OneAndOneIs2

LXer has an interview with a GNU/Linux evangelist.

I'm a bit baffled. The same guy who says One of the mistakes I think a lot of instructors make, is in the way they approach a class. They most often reinforce users fear my using terms like, "you'll have to learn to........" Or, "OpenOffice doesn't look like Microsoft Office and creates a different format........" This is ignorance! Users know it's different before they even look at it. Why reinforce any fear or negativism? also says that the biggest problem he tends to face is with employees: Once these users get the "word" that there will be an administrator, security will be tight, and no......"you're not going to any software you want on the 'puter that belongs to your employer," then any enthusiasm they may have had for Linux dissipates.

Pot, meet kettle? A faster way of killing enthusiasm than telling users about how much their employer will be able to clamp down on their activities doesn't exist.

We use a very locked-down Windows XP at work. We can't even change IE's start page. It's hugely frustrating. I was very happy when I got Firefox working. Has this bloke not heard of "job satisfaction"?

But that's beside the point. More relevant is: What the Hell is he talking about?? Since when did using Linux stop you from installing & using your own software?

Oh sure, you can be kept away from the package manager. But nothing stops you downloading & installing your own local copy of any given software.

Oh, you hear of the occasional half-hearted measures: Mounting your /home partition without "executable" permissions, for instance. Which works for about 10 seconds, until some bright spark realizes that they can still call "/bin/bash" and pass it arguments.

Where does this attitude come from that employees only work when forced to, and that clamping down on everything is the only way to prevent goofing off? The single biggest frustration I've ever encountered in any workplace has been clueless managers preventing employees from working. Not FORCING them to work, STOPPING them from working.

Stopping employees from installing software or using existing software in ways you don't like is virtually impossible and utterly pointless. Even with Linux. Why is so much time & energy wasted on doing it?