Re: Debian for kids
On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Kyle Sallee wrote:
> While I am please to see supporters of this fascinating idea,
> there should be
> at least one harshly rebuking devil's advocate, yes? I'll be the
> person who
> says that this idea wreaks of age prejudice
Just like my municipality's special kids' activities wreak of
age prejudice?
Just like the Debian sparc project wreaks of architecture prejudice?
> and censorship.
Trying to get yourself published to /.?
> Are there going to be different configuration scripts for age
> 1->4 , 5->8, 9->13, and so forth?
Hey, that's a good point. Well, I was just going to ignore your trolling
and not send this message, but here is an actual point worth responding
to.
Sure, why not? When I go to my local Electronics Boutique I see walls of
kids (Windows) software arranged more-or-less by age-range, with little
"recommended age range" stickers on each box: a bit of guidance for the
parents before they buy. The difference with free software is, of course,
the parent can make the age-range judgement themselves without having to
put money up-front. However, in 5 years time when there are 100's of kids
games for Linux instead of just dozens, parents aren't necessarily going
to have the time for that.
> Will debian for women, minority women, white males, and so forth
> be next?
How does being a woman, a minority, or of a certain race change your
computer using needs? Young kids are cognitively, socially, technically
in an early stage of development that has special considerations. When
you look in your computer games store, do you see a woman's section? A
gay section? A white section? Black section? Take a good look at the
world around you. Kids have special needs. The stuff that we make for
kids to use is *different* than for adults. (Shock! Horror! Pull it off
the shelves! Ageism! Censorship!)
> If labels are to be used how about: high security configurations,
> or gamers' configurations,
> or anything more descriptive and less derogatory than kids,
> please?
*You* are offended. I don't think my kids (oops, progeny) are.
> Thanks. :) No offense intended.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bullshit.
> I'd just wish I could live in
> a world with compassion and
> respect for everyone regardless of one's attributes such as eye
> color, age, gender, etc...
Uhhh. So I get this idea that I should do something *for* my kids,
my friends' kids, other developers' kids, and who knows how many other
kids over the next five years who will benefit from this work. This is
lacking in compassion and respect?
Get a life.
Ben
--
nSLUG http://www.nslug.ns.ca synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca
Debian http://www.debian.org synrg@debian.org
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