Re: Sacrifices made for Free Software

[Jean Louis]

Dear Nicholas,

I have read your blog and I find you did it right.

Keep your own integrity, don't sell it for a degree. Why you need a
degree which is corrupted? Is it really "education"?

Finally, think about the degrees, many times people with degree will
get employed in companies where their bosses don't have any degree.

It is case with me, I have no degree and I am employing people with
degree, and many times it means little, we want practical skills to be
demonstrated, with the degree or not.

Keep doing well and fight for free software, I think now it is more
important then ever before, and that society is at stake.

Jean

* Nicholas Johnson <nickjo@posteo.net> [2020-06-08 20:21]:
> Hello everyone!
> 
> This is my first post here on the libreplanet-discuss mailing list. I
> want to share my free software story so that hopefully others will find
> inspiration in it. I studied for 2 years at SIUe before dropping out
> because it became impossible for me to continue and keep my freedom.
> 
> It was a long journey. There were a series of events that forced me to
> adapt and even contact professors and try to get students to adapt to
> using free software. Up until the corona virus lock down in my state, I
> had mostly found ways around using proprietary software and negotiating
> with professors to allow me to use only free software in their class.
> That all came to an end during the corona virus lock down where they
> forced everyone onto Zoom and LockDown Browser spyware. They wanted me
> to install Windows and use Lockdown Browser and wanted students to
> activate their cameras to ensure cheating wasn't occurring. How invasive
> is that, right? I said no and that I needed an alternative and they were
> unwilling to give me one. I encouraged other students to complain about
> the camera policy since that was invasive enough to bother more students
> than just me. I was trying to work around freedom issues in multiple
> classes while keeping up with course work and saw these kinds of issues
> were going to continue, so I dropped out. I won't be able to go back and
> get my degree most likely since there is no plan to fix the freedom issues.
> 
> If you want to read more of my journey, you can go to my blog at:
> https://0gitnick.voidnet.tech/tags/testimony/
> 
> I still have quite a lot to write about and what I have on there so far
> doesn't cover all my experiences at SIUe yet. If anyone has interest in
> having their own free software story promoted on my blog, send me an email.