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

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."

Comments

I must not use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try and stop me, Emperor Neckbeard.

Re:I must not use it?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Try and stop me, Emperor Neckbeard.

He doesn't have to. When the almighty Google decide to shut down their Gmail beta without notice you'll stop whether you like it or not.

Re:I must not use it?

[rubbsdecvik]

And what motivation would they have to do this?

Re:I must not use it?

[impaledsunset]

I believe he uses the word "must" as in "you must not try to check if your gas tank with a lighter". You are free to do so, but he wants to tell you that it is a bad idea. And in his opinion, it is a ridiculously bad idea. It is certainly worse than proprietary software, and we all know what he thinks of that.

I would have to agree with him. Preferring software as a service vs. software running on your machine is a bad idea. It might be convinient in many cases, but you shouldn't trust a third party with your data and your work, especially when you can avoid it. It might not look that bad, but as you already have the tools on your computer, it's not worth it even if the issues don't look like a big deal to you.

This does not apply in each case you use 'software as a service'. Examples of acceptable use of software running on someone else's server would include using Slashdot for news discussion, using web hosting services and using GNU Savannah for your software project. His point is not to use Google Docs to edit your private documents, and not to use Gmail to send your private mails, or to be more specific - not to let them become a replacement for your office suite and mail client/server.

Of course, avoiding any software services is nuts, it is not needed, and it is not even possible. And running a program on your friend's server doesn't hurt, either. You should, however, be well aware of the risks. Unfortunately, in many cases you have to trust your data to a third party. Read stories about leaked private information here lately? Then I say you shouldn't let your word processing and spreadsheet needs become a part of those cases. Simply don't do it.

Re:I must not use it?

[ushering05401]

And what motivation would they have to do this?

Turns out that omniscience isn't really their thing?

Re:I must not use it?

[mea37]

I was in disagree-with-RMS mode right up until I read your comment.

What motive? Money. They've shut services down before for exactly that reason. If a software service isn't profitable to its operator, it could go away. Or, the service's provider might decide it would be more profitable to change the subscription terms.

With SaaS, what you are getting is bounded by contract, ToS, and not much else. If you assume it's like a program on your computer, and don't understand the limitations -- if you say "what reason would they have to take away what they're giving me right now" -- then you are an audience that creates a need for a warning like RMS's.

(However, I still think his argument is driven too much by one-sided idealism and too little by pragmatism; and that the assertion toward never using a non-free service only hurts his credibility.)

Re:I must not use it?

[Decameron81]

I believe he uses the word "must" as in "you must not try to check if your gas tank with a lighter". You are free to do so, but he wants to tell you that it is a bad idea. And in his opinion, it is a ridiculously bad idea. It is certainly worse than proprietary software, and we all know what he thinks of that.

I would have to agree with him. Preferring software as a service vs. software running on your machine is a bad idea. It might be convinient in many cases, but you shouldn't trust a third party with your data and your work, especially when you can avoid it. It might not look that bad, but as you already have the tools on your computer, it's not worth it even if the issues don't look like a big deal to you.

This does not apply in each case you use 'software as a service'. Examples of acceptable use of software running on someone else's server would include using Slashdot for news discussion, using web hosting services and using GNU Savannah for your software project. His point is not to use Google Docs to edit your private documents, and not to use Gmail to send your private mails, or to be more specific - not to let them become a replacement for your office suite and mail client/server.

Of course, avoiding any software services is nuts, it is not needed, and it is not even possible. And running a program on your friend's server doesn't hurt, either. You should, however, be well aware of the risks. Unfortunately, in many cases you have to trust your data to a third party. Read stories about leaked private information here lately? Then I say you shouldn't let your word processing and spreadsheet needs become a part of those cases. Simply don't do it.

I totally disagree. I realize there may be some inconveniences with using online services sometimes, but we should try and face the challenges to solve those issues, instead of simply tagging them as evil.

If there are privacy issues, we should look for ways to avoid them, by using cryptography or legistlation where necessary.

It's all about progress. We wouldn't be doing ourselves a favor by just rejecting it. We should embrace it and fix whatever issues show up in the way.

Re:I must not use it?

[rubbsdecvik]

fair enough, but my point wasn't that I'm ignorant of the problems, just that there are always risks with whatever approach you take to get things done. Some will have less of a risk than others, but the truth is that even Open Source comes with different risks. It's not likely, but open source projects have died. Even ones that people and companies relied on. Granted, anyone could take it back up and start coding again, but that too is a risk. While I'm not saying RMS is not making a good point, he too much of an absolutist to be really credible for me.

