Windows Incompatibilities Frustrate D.C. Schools

capouch writes "The Washington Post reports that school administrators for the DC public school system are having an awful time getting their new administrative software to work properly." From the article: "'In my experience, the combination of an Oracle database, Windows operating system, Unix hardware and an Apache webserver is a bad combination,' Barlow wrote in the memo to Thomas M. Brady, the school system's chief business operations officer. 'In fact, through our research the last few days, we have found an advisory on the Apache website that states, 'Please note that at this time, Windows support is entirely experimental and is recommended only for experienced users.' The Apache Group does not guarantee that the software will work as documented or even at all...Barlow said officials plan to replace Windows with a different operating system."

Comments

"Unix Hardware"

[IronTeardrop]

Well, that's obviously their problem. They've melded their OS and HW together in some freaky Doctor Moreau experiment. Either that, or their IT guys suck. Apache works fine on Windows, if that's what you want to do.

Don't worry, the district is on top of it

[Infonaut]

After all, they've got a Chief Accountability Officer:

Meria J. Carstarphen, the chief accountability officer, said that D.C. STARS has great potential and that some of the glitches are attributable to long-standing problems with the city's technology infrastructure.

I think that tells you something about the structure of the DC school district. A chief accountability officer? WTF? Is this because the other O-level folks don't have to practice accountability, or is it because they're simply used to having to defend themselves against charges of incompetence?

They've frequently had problems getting the school year to start on time. Back when I lived in DC, it was because of asbestos in the buildings, but there have been other reasons.

The city government as a whole has been a joke for as long as anyone can remember, so it's probably unfair to blame the school district alone. But somehow this late discovery that Apache really doesn't work best with Windows doesn't surprise me, given the source.

Other OS's

[zaguar]

AN important point is that Windows OS is not necessarily at fault for the difficulty faced. Linux or the current babe of /. , OSX, would possibly just be as hard to administrate as a Windows environment.

Apache has only limited support for Windows, but still, Apache is a bitch to configure for any platform. And ORACLE? Look, Oracle is a problem in itself. But adding Apache, Windows, UNIX hardware, and then expecting a proprietary software solution (D.C. Stars) to perform is not Windows fault.

Windows is a lot of things. It is slow, it is insecure, but it cannot be blamed for errors in an untested software solution running on a proprietary DB solution with a webserver that does not support the Windows platform.

*nix zealots - thats the truth. I use Ubuntu at home, but i can appreciate a falllacy when I see one.