Alligators in sewers, near-misses from hook-handed serial killers and the disquieting notion that we all eat 8 spiders a year while sleeping: all examples of popular Urban myths.
Until recently, I assumed that the well-known story (in Linux circles) of Wisconsin, USA, student, whose inadvertent purchase of a Dell laptop running Ubuntu 7.10 led to her having to drop out of online college classes, was another fine-example of hot-air.
Turns out it actually happened:
Local new-station, WKOW TV, were so overwhelmed by the passionate response to its initial news item it ran a follow up report on Abbie Schubert’s situation.
I had expected to hear that Dell had sent her a Windows install disc, or another laptop OEM had charitably (or opportunistically, depending on your default cynicism setting) had sent her a new Windows laptop.
Neither happened.
Instead, Dell, her internet provider Verizon and the college to which she was enrolled, MATC, got together to ensure she could continue with her studies using her laptop with Ubuntu.
Sadly, the follow up piece also touched upon the somewhat aggressive ire Abbie and the news-station received from the Linux community, unhappy with their operating system of choice being positioned as a problem.
It is all-too easy to “blame” the user in a situation like this, be it for not paying attention when ordering or not having enough technical skill to solve the problems they faced.
But I think it’s more telling to look at the situation: all of her troubles stemmed from 3rd parties, not Ubuntu, which is a fact glossed over in both of the reports.
Ubuntu wasn’t the issue; the services she needed to connect to were.
Although this story is ancient – Ubuntu 7.10 was released in 2007 and I write this in 2011 – I can’t help but wonder how Abbie’s doing now, if she managed to complete her course and whether she’s still using Ubuntu.
I could go and find out, but I think I ought to check the outside sewer for alligators first…
Thanks to K. Hendrik