Cry me a river

© August 2007 Anthony Lawrence

2007/08/28

Poor "sk0t". Last year he was sentenced to five months in jail for copyright theft of Star Wars III. He also got five months of probation, and if he wants to use a computer during that time, our mean evil government is telling him that he can't run Linux because they want to monitor his on-line activities, and their monitoring software, alas, only runs on Windows.

The comments on his blog (link dead, sorry) are mostly sympathetic, though a few posters rub his nose in reality: he committed a crime, using a computer is not a "right", so get over it. Either use a Windows system as your probation terms require, or don't use a computer at all.

Slashdot comments by and large follow the same path: lots of suggestions on how to get around the restriction (great idea for someone on probation: try to cheat!), a fair amount of misplaced outrage, and a few cold slaps of reality.

More than anything else, this kind of thing does help you realize that Linux users aren't necessarily smart and don't necessarily have morals. More and more, LinuxLand looks just like any other random cross section of society. Disappointing, really: there was a time when it was much different.

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