Re:I must not use it?

[Unordained]

As a small example: just recently I had Yahoo! inform me that their "briefcase" service was going away, and that I should download my stuff before it gets deleted. It was nice of them to inform me, at least. It was handier than (ab)using gmail to store stuff, though. I used to use Yahoo! notes, too -- and again, gmail just isn't quite right for that, nor are (that I can see) any of Google's other services. So it's sad, but I'll live. I don't have a good competitor to run to, but it's not the end of the world.

More so than just your processing living on someone else's servers, though, you should be worried about your data living there. How many of the services you give data to will let you re-export all of it? Can you easily take all that wisdom you posted to that forum site and save it offline, in case the forum goes belly-up from one day to the next? That was an issue when BrickShelf was teetering on the edge of disappearing -- did we have a good way to get all our stuff back out? What about all those product ratings you posted online? Sure, you were part of the mob, and the value comes from the mob -- but those were your product ratings. Did you keep a copy for your records? If Amazon goes away, do you have a backup of your "likes" and "dislikes" so you can easily shop elsewhere? All that time you spent updating that Wikipedia article -- did you keep a copy of your work in case some court decides you can no longer access the site in your country?

We don't, but we ought to, demand that services we use and trust also give us a way to leave -- or at least to keep a backup of our data. Wasn't it ma.gnolia.com, recently, that went down and didn't have a useful backup? Do you demand to know what the backup policies are from each service you use? Do you have a way of verifying this? Do you ask about security? Is their server in a rack, protected by a crack team of techies, biometric locks, with security cameras -- or is it sitting under a dingy old couch?

You're putting value into these social sites -- are you being treated as a value producer?

Re:I must not use it?

[dbrutus]

Well, the fix is to periodically sync your data to your own machines and have code that could replace the SAAS if you wanted it to. At that point the SAAS vendor is just providing you with convenient, quick access to the cloud and if they go away, you can just buy some hardware and rapidly be back in business for your own stuff at a degraded speed.

But nobody does this which is why SAAS is a bad idea for anything other than 'nice to have' uses that you could live without.

Re:I must not use it?

[impaledsunset]

First of all, you can't fix a technical problem with legislation. The law can't stop your private information from leaking or going in the wrong hands.

Also, there are many things you can do to fix some of the problems with software services. But when was the last time you encrypted your mail with GPG before sending it through gmail? A huge part of the point is to understand that you can't trust it, and you should not treat it as software running on your computer. Barring all this, I agree with you -- everyone would welcome you very much if you'd develop a web-based spreadsheet that encrypts your data in your browser before sending it to the server.

And last but not least, why should we rush and embrace something that, at its current state, takes our privacy and control away, without giving us any particular benefit? I understand that software-as-a-service gives us benefits that we should look forward to, but rushing and giving up our privacy and control just so that we embrace them is not the right thing to do.

Take collaborative editing as an example. This can be accomplished without the need for using software-as-a-service. And it's something I would like to use. Then we should start implementing such solutions, instead of rushing to embrace Google Docs. AbiWord already has such features, and there is ACE and Gobby. Though I think we should focus on creating collaborative tools based on XMPP supporting end-to-end encryption.

I agree that there are use-cases for which software as a service is very useful or irreplacable, but there is no need to embrace it for the rest, and we should take the risks into account when doing so.

Re:I must not use it?

[jo42]

Revenue from advertising drying up - as it will some day.

Re:I must not use it?

[lukas84]

Tell me how a normal person can use email and NOT use "software as a service".

Re:I must not use it?

[ChrisMaple]

gmail is already used by TDS Telecom (and I assume others) as the backbone of their email service, so TDS doesn't have to do the work itself. I presume this arrangement is by contract, for fee. It won't disappear without notice (barring Force Majeure). It might, however, become non-free.

Re:I must not use it?

[Penguinoflight]

lease your own VM in a datacenter, and run an SSL enabled SMTP server on it. It's pricey for a reason, data harvesting makes money.

Re:I must not use it?

[lukas84]

It seems like you didn't read the "normal" part.

Re:I must not use it?

[McDutchie]

Use the email program that came with the operating system. Some normal people still do that, not all the world has switched to Gmail and Hotmail yet. And no, sending email via an SMTP server is not "software as a service". Besides, most ISPs run perfectly libre/open source SMTP servers.

Re:I must not use it?

