Followers

3/19/2014

letter to a library

The Price is Right: Yesterday, I was using the public computers at the library and was attempting to download the disk images of Ubuntu and OpenSUSE. These are free operating systems. The disk images could not be downloaded because of restrictions on the computer, presumably download size. I wish to point out that these Linux distributions are an important alternative to the corporate oligarchy of Microsoft and Apple.
I understand that a library has limited resources but open source is a bastion of freedom that needs to be protected and cultivated. Freedoms like these have been under attack by what is conceived of as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act which is now used by Internet Service Providers to limit what is accessible and how much.
I realize it is not the intent of the library to limit access to materials but to maintain equal access to all patrons. A large download such as a disk image uses a relatively large amount of bandwidth for some time. I would suggest that it would be feasible and more equal to limit bandwidth _speed_ per patron as opposed to total download size. I would also be happy to help the library acquire static copies or establish cloud storage for disk images of popular Linux distributions.
Sincerely,
Zakri Kneebone.

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