When will educators understand opensource

I think this author takes for granted the school systems;

The school systems are a bureaucracy just like any other. They exist to keep themselves in existance. It really is that simple.

MCSEs that are telling school superintendents that it’s literally illegal to remove Windows from the machine? That’s an incredibly unethical way to entrench yourself.

Actually, IIRC, that graphic is a spoof.

Billy the Gates once stated something to that effect; that open source is equal to communism.

Which is rather laughable, considering that Bill himself is a huge leftist.

So too for that matter is Steve Jobs.

If anybody ever tells you that the open source movement is full of leftists, they’re not lying. It’s 100% true. Usually, you’ll get the usual “B-b-b-but! Richard Stallman!” retort. But what they won’t tell you is what I just pointed out about Jobs and Gates.

The only way to escape software leftism is to give up the computer cold turkey.

OR! Keep posting around here at Free Republic. :-)

I am sure there are more lefties in OS development than Stallman. On that point you are 100% correct.

But to say that they are all lefties is a mistake.

Unfortunately many CEO’s in today’s world are also lefties. They do not believe in competition nor openness. This is counter to the American culture, but it is fact.

Gates as you stated is a prime example.

Technology is politically neutral, only takes a political and social impact when the developers or principals of companies have those biases. Most of the biases come from the indoctrination they receive in Universities.

That said they are not all like that. I have a Harvard Law graduate for a son-in-law. He is a corporate lawyer in the IT industry. He is NOT a leftie.

I have known software developers who are pro open source who are not lefties at all. Our kind of people. Generally good engineers or programmers are pretty indifferent about politics until it directly affects them. The good ones are more interested in science and knowledge than politics.

Same can be said for the military support technical companies. My father-in-law spent 42 years with one of those. VERY VERY conservative company, who sold out shortly after my father-in-law retired. The successors are not like the old company.

I use open source applications daily at work and at home. Have never had a bad experience with anything I use. Particularly like Gimp, Notepad++, GVIM, OO, Gnumeric, PdfTk, GREP, and Image Magick.

I like the stability and speed of Linux, and have used it for 10 years. I think my first install was a UMSDOS Slackware derivative, but the first practical one I used was Redhat 5.0. (practical at the time, now seems weak)

The thing I have grown to hate about computers is that they interfere with my Amateur Radio interests, because computers are such a time sink.

I hate to disagree with you on this one but your copy of MS Office did not cost you $15.00. Yes, it’s true that you paid the “residual” value of the software but I’m assuming that you are not figuring out the built in costs of Micro$oft software into your technology and class surcharges, not to mention those already built into the tuition costs. There is no such thing as discounted Micro$oft software: you have been billed for the full costs. Bet you didn’t even consider that now did ya.

FYI: I graduated from University of Texas at Arlington (Economics) and although I am an avid Linux and OSS user, I still paid the residual amounts for my copy of MS Office and Windows - so that I could justify paying the fees charged by OIT and the college.

Bet you didn’t even consider that now did ya.

Of course I considered that...every time someone would say something like "use of the gym is free for students" I'd retort "included...it's INCLUDED for students...there's no free lunch."

That being said, if you had followed my discussion with the other FReeper, you would see that we were comparing his discounted copy with my discounted copy, and I was saying that the walk-out price at my school was lower than what he was guessing.

Also, I asked a friend of mine who worked at the university and he said he's not aware of any deal that MS has with UT in which UT subsidizes the cost of the software to students, and as he understands it, MS writes off the discount on their corp taxes (he worked for Google and says they do the same thing when they "donate" ad space), meanwhile ensuring a generation of users get hooked on MS during their 4 years at school. He also told me that prior to offering the discount, they had a big problem with people jumping ship to other OS's, so they considered the low-cost software to students an investment, especially during their "rebellious years." If that's the case (and I'm not saying I know for sure...), then the difference is actually built in to every copy they sell to people who pay retail (stupid), businesses, etc.

Bet you didn’t even consider that now did ya.

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