[Penguinoflight]

Normal users can use it, they just can't set it up. If security and system reliability is important, it's not just possible but necessary.

Re:I must not use it?

[lukas84]

How is that in any way more secure than using Gmail/Hotmail?

They can still analyze, save and archive every email you receive, and every email you send.

If the software they're using for this task is open source or proprietary doesn't change those facts one bit.

Re:I must not use it?

[impaledsunset]

A mail client with encryption support looks fine enough for a home user. And companies might run their own mail servers, too.

Re:I must not use it?

[lukas84]

What kind of encryption?

S/MIME? Noone but a few cooperations use that.
PGP? Noone but a few geeks use that.

It is entirely possible to LEARN how do it, and workaround the problems we have in the system, but this requires a lot of investment with very little gain.

Most people don't want to learn how to encrypt their mail, they prefer doing things that are more fun to them.

Re:I must not use it?

[CastrTroy]

But your ISP still owns your email address. And if your ISP disappears, or changes the TOS, and you want to switch to another ISP, try bringing your email address with you. I along with many others have purchased my own domain name, and I have a hosting service, so I am able to keep my email address when/if I choose to switch. But this is not an option for most people. How is relying on Hotmail for your email service any worse than relying on Comcast. Either may stop offering the service at any time, or change to unreasonable terms forcing you to change your email address.

Re:I must not use it?

[tkinnun0]

First of all, you can't fix a technical problem with legislation.

Of course not, but you can legislate such an environment that the parties responsible for a particular technical problem will either fix it or go bankrupt and in jail. Either way the problem ceases to exists.

The law can't stop your private information from leaking or going in the wrong hands.

No, but it can make sure that it doesn't happen again. Most of the time that's good enough.

Re:I must not use it?

[iiiears]

I can only wonder if technology solve this dilemma. If there is enough storage you can store everything wherever you like.

Re:I must not use it?

[McDutchie]

How is relying on Hotmail for your email service any worse than relying on Comcast.

You pay Comcast for your connection incuding email service, so you are Comcast's customer. That means, at least in theory, that Comcast has a vested interest in running your service in a way that keeps you happy. But since Comcast has a local broadband monopoly in many regions, that theory tends to break down.

Hotmail does want to keep its customers happy, but since you don't pay Hotmail a dime, their customers are advertisers. That makes you their product, and Hotmail itself merely a conduit through which the customers profit from the product. Given the nature of advertising, keeping Hotmail's customers happy is mostly incompatible with keeping Hotmail's product happy, especially in the long run.

So which is better? I'd say Comcast wins by a very slight margin as you at least retain control over your own software and data storage. I'd prefer a third option if possible: a decent ISP that is set up so that it's in their interest to serve me well.

Re:I must not use it?

[IntlHarvester]

And no, sending email via an SMTP server is not "software as a service".

Maybe not, but IMAP certainly is.

Re:I must not use it?

[DrgnDancer]

His point is not to use Google Docs to edit your private documents, and not to use Gmail to send your private mails, or to be more specific - not to let them become a replacement for your office suite and mail client/server.

OK, this is the second or third time I've seen a rather odd assumption on Slashdot. How many people do you actually know that use their "own" mailserver? I do, granted (though it's through a hosting service, so I don't have FULL control), and I'm sure that a reasonable proportion of people on this site do, but in general how many people do you think do this? E-mail is probably the ultimate SaaS that nearly everyone uses and has used since the inception of widespread Internet access. Whether through G-mail, Hotmail, a university, a company they work for, or their ISP, MOST people use someone else's mailserver. Even if they wanted to, and had the money to, most people couldn't. Residential Internet services almost universally forbid it (a very few do allow it, but they are rare). Even a lot of small businesses don't have their own mailservers.

Re:I must not use it?

[amRadioHed]

Gmail has commercial options, so how is being a gmail customer any worse than being a Comcast customer?

Re:I must not use it?

[dimeglio]

SAAS turns software into a commodity. For now, companies are being sold on the cheap price per seat when in fact, they are giving up a lot more control than is initially apparent. It might be worth a look for non-mission critical systems but then, why not simply outsource the entire service?
I, for one, would not feel confortable handing over any corporate data to a third party.

Re:I must not use it?

[CarpetShark]

He's not trying to stop you idiot, he's trying to help you by changing the services so that they ARE free. It's pretty stupid to not know your friends from your enemies.

Re:I must not use it?

