
Came across this article <https://opensource.com/life/15/12/dear-parents-let-your-kids-use-open-source-software> from a few years ago, relating the tale of a teenager who was given an expensive laptop, who chose to replace its Windows OS (and included software) with Ubuntu. His parents were livid when they found out--two years after the fact. They jumped to the conclusion that his machine was now under the control of malware and hackers and all the rest of it, not to mention his throwing away the software they had paid good money for. So he resorted to Reddit (!) to get advice on how to explain things to his parents. The thread <https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3rfukp/i_really_need_advice/> has, in perhaps typical Reddit fashion, a mix of useful and not-so-useful responses. Though the upshot was, he was able to come to an accommodation with his parents, even if it did involve paying back the cost of the firewall/antivirus subscription that he didn’t use. That teen is an adult now. I wonder if it was an isolated case...