My Refusal to use Windows XP
Ok, so right now my school, and 99% of other, upper, schools in our school district run Microsoft Windows XP. A ten year old operating system. I am a little guilty too, because I run WinXP on a 12 year old IBM Thinkpad A21p, designed for Windows 98, as an SSH server. That thing is now offically shut down as of now because there are so many parts failing, I’m now using a hacked router for the job. But back to the main topic. Now, I understand why this is happening, because most kids grew up around Windows. Oh, did I forget to mention the servers are running Windows 2000? Haha. dDos here I come. So yes, most kids grew up around Windows, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have a choice in what OS (Operating System) we get to use. Right now, in my house there are 5 Macintosh’s & 2 Linux boxes. All backended by UNIX. A very powerful back-end. Ok, but what does that have to do with refusing to use WinXp at school. Well, I’m used to growing up around minisupercomputers, with great knowledge into the way *NIX OS’s work, and the terminal. Along with that power comes security. There are so many holes in Windows Server 2000, and Windows XP, it’s not even funny. They also *have* to run anti-virus software, otherwise they will get screwed up. So I’ve decided that I will either be able to use a *NIX OS at school, or not use a computer at all. This is my way of peacfully protesting against the forceful way of having to use Windows. Right now Windows has 93% of the market share, and I’d like that to change. Linux has *most of the Sever market share, and my website is running on it right now. Thats because it is free, **Open Source, and easy to customize. Right now, every school has to buy a separate computer for everything they get, and use the site license, which are expensive. If schools used ***Linux then they could just have little work stations that pull everything they need out of a centralized (set of) server(s). No expensive licenses, no expensive computers. There is even an education edition of the most user friendly Linux Distribution (Ubuntu), called Edbuntu, with a bunch of educational software preloaded and a free Office suite of tools, a word processor, presentation, spreadsheet, etc.
Next time I goto school, and they need to use the computers, I will plain out refuse to do so, because of the vulnerability of our information. If they give my a detention, referral, whatever, I will still stand my ground for the fight for choice. Microsoft has locked most schools into having to use Windows, and I believe that can change. I refuse to use Windows for anything other than dev work, testing, and gaming, from the time this gets posted to forever.
NOTE: THIS IS AN OPINION STAED BY TYLER DOHERTY AND TYLERJD.COM. THIS IS NOT A PETITION OF ANY FORM. THIS IS AN EXERCISE OF AMENDMENT ONE. RIGHT TO THE PRESS FREE SPEECH AND PEACEFULLY PROTEST. THIS IS ALSO NOT AN AD FPR LINUX AND NOT PAYED FOR BY THE LINUX COMMUNITY.
**Open Source Licensed under the GPL.
***Specifically Ubuntu Linux.
