Do Parents Think Free Software Is Malware?
Came across this article https://opensource.com/life/15/12/dear-parents-let-your-kids-use-open-source-software from a few years ago, relating the tale of a teenager who was given an expensive laptop, who chose to replace its Windows OS (and included software) with Ubuntu. His parents were livid when they found out--two years after the fact. They jumped to the conclusion that his machine was now under the control of malware and hackers and all the rest of it, not to mention his throwing away the software they had paid good money for.
So he resorted to Reddit (!) to get advice on how to explain things to his parents. The thread https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3rfukp/i_really_need_advice/ has, in perhaps typical Reddit fashion, a mix of useful and not-so-useful responses. Though the upshot was, he was able to come to an accommodation with his parents, even if it did involve paying back the cost of the firewall/antivirus subscription that he didn’t use.
That teen is an adult now. I wonder if it was an isolated case...
Wait, when did Canonical stop selling their users' start-menu usage data to Amazon? But maybe that highlights the point.
On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 10:55 AM Lawrence D'Oliveiro < ldo@geek-central.gen.nz> wrote:
Came across this article < https://opensource.com/life/15/12/dear-parents-let-your-kids-use-open-source...
from a few years ago, relating the tale of a teenager who was given an expensive laptop, who chose to replace its Windows OS (and included software) with Ubuntu. His parents were livid when they found out--two years after the fact. They jumped to the conclusion that his machine was now under the control of malware and hackers and all the rest of it, not to mention his throwing away the software they had paid good money for.
So he resorted to Reddit (!) to get advice on how to explain things to his parents. The thread https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3rfukp/i_really_need_advice/ has, in perhaps typical Reddit fashion, a mix of useful and not-so-useful responses. Though the upshot was, he was able to come to an accommodation with his parents, even if it did involve paying back the cost of the firewall/antivirus subscription that he didn’t use.
That teen is an adult now. I wonder if it was an isolated case... _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list -- wlug@list.waikato.ac.nz | To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave@list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: https://list.waikato.ac.nz/postorius/lists/wlug.list.waikato.ac.nz
I very much doubt it as when we ran the free software days at the Centreplace we were unable to give away 300 Ubuntu O/S. We were treated with " Oh yeah there has to be a catch" by most passers by...
On 18/01/20 10:55 am, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
That teen is an adult now. I wonder if it was an isolated case...
participants (3)
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Jake Waas -
john -
Lawrence D'Oliveiro