[school-discuss] MS addiction; privileges and responsibility

[Michael Shigorin <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2007 at 05:59:28PM +1000, Alan E. Davis wrote:
> But my colleagues are well trained in Micro$oft.  Perhaps I am
> a conspiracy theorist, in believing that their addiction was
> carefully cultivated by the moguls, through donations to
> schools and the like.

Heh.  Replied to a thread on one local forum where evidence was
provided for just that; for those reading Russian or being able
to decipher babelfish (or other systran) automated translation:

http://lafox.net/support/index.php?showtopic=17142

> For what it's worth, to restrict the software a teacher can
> install and/or use in the classroom reeks of mind control and
> top down approaches that are an abomination to what I, at any
> rate, see as the beacon of the Free software community.
> Perhaps I am too radical?

Probably yes, you might be decent car driver but would at times
prefer taxi with professional driver to get you *fast* over
crodwded city if there are ways you just didn't care of.

Then you wouldn't complain that there's no access to the
steering, no? :)

That's rather question of responsibility, not of barred access.
As I don't like extra burden, I tend to thankfully reject
privileged access, be it "moderator" or sudo.  Not that I'd
immediately break every little thing...

For e.g. virtualized LTSP that means that "the" root password
isn't secret, it's just sealed in an envelope.  So in case when
it's really needed (for some reason the VPS root isn't enough)
and the techie isn't reachable (sleeping, offline, vanished)
there *is* possibility to change things without breaking into
them by force (like off LiveCD).

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