Linked by David Adams on Tue 30th Sep 2008 02:26 UTC
A very interesting "Blogwatch" posting at Computerworld links out to an interview with Richard Stallman wherein he posits that Cloud Computing is a trap to entice users to give up control and privacy and become subject to closed, proprietary platforms. Since RMS is a professional provocateur, I wouldn't consider all of his pronouncements newsworthy. But the thoughtful responses linked in this blog roundup were interesting, and I believe the issue of convenience vs control vis a vis Cloud Computing is a very timely and important debate to be having at this point in IT history.
Permalink for comment 331954
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
2005-11-18
Even on a purely strategically level, I can see where he is coming from. The GPL (in contrast to the Affero GPL) has a 'network loophole'. By moving applications to the web (or "cloud", whatever it means), companies can leverage copylefted software without releasing the source to the users of the software. The Affero GPL protects against the network loophole, but is used by relatively few projects.
Aside from source code availability, there are, of course, other problems. The primary problem is that in many web applications you don't own your data anymore. It is not exportable to a standard format, let alone migrate it to another service. Besides that, data can be misused in ways that violate privacy.