Hi,
I will be writing petition to my government (Poland) to try to get them to ban Windows at schools. I believe it should be illegal to force children to use systems that are paid and use children’s data for AI and advertising.
Maybe you will do it as well? Let’s end this insane practice.
I disagree. While it would be correct in some way, it would be a different political movement.
With “let’s introduce Linux”, it’s easy to stop mid-way and too early. For example, at 1 hour per week for 1 semester once during the whole school.
With “ban Windows [from school computers and as mandatory software]”, the political agenda is clear and the technical goal is clear. And the benefit is clear, too.
American mindset, and probably more broadly speaking, “ban thing” when thing isn’t widely understood (to be bad, or even in general) usually gets reactionary backlash because people don’t like when decisions are made for them or options (even those they’re unaware of) are either taken off the table or forced upon them. It’s teeing up Microsoft to spend a few bucks on a country song and cowboy character ad campaign to brush the issue off.
“New thing better” doesn’t always work well either because people need a reason to change when things seemingly already work as-is. Leading with outrage is unfortunately the better way to win over people who aren’t going to make an effort for themselves to investigate the problem. Tell them why they should be angry, why Microsoft is a threat to their children, etc and then, if you can convince them, is when you add “…and that’s why we should ban MS products.” Even that is still insufficient without a clear course of action. If the solution isn’t drop-in and painless, it’s going to disrupt the education of the generation when the change is made. The argument needs to be compelling enough to worth unsettling the status quo.
Last up, our education system is headed by a carny. Our administration swung the doors wide open for Mecha Hitler. Our president loves the uneducated and the uneducated clap like a pack of trained seals when they hear it. Even if Microsoft failed to backroom deal or blackmail their way into maintaining their stranglehold, you’d have to be on Elon levels of ketamine to believe the current admin would adopt open standards or invest the US equivalent of Venezuela’s Canaima Linux. We’d get gaudy gold TrumpTops preloaded Grok, nationalist propaganda and government spyware.
All that isn’t to piss on the parade. I’m for open standards, open operating systems and improving technical literacy while stripping away the invasions of privacy and stopping the dumbing down of our youth. I just think “ban thing” is only ever going to appeal to bandwagon radicals and the folks that already agree with you. If you’re not winning over the opposition (and more importantly the idiots who don’t even know they’re opposed until their indignant inner sleeper cell is activated by the word “ban”) you’re in for a losing fight.