I'll never get promoted to management at IBM! It seems that people in management think that everyone wants to be in management. I have been in technical positions for 25 years and have a negative amount of interest in being "promoted" to management.

... Most Plants Die. Film at 11.

This definitely explains why Microsoft hasn't had any innovative new products since Microsoft Bob.

This just about summarizes what I was going to say.

Also the comparison to calculus (which most people consider hard) is confusing. So I did a little googling to see if I can figure out what percentage of people can do calculus. According to this link, https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnces.ed.gov%2Fsurveys%2Fpi... , only about 10% of Americans and 12% worldwide are in the highest 2 groups of numeracy. So if we're comparing programming to calculus, I don't know that it's harder than calculus, but calculus is pretty hard for most people.

It worked for Chairface Chippendale.

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/375722/copycat-chairface-chippendale

I understand that you're doing this with the best of intentions and all, but do you really want to totally lock them down?

Basically you'll just be giving these people glorified word processors instead of real computers. While I applaud this effort, it's really a very short sighted (imho) goal. It reminds me of the parable about giving a man a fish and teaching a man to fish. You are very much just giving away fish and locking out the possibility of learning to fish.

I understand that if you give them out with root passwords you'd probably just end up with mostly unworking boxes in a short time. You'd probably also have a support nightmare, with people expecting help with their free computer. I'm just wondering if there isn't some middle road where you can leave things semi-open to change and configuration without leaving it completely vulnerable.

As for advice, I dunno, I've always been better with questions than answers. :-)