[Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL

[Arthur]

> From: edu-sig-bounces at python.org [mailto:edu-sig-bounces at python.org] On
> Behalf Of David Handy


> And it doesn't  appear to be open source, either. (No source code
> available, and I  couldn't  find any explicit license, other than a
> statement that it was "freeware".

Nor - of course - is it cross platform.

I agree that is a relevant concern - but articulating why is somewhat
difficult.  I have little such concerns related to software for business use
- for example.  Nor am I unconcerned about the Open Source community's
tendency to be uncritical of efforts to distribute "educational software" -
based on little more than the merit of being cross platform and Open Source.

The best I can do is trying to make the analogy of the reaction to a release
of a scientific or academic paper that withheld citations and bibliography -
as confidential.  But of course -having them there does not make it a sound
scientific or academic paper.

I - like many others- welcome much of the disruption of the disruptive
technologies. On the other hand - disruption is disruption. And part of what
can and does get disrupted are sound common sense notions.

A company like Microsoft would be ashamed - based on more traditional
notions - of publicly promoting a position that the realization of the
potential of our children is part of their mission. The reality is they
spend enormous dollars promoting just such a position - with little general
reaction.  

If there was truth to such an assertion they should (and would) be satisfied
to let uninterested others find it, and promote it.

Quite possibly this concern/phobia/paranoia of mine is a tempest in a
teapot. A stage of be disruption will pass, and thinking around such issues
of children's education and the profit motive's of $multibillion business
enterprises will return to where common sense concerns regain their footing.

But I still see the jury as out.  So a few paragraphs sent into cyberspace
still seems worth the effort.

Art