Not viable—at least not for CCPS!

Denmark's finance ministry, New Zealand's Ministry of Health, the state of Nebraska, the FBI, NASA, and the NSA, among others, all use variants of the open source Linux operating system. The French military, Ministry of Culture, and Tax Authority all run the free and open source Thunderbird e-mail software on over 200,000 computers. And even Chesterfield County's own Public Library System has offered the free and open source Firefox web browser as an alternative to Internet Explorer for many years now.

When I asked the Chesterfield County Public Schools (CCPS) Director of Technology if any serious consideration has ever been given to using open source software at CCPS, she replied:

Over ten years ago, Chesterfield County Public Schools standardized our network and systems on Windows. Our servers are Windows; our software is Windows compatible and all applications either externally purchased or internally created are Windows compatible. To move to an unsupported open source solution would not be a viable solution for an organization of this size.

Open source software: demonstrably practical for all of the larger organizations listed above, but not viable for the delicate sensibilities of CCPS???