Stallman Says Cloud Computing Is a Trap

stevedcc writes in to tell us about an interview with RMS in The Guardian, in which he gives his views on cloud computing, with a particular focus on user access to data and the sacrifices made for convenience. "'It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign,' he told The Guardian. 'Somebody is saying this is inevitable — and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true.'" Computerworld has a summary of some of the blogosphere's reaction to RMS's position.

Comments

Totally agree

[GlobalColding]

I am in disbelief over anyones the acceptance of the idea. Relinquishing control over your data to an outside source seems unfathomably retarded, no matter what kind of spin is put on it.

Re:Totally agree

[Goldberg's Pants]

People DO give out far too much data online these days, that much is certain. However, to dismiss using the likes of Gmail entirely is retarded. It's all very well RMS saying we should not use Gmail etc... I use Gmail for all online stuff. (I have a private email address for actual private communication.) Serial numbers for games etc... I'd have been SCREWED if I followed RMS's advice and just kept stuff locally. Oh yes, it's a fine idea in theory, but in Gmail, if I need to find serial numbes (something I've need to do several times in the last year) I can just search for the game name voila! There's my serial number.

To replicate that functionality I would have to backup my entire email pretty much every time I got any, which is completely impractical. Not to mention tedious. Yeah, shell scripts and all that crap, but why bother when Gmail does it all for me, and really, all they're going to learn is I'm signed up on several very dull mailing lists, have bought several games, get spammed by Apple on a regular basis, and apparently am going to be given a load of money by various Nigerian princes, priests, nuns etc...

Yes, people give up too much privacy online these days, but there is a happy medium between that and locking ourselves into a life of self sufficient tedium.

Re:Totally agree

[Jherek Carnelian]

where are your game serial numbers now

Bingo. The OP did exactly what RMS is warning against - he confused convenience for freedom.

Whoever controls your data is the only one who can take responsibility for it. Who is likely to use that responsibility in your best interests - you or a company beholden to shareholders?

Someone has to administer it

[jabberw0k]

The vast majority of computer users are not system administrators. For them, having someone -- whether it's the company administrator down the hall, or Google somewhere out there -- shepherd their data is a great reassurance.

99% of people don't host their own websites, so they depend on someone else to do it. Would Stallman say it's bad for those people to give that person or hosting company control over their data?

I'll never understand the RMS haters

[merc]

If there's one person in this industry who has been consistent over the years it's Richard Stallman. You may not agree with his views: that personal freedoms are more important than technical merit or convenience but you have to admit that he has never drifted from his what he believes in. He's also proven that he is willing to use real hard work (e.g., in the form of code) to promote the principles of his beliefs.

I think few people would realize how much different the computing world would be without the positive influence he's had on our industry.

Also, the record for many of his writings are pretty right on track. Just as an example: A decade ago the idea that you might need special "rights" in order to read a book might have been perceived as .. oh, what are the words people are using now? "raving" or "lunacy". Yet today Digital Restrictions Management embedded in eBooks, games and multi-media are a real thing -- and a real threat to personal freedoms.

Now, I'm just speaking for myself, but when RMS speaks, I will stop and read -- or listen (and be grateful I still have the freedoms to chose to do so) :-)

Re:Dear RMS

[Toonol]

You probably should have saved your pity for an occasion when RMS wasn't right on the ball. He'll give you opportunities, trust me.

But cloud computing is a buzzword for a marketing campaign. It's the newest renaming of renting software as services.

Re:Dear RMS

[sqrt(2)]

I would be willing to stake my Slashdot karma on the prediction that OpenOffice or a reasonable facsimile will always exist as a product I can download and run on my own hardware. E-mail, well I could always use my ISP for my e-mail or even running my own mail server isn't out of the question but the nature of e-mail is that it has to exist somewhere and for most people it's not practical to run their own mail server. And as long as I can still buy HDDs I'll never be reliant on Google or MS to access my photos, music, movies, or documents. Even if Windows eventually becomes nothing more than a thin client connecting to the MS mothership I'm sure I'll still be able to grab a Linux ISO and continue using a real operating system on my own hardware.

Re:Dear RMS

[Godji]

Who says you have to pay with money? You're paying with data about you. Google must know a lot about you by now.

