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Thursday, December 11, 2008
AISD director of technology ‘Embarrassed’ about bad Linux publicity
Gray Salada, the executive director of technology for the Austin Independent School District, said he was “Kinda embarrassed, actually,” when he read Web posts about a local middle school teacher who was said to have confiscated Linux operated system discs from a student, then fired off a an angry e-mail to Austin HeliOS founder Ken Starks.
As of late Thursday afternoon, it was not clear who the middle school teacher was who created a chain events that has led to worldwide publicity about the exchange. Salada said he has spoken to Starks, but as of yet, AISD did not know the identity of the middle school teacher or, in fact, whether the incident occurred as described on Starks’ blog. Salada says he was only told that the teacher doesn’t teach technology.
“He doesn’t want any harm to come to the teacher and the district,” Salada said of Starks, “he won’t give me the name or the school.”
Salada said that AISD received several e-mails after the blog post was referenced on popular tech blogs like Boing Boing and Slashdot. He said some e-mails were merely letting the district know that the story was floating around online while others were less-than-supportive. “We got e-mail from people who were very indignant there was a teacher who could be totally clueless like this,” he said. Others were more constructive: “Some said that somebody needs to go talk to this teacher (about Linux). It’s tough to do because there’s no name.”
The AISD official chalks it up to an e-mail and blog exchange that got too emotional. If the incident did occur, he said, the teacher said things she had no business saying about a topic she clearly didn’t understand. “It’s just giving us a bad name and it’s sad,” Salada said, “it’s so the opposite of what we are and what we’re trying to be.”
Of the district’s 36,000 computers, two-thirds of them run Windows. However, these computers also run Open Office, Google Earth, Google Apps, Firefox and many other free software, much of it open-source. In addition, the district has 100 Linux servers and a lot of its infrastructure runs on that platform, Salada told the American-Statesman.
“We pretty much look at what the best product is to get the job done and we’re very price-sensitive as well,” Salada said.
Salada said that although AISD would love for the whole situation to blow over, they aren’t making a concerted effort to identify the teacher, identified only online as “Karen,” or to discipline her. In fact, Salada says he understands the teacher making sure inappropriate content wasn’t being brought into the classroom. “She was really doing her job,” he said, “I think where this thing melted down was in the interchange (online).”
So there you have it. AISD clueless about open-source? Not quite. At the very least, its technology director certainly understands how things spread online: “I guess it’s just the nature of what the Internet can do,” Salada said, “it happens fast.”
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Breaking: local Linux hero makes nice with flamed AISD teacher
Linux is a free, open-source operating system that is an alternative for many to Mac OS or Microsoft’s Windows. HeliOS is an Austin group that builds computers for kids who can’t afford them which run the Linux operating system.
The e-mail implied that what Starks is doing might be illegal and advised him to work with Microsoft instead. Starks’ fiery response to the e-mail, which he posted in the blog along with an excerpt from the e-mail, was picked up by such heavily trafficked sites as Slashdot and Boing Boing. On Slashdot alone, the item has generated more than 1,470 comments.
Now, Starks says he regrets the whole incident. “I don’t think I’ve ever committed one act that made me feel like such a schmuck,” he said in a phone interview with the American-Statesman today.
Starks says he has spoken with the teacher twice since his Monday post and that “Karen” was crying when they spoke. What she failed to mention in her initial e-mail, he says, is that she gave the Linux discs back to the student and was more concerned that there might be pornography or other suspect material on the discs than about a non-Windows operating system being introduced in the classroom.
“She was beside herself,” Starks said, “I excoriated an entire profession. If I can’t heal that what I want to do is make this lady understand that I’m really and sincerely sorry from the bottom of my heart that I caused her grief.”
Many blog commenters tried to suss out the teacher’s identity as well as her school by trying to decode x’s Starks used in his post to cover up the woman’s last name and her school. He assured me that he didn’t make his masking of the teacher’s identity that easy to decode. And searching the AISD database doesn’t narrow it down much: there are 66 AISD middle school employees named “Karen.”
Starks said a New Zealand newspaper offered to donate $1,000 to his project if he revealed the teacher’s last name and that a U.S. magazine offered $10,000 for the information. He does not plan to divulge Karen’s last name or school.
Starks sounded nervous when he answered his phone today. He said “We’re being litigated,” and added, “my lawyer has stuck a size-12 boot in my mouth.”
Nevertheless, he revealed that after his two conversations with the teacher, “She’s working to stop (the legal action).” He implied that colleagues of the teacher had encouraged her to take to the courts but that they had made progress in their two phone conversations, which the teacher initiated by text messaging Starks.
The brouhaha, Starks figures, has at least put a spotlight on Linux, which he says is his mission in life. Starks says he spoke to an official at AISD who assured him that not only does the district support Linux, but uses it widely. A phone call and e-mail to AISD have not yet elicited an informed response about the matter, but we’ll continue to update this story as more details or comment from the district is received.
Starks says he regrets the pain he says the harsh comments on the tech blogs have caused the teacher. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this bad about something I’ve done in my life,” he said.
Starks plans to follow-up his now-infamous blog post with another one tonight (around 10 p.m., he said) which will update the situation and take a much nicer tone, we can assume.
Nevertheless, there’s a bit of a silver lining in the story of how an angry e-mail could rile the entire Linux world: on Saturday, Starks says, he has been invited to install the Linux operating system on Karen’s home computer.
(Photo provided by Ken Starks.)
Update: AISD’s director of technology has commented on the story and given his take on the situation.
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