Epilogue: Austin schoolteacher who didn't believe Linux existed (BoingBoing)

[Drew Wilson]

Earlier this week, I wrote about a teacher in Austin who threatened to report a local free-Linux-machines charity to the police because "there's no such thing as free software" and they had therefore deceived the student she caught distributing Linux disks in class.

The teacher has since had a long conversation with the gentleman from the free Linux project, which is called HeliOS, and he's published a long, mature, and insightful note about the peace he's made with her (in particular, he posted a graceful and heartful apology for some out-of-line remarks he made about the teaching profession and the US teachers' union). It's worth a read

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It's really a common mistake made by the software/entertainment industry. Those industries are still in denial.

[mountain_rage]

The thing that really bothered me with this article, is that the teacher clearly showed no respect to her student. Rather than give her the benefit of the doubt and look into the issue, she immediately assumed the student was misinformed. Nothing irritates me more than someone who has strong stubborn convictions without the proper understanding of the topic.

Hopefully the teacher has learned something from all this and won't be so quick in future attacks.