Education, History, Computing (was Re: Ubuntu vs Freespire )

[Peter Garrett]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:35:05 +0100
"Norberto Leite" <infonorby at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm starting to belive that this is not a doubt's list, for ubuntu so,
> but it is a chat place that anyone can ask for comparatives and sugest
> ideas and thougts! Well keep that in an other list, it is already to
> big with the "real" questions part.
> Use the forums to express you thougts and to check out this kind of
> questions, it makes more sense

i could not *possibly* disagree more.

If your view is so narrow that you think discussions about computing and
education are irrelevant on this list, i suggest that you look at

http://edubuntu.com/

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=mark%20shuttleworth%20ubuntu%20education&hl=en&meta=
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=ubuntu%20in%20schools&hl=en&meta=
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=mark+shuttleworth+ubuntu+in+schools&btnG=Search&meta=

The topic for this list is "ubuntu-users -- Ubuntu Help and User
Discussions"

If you really think such discussion is irrelevant to Ubuntu I suggest a
careful reading of

http://www.ubuntu.com
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/philosophy

This list, in case you were not aware of the concept, is *educational*.
Perhaps that isn't technical enough as an explanation, for you. In that
case I suggest that you *think* about what computers are, what their role
is in society today,and how the software that is used influences the
future.

A sense of history would help: for further reading try:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1078616,00.html


Barbara Tuchman ( celebrated historian) : 

The questions we now must ask ourselves as we are poised on the edge of a
new millennium are: What will this new world look like? Will it include
the book as we know it, or will the book transform itself into an
electronic gadget delivering text? Will the Internet evolve into our
primary means of obtaining information, completely eclipsing traditional
sources such as the newspaper, the magazine and the book? Or will we
continue to use traditional print media invented during the Gutenberg era?
Frankly and bluntly, this kind of narrow view of what Ubuntu is about
strikes me as ill-informed.


If Ubuntu users insist on thinking only about software and hardware, they
will fall into the trap of not seeing what all this is actually *for*.
Part of the reason I use Ubuntu and contribute to this list is that Ubuntu
has at least an approximation to the vision that  is required to tackle the
future implied by the "Second Gutenberg Revolution"

I, and I hope at least a few others, will continue to discuss matters
beyond "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" and "nvidia driver configuration"
etc on this list. If you dislike this, feel free to filter such threads
out of your consciousness by using the technology that could actually
bring you to a wider view of computing.

If you think this is a mere rant, I invite you to broaden your education.



Sincerely,

Peter