Geek Austin “…putting linux on these machines is holding our kids back”

Who said this?

a) Steve Ballmer
b) an AISD middle school teacher

(BoingBoing - 12/10/2008) A teacher in Austin sent an angry, accusatory email to a local Linux collective ("HeliOS Project, which builds and provides Linux computers to disadvantaged or 'exceptionally promising' students") accusing them of piracy for distributing the free operating system and excoriating them for encouraging her students to do the same. She threatened to have the group's organizer investigated by the police, too.

For the full story, see Slashdot (ouch), Boing Boing, the Austinst, and the original post at the HeliOS Project blog.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, when I read the story. I had a similar experience earlier this year when I attempted to donate a truckload of Linux-based computers to a few large charitable organizations who purport to help the less advantaged. After an afternoon of phone calls, the first organization told me that couldn't accept the free computers without discussing it at their board of directors meeting. I went to the next group on the list. The 2nd organization told me that they were trying to teach useful job skills to their students -- and that meant teaching them Windows. While this made sense, their follow up didn't. They went on to inform me that they didn't even want the computers for free.

If it weren't for Linux, Perl, PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and other free open-source tools, there would be no Geekaustin. Nor would I be able to host the few dozen local websites that I host free of charge. Nor would Daniel and I be able to teach the free database classes downtown, because you can't have truly free classes without free software.

Expect to see some Linux/open-source initiatives from GeekAustin in 2009.

-Lynn