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.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
In the United States at least, your rights to a thing are based on ownership. And where this ownership is of fuzzy thinky things, like stories and ideas, the government tries its damnedest to treat them like physical things, and gives you the rights directly through Trademark, Patent, and Copyright law.
Now, how many rights do you have if you do not OWN anything? How can you ever own anything if nobody is willing to do anything but sell you a lease or license? How can you own source code without a government backing it with copyright laws?
Luckily, the government and constitution take precedence over what corporations and individuals claim you have a right to own and do.
On a practical level, I'm with Linus in that I just want to store my data on (in?) the cloud, and fine with Google keeping even my slightly more confidential data on its servers (though I do have limits). And while it may not be as secure, it is FAR far more reliable and accessible.
Keeping everything on your private server is like managing your finances exclusively with a mattress. It's great when you need to survive a network|financial holocaust, but horrible if you want to work with a larger group, or to keep folks from stealing said assets (it is a physical server after all).
Regardless of the resource being managed, a wise investment strategy would be to diversify, but sadly I still see many people after that 'One Answer' to their information|financial management woes.
It really is about how much you're willing to trust someone you personally don't know with power. And no human society on Earth works without its members doing this to some level.