[sanotto]

"If there are privacy issues, we should look for ways to avoid them, by using cryptography or legistlation where necessary." Yeah!!! legislation will protect you ... except from the government and your lawyer... I'll rather read a thousand tutorials to set up my own server than facing a "simple" trial to protect my rights... If you don't agree... please shut down your car alarm system and hope that the law will protect you from being stolen ...

Re:I must not use it?

[JumpDrive]

It's all about progress. We wouldn't be doing ourselves a favor by just rejecting it. We should embrace it and fix whatever issues show up in the way.

So your answer is that we should do something else, just because it is different. Even though it has no real advantage to the end user.

Cryptography I can see as a becoming a solution to most privacy issues. Legislation forget it, just forget it. They can't even keep classified state secrets secret from foreign governments. You think that they are going to be able to keep your health records, CC accounts and other information private.

Re:I must not use it?

[Requiem18th]

This is only a guess but I bet you use MS Office with Windows, surfing slashdot wit5h opera (or I'd say IE but who uses IE to browse /.?) this is not an ad hominem attack I'm just guessing that you probably like using non-free software.

  You probably disagree that there are any inconveniences using non-free software, maybe even think it is the best, you may not even like using free software unless it is overwhelmingly superior.

  You have been using windows/macos all your life and might as well use it for the rest of your life. You did tried Ubuntu once and dropped it as soon as you found out it doesn't have the Comic Sans fonts.

  You may or may not use Linux in the server and if you do you hate it is GPLed, you think everything should be BSD style or MS Shared Source(tm) licensed.

  The point is, I don't think you get at all the feeling of urgency of free software developers, you don't care about vendor lock-in and such trivialities.

  You are completely outside of the community and thus the conversation. If you leaned even a little in the direction of free software you would understand. Why supporting OpenOffice when GoogleDocs is there? Why using Linux if Windows is there? Why using Firefox if IE is free?

  What I mean is that all this talk about progress and facing of challenges is pointless. You might as well just say "I don't *need* free-software" and be done with that.
 

Re:I must not use it?

[Mister_Stoopid]

You can't address the privacy concerns of SAAS with encryption. Google has to be able to see the plaintext of a document for me to be able to edit that document in Google Docs. The only way you could get around it would be for the entirety of the editing to happen in my browser via javascript or similar, and at that point Google Docs becomes indistinguishable from a program running on my machine except that it now comes with some storage space on Google's servers.

Re:I must not use it?

[QuasiEvil]

I don't really believe in SaaS as progress.

Aside from his dogmatic dictates on what I may do with my freedom (including being free to use a non-free piece of software, if I so choose), I actually partly agree with him on this. SaaS to replace basic things that my desktop does well on its own only seems to add more complexity and possibilities for failure, and removes my control over them. It transfers responsibility to manage it from someone who cares a great deal if it works (me) to someone who barely gives a rat's ass, and only does that much because he/she gets paid.

On the other hand, if you want to use them, then by all means I think you should be *free* to do so.

Re:I must not use it?

[petermgreen]

Still, you can reduce the role of the service and hence the risk considerablly. Just store the mail (or at least a backup copy of the mail) locally using a conventional mail client and use your own domain. The services role is reduced to just collecting mail off the internet and holding it until your client is ready to pick it up and in that role the service can be easilly replaced with dosens of alternative providers.

When evaluating any service you should always ask what your options are if the provider can no longer be bothered providing that service or the service changes in ways that make it shit.

Re:I must not use it?

[SectoidRandom]

Gmail is sold with an SLA, so when "almighty Google" decides to do that they will have to face the mother of all class-action lawsuits!
 

Re:I must not use it?

[SectoidRandom]

I would have to agree with him. Preferring software as a service vs. software running on your machine is a bad idea. It might be convinient in many cases, but you shouldn't trust a third party with your data and your work, especially when you can avoid it. It might not look that bad, but as you already have the tools on your computer, it's not worth it even if the issues don't look like a big deal to you.

If we are talking about home users trying to hide their private data from the big bad world then your point may be right. Certainly if your a terrorist, you'd probably be best not using LiveMesh to store your TakeOverTheWorld.MPP files!

BUT, if we are being serious here and talking about small to medium sized business (one to a couple of hundred users) then this whole software as a service thing just "Makes Sense(TM)".

Your point that you cannot trust anyone else with your data is moot as all typical businesses do it all the time, they have to. How else can you contract in 3rd parties to install those servers holding the data? How else can they engage a mob based out of Seattle / London / Bangalore to do remote desktop support?

