Question : The item '/Data Sources' already exists

SSRS reports are being developed by a team. The data sources are already created in the /Data Sources folder on the production server. Developers have been promised slow, painful torture if they overwrite the production DS's with development.

When attempting to deploy from within Visual Studio, the error "The item '/Data Sources' already exists" pops up and deployment halts.

Yes, the "Overwrite Data Sources" deployment configuration parameter is set to FALSE.

Is there a workaround?

Answer : The item '/Data Sources' already exists

The following thread describes a similar issue: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqlreportingservices/thread/33423ef3-4a28-4c1d-aded-eac33770659d
(have a look at the bottom post)

So in other words, the developers need permission to the Data Sources folder as well, even though they aren't deploying any Data Sources...