The other day I came across a discussion of the Brazil government efforts to mandate open source.
Here is one news brief http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7220913/ covering MIT's recommendation to the Brazil government endorsing open source. This is probably something to follow in the educational field as there will certainly be a lot of concrete experience with open source from this process. You can Google for more examples. regards, bill p Laura Creighton wrote: > They just hate Open Source. And they are unwilling to examine projects > on a case-by-case basis. > > In a message of Mon, 16 May 2005 11:00:27 PDT, Frank Noschese writes: > >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 inst > >alling > >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 (t > >he > >technical team) decided that it would not be in keeping with the "best > >practices" of the district to install open source software on the distric > >ts > >computers and network. Four key reasons are as follows: > > > >1) Lack of technical support from the 'vendor'. Since most open source so > >ftware > >is provided 'free' and is not maintained by a central vendor, technical s > >upport > >is limited if not non existent. With this lack of technical support of th > >e > >software products in question, we have no way of getting help when the so > >ftware > >has a problem or is the cause of problems with the network. > > This is, of course, not true for Python. If you want a support license, > you can talk to, among others, ActiveState. Actually, my experience with > open and closed source products is that the Open Source developers are > more responsive to bug reports. Closed source places have to justify > the time spent on a bug fix with the revenue it generates. Unless you are > an _important_ customer, you can wait a long time. > > > > >2) Product testing was another reason. Since there are so many contributo > >rs to > >open source software, in many cases, the software is not tested for > >compatibility and stability. As such, there is no level of expectation th > >at the > >product will function as stated. Further more, with the limited testing o > >f the > >software, we have no idea of what problems or ill effects the software ma > >y have > >on the computers and network. > > Python is well tested. > > > > >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 b > >e 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 benef > >its > >the licensor/contributors. Seeing in that there is no way for us to verif > >y 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 mo > >re > >detail... > > This is misleading. Python contributers state that they have the right > to contribute this code (ie it is their's or their company's and they > have the right to represent their company). According to our lawyers, > no amount of ABA sanctioned yapping about indemnification will do > anybody a piece of good if some third party wakes up one day and says > that the python langauge is in violation of their patent. In this > case, the contributor, the Python Software Foundation, and all the > Python users will all be sitting on one side of the fence, as some > jerk -- usually a corporation -- tries to extort money out of us. > This could happen. However, this is merely a reflection of why patents > are bad for software, and this could happen should you use a piece of > closed source software that somebody claims violates their patent as well. > > > > >4) Security of the "system." Since in most cases, anyone can obtain a cop > >y 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 secu > >rity > >issue. Another security concern is the ability of virus introduction. Sin > >ce 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 ot > >her > >malicious code to the system can have the effect of bringing the system " > >down" > >and possible data loss or corruption." > >=========== > > Here they are confusing 'the software is open source' with 'we have > to install it on our system in a way that anybody can modify it'. This > is simply not true. So, if some cracker find a way to replace parts > of your python with his or her own files -- yes, that is a problem. > But it is a worse problem for Microsoft, because most of the people > who do this are brainless fools who download a 'cracking kit' and > do whatever it says, and most cracking kits are for Windows. Once > you have an operating system that will install whatever the cracker wants > wherever he or she likes, you have a severe problem. But this is not > a Python problem, either. > > The university here, where this is a severe problem, just reinstalls > all the system software every week, or 3 days on systems that have > proven to be regularly cracked. > > >Also included in the email was information from the American Bar Associat > >ion > >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. > > This is the standard 'why open source is evil' misinformed rant. Most > people who say this do not actually believe it. It is just a club to > beat people like you with so they can continue to have things the way > they like it. You are supposed to believe them and go away. > > Good luck, > Laura Creighton > > > > >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 > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