Re:Dear RMS

[just_another_sean]

I would be willing to stake my Slashdot karma on the prediction that OpenOffice or a reasonable facsimile will always exist as a product I can download and run on my own hardware. E-mail, well I could always use my ISP for my e-mail or even running my own mail server isn't out of the question but the nature of e-mail is that it has to exist somewhere and for most people it's not practical to run their own mail server. And as long as I can still buy HDDs I'll never be reliant on Google or MS to access my photos, music, movies, or documents. Even if Windows eventually becomes nothing more than a thin client connecting to the MS mothership I'm sure I'll still be able to grab a Linux ISO and continue using a real operating system on my own hardware.

And that we can thank our Dear RMS for.

Thanks papa bear.

Sean

and of course thousands of others, but we're talking about rms right now

People like you are why they had to coin Free

[SuperKendall]

Right now all the "cloud computing" I do is free: I use windows Live services, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Notebook.

Absolutely none of that is Free.

You have the source for nothing. If they go away, you cannot continue to use them on your own server. If they lack a feature you would like you cannot improve on them.

"Cloud Computing" is simply commercial software delivered on-demand, with the same benefits and drawbacks.

In fact you're a little worse off because you can't even disassemble the server source to see how it works (possibly offset by the benefit of being able to more easily examine some of the UI code in browser based systems).

RMS is right about what happens if no-one truly owns software they use... I don't know that he's right about cloud computing in general because you can run your own truly Free software in the cloud... but software as services, he is right to issue warnings.

Re:Dear RMS

[BrokenHalo]

And that we can thank our Dear RMS for.

Thanks papa bear.

Indeed. I get very tired of all the denizens of the peanut gallery who start frothing at the mouth whenever RMS' name is even mentioned, as if he was some personal enemy to be abhorred and shunned.

In common with the probable majority of these people, I have never actually met the man, but I am capable of recognising that he has contributed more to Free and Open Source software than most us ever will.

It might be worth remembering that the next time Google decides it was only joking the last time they revoked an opressive and obnoxious license agreement. If your data is important to you, simple common-sense should indicate that putting it in someone else's hands is sheer folly. RMS is 100% on the money.

Re:Beta Index

[MrNaz]

RMS is right. Cloud computing is big business' push to turn what was a previously unacceptably democratic computing paradigm into one that can be controlled by only those players with enough funding to set up "clouds".

The migration away from mainframes in the 80s was supposed to avoid just the problem with massively centralized computing: I.e., the problem that centralized computing forces everyone to be doing the same thing or at very least, conforming to the same design parameters.

Personally, I like my PC. I don't want to be constrained to only doing things that can be done in "cloud space". Having an OS that I can do whatever I want on, in absolute privacy and not having to rely on corporate policy to be at least partially friendly to me is something that I value. I don't want Google, Yahoo or Facebook letting the government look over my shoulder, or their big corporate buddies using their data to shove ads down my throat. It also means that I can't just buy a computer and use it as much as I want for no extra cost. Now I have to pay Internet bills, plus whatever software service charges will be applicable in this new forthcoming cloud.

On another note, cloud computing makes it *impossible* for the masses to implement proper privacy policies or cryptography. You think it's hard at the moment to get people to use secure email? Try implementing privacy when everyone's using Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo.

So called SaaS/cloud computing is just a way to ensure that the big end of town gets to watch and control what everyone else is doing, and bill them by the month.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Re:Dear RMS

[stjobe]

I too have met him, in a somewhat similiar setting as yours, and sure he's a bit weird and sure he looks like a hippie, but dangnabbit there is something absolutely impressive about a man who's taken a good long look at his beliefs, drawn them out to their logical conclusions and then acted from those conclusions.

I admire that, and while you and I and many others may think he acts weird and says strange stuff from time to time, if you look a bit deeper you'll see that he's almost inevitably consistent in his beliefs.

You can say what you will about the man, but I do sorrily miss that more people don't do what he has done: Analyze your beliefs and act accordingly.

As for your q&a experience: How many times do you reckon he's got that question? Since he uses free software exclusively, it might not even be a meaningful question for him.

Oh, and reducing his contribution to "worked on Emacs and gdb" is really disingenious. He's done far, far more than that for the community. Look it up.