Ask a typical manager or director of a company who they would trust more; a 3rd party company with a tight SLA, or a typical employee on a 1 month notice period? Hopefully the answer is neither, as both hopefully will perform within the letter of their contract and nothing more.

So can you really argue that there is a difference in trust between having your own managed servers located in your basement (managed by a nice cosy SLA), or having those same servers 'virtualised' and hosted offsite with a different 3rd party with their own SLA?

Re:I must not use it?

[Decameron81]

Wow, that's one interesting post to reply to. I think you deserve an answer:

1 - I am a MacOS user, but have used Win at work mostly together with Linux and Unix in some instances. I understand the advantages of windows at work, love OS X for pleasure and enjoy linux for server tasks mostly.

2 - Free (as in libre) software is not an end to me, but another mean to an end. I have to say I pretty much prefer the concept of Open Source software, and maybe BSD is the license I would choose for my own work if I had the chance.

3 - You sound to be judging me for my choices in certain parts of your posts. I have tried Ubuntu but have not used it for long mostly because I use other tools for the job. I haven't used any linux distro in GUI mode, but rather work using Red Hat and command line tools developing software for a Bank. So I wouldn't be a great judge of Linux for the desktop. But I haven't rejected it either as soon as I found it didn't have Comics Sans.

4 - I do think my point was clear, and it was that free software is not an end, and it shouldn't be used as an excuse to damper progress. Only that. It has its advantages, but this is not one of them.

Salut.

Re:I must not use it?

[arito]

You (dramatically) say that you totally disagree with impaledsunset, but you don't actually say anything that contradicts him/her. Impaledsunset clearly agrees on using several types of SaaS. Why do you assume that if the problems he complains about were fixed, he would still be against SaaS?

Re:I must not use it?

[Coriolis]

But nobody does this which is why SAAS is a bad idea for anything other than 'nice to have' uses that you could live without.

Umm, I do? Because Gmail supports IMAP, it's easy to sync your mail to local disk.

Re:I must not use it?

[jesterzog]

I tend to agree with this, but I'm a bit of a hypocrite. It's not the software that bothers me with SAAS. It's the data storage, for two reasons:

1. If the service disappears, I might lose the data.
2. Having someone else store my data may be a risk to my privacy.

I'm reasonably comfortable using GMail, because I find it very convenient with moving between the 4+ computers I tend to use every day.

I've solved problem 1 with a script on my home PC which runs on a cron job, periodically downloads all my sent and received emails from my GMail account via pop3, and stores them in a nice openly-specified Maildir format. From here they get backed up. I also try to avoid using my GMail address directly, because I don't want to encourage people to email me at an address that I don't own and which I might no longer control one day.

I haven't quite solved problem 2, and this is what bothers me. For now at least, the convenience of GMail has won out over concerns about my privacy. Perhaps I'll regret it one day if GMail's security is compromised, or if Google's policies about data change.

I'll post on Slashdot because I don't think I'll be too concerned when it closes down one day and zaps all my correspondence. (Hell, maybe I'll be relieved. :)

Re:I must not use it?

[Requiem18th]

Honestly my response was overblown considering the last line summed it all very well. I was just bothered by the obliqueness of your response, talking about progress and legislation when you could have simply said "meh".

But I haven't rejected it either as soon as I found it didn't have Comics Sans.

Can't get them all right, I was only guessing. My point is that you probably wouldn't compromise even a little in order to get rid of proprietary products because that's not important to you.

Re:I must not use it?

[sjames]

How is your vital data being backed up? Any idea? Are they actually doing it or just promising? If they fold up and blow away, how many days of data do you lose (perhaps, all of them!).

Dupe?

[maccallr]

Seems uncannily like this story from a month ago: Richard Stallman Warns About Non-Free Web Apps

Re:Dupe?

[Jurily]

Seems uncannily like this story from a month ago: Richard Stallman Warns About Non-Free Web Apps

Newsflash! RMS has the same opinion he had a month ago!

Re:Dupe?

[Sockatume]

No, that was about how doing tasks with web apps was bad. This is about how the whole concept of doing computing on a machine which is not under your control is wrong.

Re:Dupe?

[Sockatume]

On reflection, it seems that RMS has reached the conclusion that software freedom is beneficial, therefore the absence of software freedom is harmful, and furthermore that any absence of software freedom is unacceptable. I look forward to him publishing future articles from a home-built, hand-fabricated microcomputer, or perhaps some sort of elaborate open-source mechanical turing machine, when he decides that nonfree microcode is unacceptable. ;)

Re:Dupe?

