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RMS Says "Software As a Service" Is Non-free

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the ok-thats-a-bit-inflammatory dept.

BillyG noted an RMS interview where he says "'Software as a service' means that you think of a particular server as doing your computing for you. If that's what the server does, you must not use it! If you do your computing on someone else's server, you hand over control of your computing to whoever controls the server. It is like running binary-only software, only worse: it's even harder for you to patch the program that's running on someone else's server than it is to patch a binary copy of a program running on your own computer. Just like non-free software, 'software as a service' is incompatible with your freedom."

2 of 715 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Obviously! by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    no it's not.

    I had a customer just last week ask for us to get his backups from carbonite. I was confused and he said," I stopped paying for it a month ago, I want the copies of my backups from them."

    I had to explain to him that you cant go to the car wash and demand the dirt off your car given to you after the wash cycle. It's gone, they delete all of it when you stop paying them.

    He still did not fully understand it. And this is a college educated business owner.

    "that's unprofessional of them to delete MY data."

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  2. Re:Dupe? by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you agreed with RMS in principle, and wanted to create a SAAS business that is ethical, how would you do it?

    Because really, it's the entrapment that makes it non-ethical, not the collaboration.

    Making sure your users are able to get copies of their data in a useful format that are complete enough for them to walk away from you is an obvious one. Using an entirely open source stack and releasing any changes and improvements you make back to the community is another, more indirect one.

    What other steps might you take?

    Seems to me, releasing your entire source tree wouldn't necessarily be relevant for a lot of web apps, because they're more about representing network effects and business relationships on a grand scale, and are only useful if you wish to also be a service provider. Giving someone the source code that makes eBay run isn't going to be particularly useful if all they want to do is sell used merchandise.

    Anyone got any clever ideas?

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth