Cloud computing is a trap, says Stallman
guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk
Stallman can whine about it if he likes, but he can't pretend this is some sudden terrible attack on Free Software - it's been a problem for a long time, and it's been ignored for a long time.
(Yeah, I'm aware of the Affero GPL. AGPLv2 was just bad. AGPLv3 is decent but way late and inexplicably separate from the GPL.)
When trying to grok the GPL, it helps to keep rms' MIT printer story in mind. It's on wiki.
The 55-year-old New Yorker said that computer users should be keen to keep their information in their own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party.
That's Zero Knowledge. Like the recently unfunded fantastic Clipperz library. I can't believe no smart investor found a way to make money with that. It torpedoed my respect for angel investment. Anything "social" gets money, something that can revolutionize the whole Internet experience, zip.
I do think that it's (theoretically) possible to safely store (in some respects) your data online, through encryption... but this doesn't protect you from innocent data loss (e.g. act of god, bankruptcy, incompetence, bad luck etc).
Why not store all your data locally as well, so it's distributed git-style, and only use the cloud for crunching/archive? This is the model that Google (google gears) and Adobe are moving towards (though I thought their main motivation was so you could work off-line). HDD are unbelievably cheap, and getting cheaper and cheaper... Gmail gives you 7GB for free - wow, that's so much! - but how much do you have at home already?
There's no shortage; it's just convenience.
That startup's PR connection with Stallman (that they use GPLv3, they talked to Stallman and are concerned about the same problems) seems tenuous and disingenuous to me (though I didn't investigate in depth).
I still think it might be a parody.
They don't forbid you from storing things things locally. And it isn't just for passwords. This is for anything really. Watch their presentations at least.
I know something about public/private key encryption (or once did). I'm not criticizing that, but their application of it. In their presentation, they say that they picked passwords as the hardest possible test of their idea (i.e. the one people are least likely to accept). I think this is where the "parody" aspect comes in, with their professed motive of proving a point, rather than picking the most likely candidate for adoption.
I wasn't bad-mouthing them, but listing definite concerns. You might see the Douglas Adams reference as "bad-mouthing", except that what I'm referring to is his fictional idea of storing all your identification/passwords as one - i.e. what these guys are doing. I also don't think it's bad-mouthing to state my opinion that their PR connection to Stallman is tenuous, since they promote online storage in his name - which he appears to oppose (in the very article we are commenting on, I might add).
But of course, they still could change the world through their ideas, ideology or technology - everyone has that chance if only they take it. I strongly believe in encouraging anyone who takes action (so it would be really cool if they proved me wrong - and I'd have something to learn which would be a bonus for me). But I also think it's important to discuss ideas with intellectual honestly. Those two views are at odds sometimes, and I don't always know how to resolve them.
If you disagree with my criticism, you could focus on refuting it instead of labeling it as "bad-mouthing".
I honestly thought that was a Douglas Adam-style parody (from one of the later books).
I wasn't trying to put the project down with that, but reporting my reaction to the site - I actually was laughing along with (what I thought was) their parody for a few minutes (it seemed, though maybe shorter). I don't recall when I started to think they might be serious, but it might been when I saw their page "How dumb are we?", and they were defending their position...
It's true that it would have been more diplomatic to conceal my reaction.
Also, I searched around for a reference to the Douglas Adams passage, but couldn't find it (I couldn't find my copy at home - all my books are in boxes). I'm pretty sure it's near the start of "Mostly Harmless", as a product of the "Infinidim" corporation, and something to do with a multi-dimensional bird... I would like you to see it, because then I think then you'd have a clear sense of my point of view (independent of your dis/agreement with it)
Incidentally, labeling a comment as "childish" and "inflammatory" provides little information about the subject, and more about the emotional state of the labeler (I am sorry to have upset you). Giving the reasons for that emotional state are often a more compelling refutation - that is, if you can see the reasons (I find that very hard myself).
But I can see that if you read the first sentence in isolation, and didn't know about the book, it could be interpreted as rude. It wasn't meant as rude. I'm sorry that it came across as offensive to you, and so I clarified in my follow up.
BTW: They're excellent books (the second in the series is best IMO).
Well yeah, i agree. The poster I was replying to made it about source code.
Issues of software freedom aside, I think the key to making people trust the cloud is to make the data contained in the services more transitive. Essentially, creating a standard Import/Export for the web. i.e. - If I decide to switch to vimeo for my web video needs, I'd like to be able to import all of my videos from youtube without much fuss (or make a local backup). That's not a great example, but it's the general idea.
Hmmm...after I think about it, this pretty much boils down to: "let me get at my data in a format that I can read."
Or be forced to give up access statistics via Pen Register.
Or provide governments the ability to access your data via CALEA compliance hardware/processes.
I value the privacy of my data as much as I value the integrity of it. I don't see myself doing much cloud computing in the near future.
Keeping your personal data on a free account might be a bit of a crapshoot, but keeping your company data on a paid for service account shouldn't be.
http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php
I think that's a difficult problem for software-as-a-service to overcome.
Basically what you're talking about is standards - but I think the SaaS/Cloud space is too immature to be able to define standards at this stage... In fact, whilst it would give consumers extra security, it would very likely slow down innovation.
