Hello again, Thanks to everyone that gave input to my Vpython installation roadblock. Like Arthur said, this is not a situation which will be fixed by a little "education." I asked the tech coordinator to outline the reasons why installing open source is not in the school's best interest. Here is the reply:
======= "In Reference to our ticket #313, there are a number of reasons why we (the technical team) decided that it would not be in keeping with the "best practices" of the district to install open source software on the districts computers and network. Four key reasons are as follows: 1) Lack of technical support from the 'vendor'. Since most open source software is provided 'free' and is not maintained by a central vendor, technical support is limited if not non existent. With this lack of technical support of the software products in question, we have no way of getting help when the software has a problem or is the cause of problems with the network. 2) Product testing was another reason. Since there are so many contributors to open source software, in many cases, the software is not tested for compatibility and stability. As such, there is no level of expectation that the product will function as stated. Further more, with the limited testing of the software, we have no idea of what problems or ill effects the software may have on the computers and network. 3) Legal issues. According to the American Bar Association, Contributors do not vouch for the cleanliness of the code they contribute to the project; in fact, the opposite is true -- the standard open source license is designed to be very protective of the contributor. The typical license form does not include any intellectual property representations, warranties or indemnities in favor of the licensee; it contains a broad disclaimer of all warranties that benefits the licensor/contributors. Seeing in that there is no way for us to verify that the code that contributors are adding is there own, we may be opening up the district to legal actions should the software or portions there of are copyrighted and being used illegally or improperly. See attachment for more detail... 4) Security of the "system." Since in most cases, anyone can obtain a copy of the source code of the software (OPEN SOURCE), we are running the risk of a user being able to modify the software on the network and manipulated it in such a manor to produce undesired effects. Since we have to look out for the stability and security of the network, this was viewed as a possible security issue. Another security concern is the ability of virus introduction. Since the source code is open, anyone so inclined, could create a virus to exploit the software without much difficulty. This ability to introduce a virus or other malicious code to the system can have the effect of bringing the system "down" and possible data loss or corruption." =========== Also included in the email was information from the American Bar Association at: <http://www.abanet.org/intelprop/opensource.html> Any thoughts from you folks? Do they have any truly valid points? Perhaps a "Live CD" is my best (only?) option. Many thanks again, Frank Noschese John Jay High School Cross River, NY _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
