and of itself isn't a crime, but it can lead you to criminal behavior if you aren't careful. Upon seizing the disks, she makes to attempt to discover if her student is telling the truth. She doesn't check into the license that covers the software the student is handing out. She assumes he is lying and that he is stealing. She acts entirely out of ignorance. Her first attack is upon her student's integrity. The she turns her sights on Mr. Starks and attacks his integrity while threatening legal action.
If you are curious, check out First Blood and Other Arguments.
-- Marcel (Writer and Free Thinker at Large) Gagné
Missed point.
I believe you are missing sevearl key points about Helios original post. the first and most obvious is that is was not a news story at all, but an entry ona public journal to keep fans and supports of the Helios Project informed. Second, the letter needed to be published for 4 reasons. Specifically 3 falsehoods that the MS PR engine has attempted to drive home, and in this case been successful.
1) MS loves its customers.
From the original letter,"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..". This is a multilevel falsehood, first how does giving kids a free fully functional computer, in the civilized world not help them? The real danger in this statement though is the assumption that MS would ever give away it's old software for free. For that matter, the idea of using older versions, and now unsupported by MS on computers to be used by computer neophytes borders on criminal negligence. Older unsupported versions of Windows on the net are botnet drones, waiting to happen.
2) There is no legal free software.
"No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful", is the dangerous misconpetion and is strongly propagated by both MS and Apple. The fact that this statement is patently false in the face of both freeware and FOSS software, did not stop the original writer from using it to threaten legal action.
3) Linux is incapable
The original letter writer believed that becuase she tried some version of Linux in her college days, and that the MS hype machine continues to push this message, that is it clearly incapable of providing a truely functional computing environment.
The 4th point is one that you yourself unwittingly drive home. A significant number of community members, including yourself, find it very difficult to believe such a person as "Karen" actually exists. That is a very real danger to the community, if it ever wants to be excepted in to the mainstream computing world.
The fact that "Karen" has not been identified, nor has been directly contacted by any community member other than Helios, whom she contacted first, undercuts most of the arguements against Helios having posted it on his personal blog. The fadct that peoples reaction to her ignorance drove her to educate herself resulted in a net gain for all involved, if painfully gained.
Finally to the Aonymous poster commenting about "big guns", "Karen" was the only one to bring out big guns in the whole discourse between her and Helios and she did it in the opening letter.
Evan
Speaking of missing points--
Speaking of missing points-- apparently you missed Ken's apology,where he acknowledged that going public without trying to work it out privately first was a mistake. You missed the part where he acknowledged not doing his homework, and then later learning that the school district actually uses quite a bit of Open Source software. You missed his point about how making assumptions instead of getting informed first makes what he did, and everyone who is calling karen everything but human, just as bad as what she did. actually worse, because she did not make a big public fuss.
You also missed all the good points in ompaul's article.
"that is was not a news story at all, but an entry ona public journal"... I'm sorry, but that is naive---once it's on the Internet it's fair game. Which is no excuse for the huge uproar and all the thousands of people calling for karen's head on a platter. This is a very sad exhibition of the nasty side of people.
Hey Karen, welcome to (hell control W) the community
I had to edit this in a hurry. Ok go to
http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/
"Character-Assination-aint-us
Terrible thing to do!
Totally agreed. This whole incident was sickening, so much vitriol and hate! What are all you vicious little freedom fighters going to do when it's actually something serious? You've already exhausted your credibility and you already fired your big guns. No rational person will listen to you. Shame shame shame.
As if your post did anything different?
Your name calling, "freedom fighter" is tantamount to call the Linux person/s "terrorists".
In the context of the USA, "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter" makes these words interchangable, that is, PC. The rest of your post is the context that proves you meant this "...terrorist...free fighter..." connection.
Your post also does not take into account that "Karen", the teacher has declared the blogger a criminal. That is, his distributing Linux is illegal. She has accused him of a crime. It is not some conversation between friends or colleagues, but a statement of criminality from a Government Official! This is a serious accusation. The blogger, a private citizen, is well within his rights to take steps to protect his reputation and to counteract this accusation from a Publis/Government Official.
You ignorance of the situation, in my opinion, makes YOU a Micro$oft shill.
now that is funny
ompaul works for microsoft hahahaha
Agreed, we need to help those
Agreed, we need to help those unaware of the freedom available for them, not scold them.
Pingback
I think the real point in
I think the real point in this story isn't who is right or wrong, who attacked whom or who misrepresented whom. When I read the bit of info out to my friends, we ended up with a round table discussion about what we should be doing to give people the Linux opportunity - I think that should be the point.
I'm not talking evangelizing, neither am I talking about massive windows to linux conversions. I'm talking about looking around, and finding something you can do to help - show a friend how to rescue data from that crashed windows installation, take some time to answer n00b threads on your favourite forum, or start a computer club at your local school/community centre (that last one is the one I'm keen on doing).
"I'm talking about looking
"I'm talking about looking around, and finding something you can do to help - show a friend how to rescue data from that crashed windows installation, take some time to answer n00b threads on your favourite forum, or start a computer club at your local school/community centre"
...
or donate money to the FSF, and ask them to run an international TV ad spoofing MS's "I'm a PC" spoof of Apple's "I'm a Mac" campaign.
Yes, MS's ad is a (fairly amusing) response to Apple. But honestly I think the humour distracts people from conscious acknowledgement of the second message it conveyed: the ad is also a very public land grab for the term "PC".
The movie industry has been just as damaging in its way - using DVD trailers to force-feed the misconception that all things freely downloadable are stealing (they're not), funds terrorism (they don't), etc.
The general public need to stop equating :
1/ the term "PC" with "MS Windows"
2/ "free" with "pirated" and "criminal".
Only then will they begin to consider alternatives. A high-profile TV awareness campaign could do much to accomplish that.