The 2 main potential problems with your data being in the cloud versus on your own computer seem to be 1) privacy and 2) portability. Privacy long-term seems to be a tough nut to crack, and seems to depend mostly on choosing companies we feel we can trust. Data portability will only win out against walled gardens when users scream for it loud enough rather than go along using whatever service (such as Facebook) despite your data being locked in.
But the benefits we get from using the cloud for storage and computation are going to be difficult to ignore, despite the above concerns, and big brother is going to be constantly creeping in as long as the people continue to be scared into letting him.
I can see this being a problem for consumers long-term. But it doesn't do any good to hear that Larry Ellison has come out strongly in favor of keeping your data in-house.
Its like saying "Lets not use banks cause they can just take your money, profit from it, and may not even give it back to you." Which, ironically, is true because of the financial crisis.
The solution though is not to "use in-house computers" (or store your money under a mattress). I think it would be to build your own cloud computer services based on a free software model.
addendum: Forgot to mention, total cost for the Notes client and server licenses: about $150 for 1 user but any number of servers. And Notes will run on Windows, Linux, OS X, ...
... as long as they made sure to call it free software, of course.
I never expected Richard Stallman and Larry Ellison to agree on something involving the software industry.
Granted they agree for very different reasons.
Until every computer user has sys-admin capabilities, making use of the "cloud" makes perfect sense in my opinion. That being said, I think its important to pick services you trust and who make it easy to export your data at will.
using flickr to share your photos with everyone is not the same as using google docs to store all of your personal and private documents.
but why not simply set your mother up with an automatic online backup system to store a copy of her files in the cloud instead of requiring that the master copies be there? that way she retains privacy (assuming the encryption of the provider is trusted) but gains portability by having a copy available online. something like dropbox comes to mind here.
grow some salad greens and tomatoes and eat those instead of McDonalds?
self check for breast or testicular cancer (whichever applies)?
take an active role in your child's education? I should hope so.
I'll give you the money under the mattress point. No return on investment. However you should be managing it yourself in some form.
Hmm, my family does all of the above as a supplement of commercial/public versions all the time. (In the case of home-schooling, we plan to once our child arrives.)
Examples:
Economists assume rationality. Java developers don't notice all the boilerplate. Lisp developers don't notice the brackets). Stallman doesn't notice all the sysadmin burden.
For example, I am developing on the closed Google App Engine. If what I'm doing becomes successful and I hit limitations of the platform, I can reimplement the whole thing on an open source stack. But I don't want to pay that cost up front.
Edit: Thanks for clarifying what Stallman offers.
Why does it have to be black-or-white?
Gmail going down for good isn't gonna affect me much if I have my email backed up locally and desktop clients still exist.
The proper analogy would be not to electricity in general, but to (in the US) 220V 60Hz two-phase alternating current. What if you could only buy that power format from one vendor, who then decided to increase the price or change the format such that you'd have to replace all your existing electrical hardware or be at their mercy? Then you might feel that your freedom to operate your equipment was being infringed, no?
The point is that if we feel okay paying for electricity as a service, why not computing? Data ownership and security is one reasonable concern but they're not show stoppers.
Best part is you can link the two & distribute.
I know I would object if I couldn't convert my AC to DC. My computer wouldn't run!
You can't have Falstaff, and have him thin.
Meaning, you can't have superior computing power like the "cloud" provides and expect to retain total transparency/privacy. Something has to give. I think it is inevitable in the long run that business will decide that the help to their bottom line that the cheap resources of the "cloud" provides offsets any theoretical leftist concern about transparency, privacy, etc.
Asking everyone to do their own computing is like going back to an agrarian culture where everyone grows their own food. Seem to recall Pol-Pot tried that, and I don't think history looks upon him too favorably. 'Nuff said.
Sure, but some people would prefer to give on price rather than privacy. Hopefully the market will continue to offer that choice.
Anyway, if people want transparency/privacy enough to pay for it then 'theoretical leftist concerns' will suddenly become noteworthy and start appearing. As they already do with online ordering and banking and virtual private networks and so on.
Huh ? "creator of the computer operating system GNU"
Can somebody explain what that means ?
It is a common misconception to call Linux-based systems “Linux”. Linux is the kernel, the piece that manages devices, processes, and memory. GNU is a collection of tools (GNU ls, GNU Bash, GNU C Compiler, etc.).
What the user sees is the set of GNU and non-GNU tools running on top of the Linux kernel. This is the reason why rms insists on people calling their system “GNU/Linux” and not only “Linux”.
RMS started GNU in 83-84: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU#History
Those who care are aware of the distinction between "Linux" the kernel and "Linux" the environment built upon a Linux kernel. Those who don't are unlikely to be aware of the derivation or importance of either term. Of those who care few are willing to use his terminology.
This is not what I would consider a "misconception."
In my opinion Stallman does his cause damage by tilting at this particular windmill.
Most Linux distros use the GNU userland, but they don't have to ... they could use the BSD userland if they really wanted to.
http://www.debian.org/ports/#nonlinux
Linux distros are more GNU than Linux, the problem is in the name -- 'GNU' sounds and looks nerdy and unfriendly.
:)
Seriously, what a drama queen. This week it's cloud computing.
The article seems to confuse software freedom with control over personal information --- two distinctly different concerns. The latter actually relevant.