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RMS and Clipperz Promoting Freedom In the Cloud
mbarulli writes "Clipperz and Richard Stallman recently launched a joint call for action to bring freedom and privacy to web applications. 'The benefits of web apps are many, but quite often users lose their freedom to study, modify and discuss the source code that powers those web apps. Furthermore, we are forced to trust third parties with our data (bookmarks, text documents, chat transcripts, financial info ... and now health records!) that no longer resides on our hard disks, but are stored somewhere in the cloud.' Clipperz and RMS urge web developers to adopt the new AGPL license and build their applications using a 'zero-knowledge architecture,' a framework for web services that has been derived from Clipperz online password manager. A smooth path toward web apps based on free software that know nothing about you and your data."
Especially when one considers the evergrowing warnings about google products and sites like facebook (which makes its money out of selling private information to advertisers without even making an attempt at disguising the fact) - we need, in this age of web-apps, to push for greater openness in their design.
It's no longer just about the source code, it's about every single aspect of our lives. Dr. Phill may get hits from doing shows about how people misrepresent themselves online - but the fact that his investigators are able to find out enough about a person to 'figure out the lies' just tell you how dangerous the system already is - and that is third parties, imagine the true power that applications like facebook or Yahoo! mail holds... it's scary.
On the other hand, most people could care so little about their privacy these days... one may go so far as to suggest that those who do not care, do not deserve it.
For the rest of us, why not contribute a bit to changing the picture - is there even one solid social networking tool out there that is built on open source ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Internet privacy laws are needed. Good luck in this climate, a week from now our loyal OPPOSITION party here in the us is going to sell our fourth amendment rights down the river.
The new FISA bill will stop the "illegal" domestic spying all right.. by making it legal and allowing it to continue.
No more "illegal" spying! hurray?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Somebody's got to support all that AGPL and GPL code, right?
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How do we know that the app we use indeed came from the source they say it did?
With desktop app, one could compile and take an MD5, or just compile and compare to the binaries distributed, or just not use the binaries at all and compile from source for their own use.
With a web app, even if we had the source, we'd still be connecting to a 3-rd party HTTP server, and there is really no way to verify how the "real" program is run.
Any time you hear one of these incredibly stupid, meaningless buzzwords you know for certain that the word's user is completely ignorant of the subject he is talking about and wants you to think you are the ignorant one.
Normally I'd tend to agree, but I'm afraid you're wrong in this case. From the Wiki cloud article:
If you're unfamiliar with a typical network diagram looks like, the illustration in this Wiki article should make things clearer.
There are a lot of problems with this proposal.
Before we even start worrying about privacy with respect to web apps, we have to worry about making web apps work within the existing technical constraints. There are serious technical problems with adapting the browser and the web to make web apps. Try google's web-app office suite, for example. It implements a tiny fraction of the functionality of a traditional word processor and spreadsheet, and its performance is just plain unacceptable, especially in the spreadsheet. Http, the browser, javascript, and w3c standards simply were not designed for this type of task, and it's not at all clear that they can be adapted to it. That means that if we ever do get something like the experience they're talking about in the article, it will probably be based on an entirely different design, and it's going to be hard to work out the privacy issues without knowing the technical and financial implications of that new design.
The paradigm they're talking about is one in which users get a service from someone running a rack full of servers. For instance, if I write a letter in my web-app word-processor, somewhere there's got to be a server that's storing my document. The person running the service needs to pay their elecric bill. How are they going to do it? Well, they could make their users look at ads, but that won't work if the app is really user-modifiable, because someone will come out with a version that doesn't show the ads. They could charge the user a monthly fee, but that won't work, because the article proposes to set up the service so that the provider knows absolutely nothing about the user, not even his username.
One big reason this won't work is that a web app consists of two separate pieces of code: one that runs on the server, and one that runs on the client. I wouldn't call it open source if I get to modify 50% of the code, but not the other 50%. Another problem is that part of the allure of web apps is that they require zero configuration, and can be invisibly upgraded at any time. It's hard to see how you'd maintain that benefit while having users run a forked version of the client-side code. What happens when the provider wants to modify the server-side code in a way that breaks compatibility with the forked client-side code?
Find free books.
...don't give it to them.
Social networking sites are fundamentally about sharing data. Lots of people, particularly the younger generation, forget this in their desire to play with the latest fad (which, like the one before it, will probably move on in a year or two). But, surprising as it may seem, you don't have to give your complete life story to someone else by joining Facebook, or to post your intimate secrets for the whole world to see on LiveJournal, or to give a minute-by-minute commentary on what you're doing, or to put those slightly dubious looking photos up on a public photo gallery.
I don't see how it would help if someone running a social networking site that collects all your data chose to share the source code. The source code is irrelevant: they still have your data. This is a simple privacy issue, and nothing to do with RMS-style rights to change source code.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Actually, one of my black friends routinely tells me black jokes, and vice versa. We think they're pretty hilarious.
Ditto.
/stupid/ or at least /literal/ that they would die because they followed instructions on a shampoo bottle.
/me is in the front of that line!
Part of humor is being able to laugh at one's own foibles, even if they're stereotypical. While some jokes are just plain crude/crass/mean (think: dead baby jokes), most black/gay/duck/white/programmer/non-programmer jokes that I've heard aren't. They really are funny.
How many (coders) laugh (or have laughed) at this one?
Did you hear about the programmer who died in the shower?
His shampoo bottle said "Wash, rinse, repeat"!
Unless that programmer has no sense of humour (most I've met have a great sense of humour), they'll at least grin. But wait, isn't it insulting?? I mean, it suggests that programmers are so
Really? Too many people need to get over their big heads.
I wish I had a witty
The point of licenses such as this, isn't to serve the developer; it's to serve the user. You have to look at it from that point of view, in order to understand it. Look at it as a user, and AGPL software is attractive and valuable.
As a user, the question is: how do you get such valuable software?
Answer that question, and then you'll see the developers' incentive. As a developer, the reason you would consider writing code with this license, is that someone who wants the software, would be paying you to. Getting paid is your core business.
That doesn't happen, though, until users begin to recognize the value of GPLed software. Thus, RMS preaches.
The "viral" aspect of GPL is related to this, and gives a second incentive for you, the developer, to create GPLed software. If someone wants some software that almost already exists, where most of the software has already been written (e.g. Linux or the GIMP or something like that), then you might be able to give a lower bid (and win the contract) by modifying such software instead of writing it from scratch. In that case, the GPL constrains you to release your new code under GPL. Everyone wins: you get paid, and more GPL software exists.
But yes, without someone paying you for your time, you'd have little other incentive to do this, other than altruism. Strangely, a lot of GPL software is still being produced by altruism, but don't be fooled: not all of it is. There are programmers at IBM, Novell, and Red Hat who are getting paychecks for this stuff.
I think it comes down to what your core business is. Is it to produce an IP asset (a copyrighted product that only you can sell)? Or is it to work for money? Traditionally, the first scenario is where the real money is. Bill Gates didn't make his fortune by collecting paychecks.
But if RMS and his like can convince people that GPLed software is valuable, the second model may increase in viability, and perhaps at the expense of the first. Why should I buy a product instead of hiring someone to modify a nearly-done free product for me?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
You have to be a pretty trusting soul to put business-critical information or private health data under the control of complete strangers, and with security assurances that amount to little more than, "We keep everything strictly private that the US government doesn't want to see", and, "If we screw up, we promise not to screw up again until the next time".
Thanks anyway. I'll keep my financial data, medical records and such a wee bit closer to home.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.