It seems that fear and control drives middle management types at Universities to stiffle creativity and exploration -- which would seem to be a contradiction of the mission of higher learning institutions. A distribution specifically designed for students at these institutions might help put to rest some fears about security, but the real thrust has to come from the top down, so deans and chancellors must be involved.
The best argument I have heard for this comes from Eric Raymond (this is by no means a quote, but my interpretation of what ER was saying) -- that organizations should follow the scientific method when evaluating software product choices and open up the process to peer review -- as in other areas of science, and not position themselves to be at the wrong end of a monopoly.
I feel very sorry for the students at Michigan who want to do things that may be very hard or expensive in their environment... especially computer science students who maay want to look under the hood of their progams and look at other peoples code... and applaud the students who had the nerve to develop this distribution. I hope other schools look at this before making such decisions.
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The best argument I have heard for this comes from Eric Raymond (this is by no means a quote, but my interpretation of what ER was saying) -- that organizations should follow the scientific method when evaluating software product choices and open up the process to peer review -- as in other areas of science, and not position themselves to be at the wrong end of a monopoly.
I feel very sorry for the students at Michigan who want to do things that may be very hard or expensive in their environment ... especially computer science students who maay want to look under the hood of their progams and look at other peoples code... and applaud the students who had the nerve to develop this distribution. I hope other schools look at this before making such decisions.