[K12OSN] Making K12LTSP 'school friendly'

[Carl Keil]

I just wanted to say "Amen to that, brother".  I totally believe what you're saying.  I think everyone would be happier, smarter and more productive if they just had 2% more access to the "means of production" in the modern world.  AKA, the guts of the computer.

ck





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Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 09:08:17 -0800
From: "Doug Gough" <dgough at papcs.com>
Subject: RE: [K12OSN] Making K12LTSP 'school friendly'
To: "Support list for opensource software in schools."
	<k12osn at redhat.com>
Message-ID: <88CE924D399D784FB06DA325F2CF4032B8175E at xms.papcs.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

I've followed this thread with interest because it raises so many
interesting questions. I work in a well funded private school in
Vancouver, BC, Canada. We are a "Windows desktops only!!!!!" shop,
because "that's what works" and we have the money. And, it does work,
for the most part. But if we just accept the defaults, we produce
endless amounts of data in proprietary formats, stored in individual
home directories and backed up nightly to a tape that only the high
priests of the server room (me and my co-worker) can access. It seems to
me that for the average user, the priesthood of the expert is being
maintained, even though the technology is finding it's way into more and
more hands. I hate that. I hate the fact that education is such a
natural human thing, and yet the very tools that could empower it are
controlled in such a way that the important bits always stay in the
hands of the elite. Gosh, I sound like George Orwell or something. I'm
frustrated by the fact that freedom of information is so fundamental to
the growth of a free, open, and free-enterprise society, and yet the
ones who've come before us, and benefited from freedom, now use
proprietary secrets to keep the rest of us from benefiting as we could.
Am I ranting? I probably am, but I've taken the time to explain this
perspective over and over and over again to the teachers and
administrators and gotten no where, and this in Canada; a country that
prides itself in being progressive and liberal. Even worse, why am I, a
bloody technician, explaining this to teachers?!!!!! Teachers should
already know this stuff. Isn't this the stuff of educational philosophy
classes? Oh well, I need a coffee. With REAL cream.....mmmmmmmmm