[aesiamun]

Oh no! I don't control my employer's system...I'll have to tell him that I can't do any work on it because RMS says I'm wrong!

Re:Dupe?

[ShieldW0lf]

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?

Re:Dupe?

[Minwee]

Or perhaps he could just run GNU/Linux on, say, an OpenSPARC based system.

It's not like nobody has ever thought of this before.

Re:Dupe?

[Daemonax]

He already uses a Lemote Yeeloong laptop which has a Free BIOS and doesn't require non-free firmware.

Re:Dupe?

[kripkenstein]

No, that was about how doing tasks with web apps was bad. This is about how the whole concept of doing computing on a machine which is not under your control is wrong.

Yeah, the argument this time is a lot more general. Kudos to him for having such 'pure' views, but this time I'd say he's way off base.

Doing all your computation on your own machine is like never asking other people for help with anything. It means never asking someone else to do some simple arithmetic for us. And it means never using a calculator (that you haven't hacked).

Re:Dupe?

[rabbit994]

Easy, release the code that powers your SAAS. In most cases, the appeal of SAAS isn't the fact I can't run the same code myself, it's the fact I can pay you to do it for me and when it breaks, it's not my problem, it's yours.

Re:Dupe?

[mpeskett]

And Slashdot has the same 'news' as it had a month ago?

Re:Dupe?

[Sockatume]

Clearly he's ahead of the curve of even parodic estimations of his dedication. I can only doff my hat and concede that when the man does free, he does it to the letter.

Re:Dupe?

[lokedhs]

SPARC, as the grandparent post already pointed out to you.

Re:Dupe?

[Jurily]

And Slashdot has the same 'news' as it had a month ago?

You must be new here.

Re:Dupe?

[HeronBlademaster]

I would argue that simply releasing the source code is insufficient.

Many companies who use SaaS webapps and such simply don't have the expertise among their own employees to run the source code themselves if the provider were to disappear overnight. It's somewhat ridiculous to expect every small business owner to hire someone to set it up for them, and even if they did, they wouldn't gain anything - they would still lack understanding of how things work, and if it breaks (or if someone breaks it) they're still up a creek without a paddle.

Owning the machine running the open source code, and even having the machine onsite, does not mean it's any more "free" than the original SaaS if you lack the expertise to fix things when they break. Does RMS really think everyone currently using SaaS should develop that expertise?

Re:Dupe?

[ajs]

I don't think RMS does more good than harm in most situations anymore, but to be fair to him, there's nothing hypocritical about acknowledging the realities of hardware manufacturing. One of the cornerstones of his free software thesis is that software has no (or negligible) manufacturing cost (R&D, yes, but not manufacturing). This makes proprietary software a purely artificial construct. Proprietary hardware is, in his eyes, unfortunate, but much more a matter of practical limitations.

Now, the lines DO get fuzzy. The Lisp Machine history shows that pretty clearly, as software was migrated into hardware and the whole OS+hardware platform was made proprietary. That had RMS ranting for decades. I think we're now reaching that stage with computing platforms. Operating systems are, from the standpoint of an application, hardware. The POSIX library or the C++ standard library are the same everywhere, and there's no real value in any particular one being available to you as source, so long as some are.

The layers above that, on the other hand, are very different, and in some cases I agree with RMS, but he's ignoring the fact that many of these computation-as-service frameworks are built on open source. Most use Linux as their base. Many of them use open source virtualization. There are even large teams of open source developers working to develop tools for these environments.

So no, I think he's off-base, here, as he often is, but it's unfair to write him off as a hypocrite because of the realities of hardware manufacturing.

Re:Dupe?

[Burkin]

Pretty doubtful that someone is running a SPARC processor in their laptop.

Re:Dupe?

[russotto]

Pretty doubtful that someone is running a SPARC processor in their laptop.

I don't know if any are currently available, but there have been SPARC-powered laptops in the past.

Re:Dupe?

[AlXtreme]

Owning the machine running the open source code, and even having the machine onsite, does not mean it's any more "free" than the original SaaS if you lack the expertise to fix things when they break. Does RMS really think everyone currently using SaaS should develop that expertise?

Having the expertise is a whole different question. Not everyone can debug a program, but that doesn't mean that it isn't useful to have the source code of a program for those people that can.

If the SaaS you are using is open source, then you have the _option_ to set up your own version (or hire someone to do it for you) and modify it in any way you please, if you want to. You don't have that option with a traditional SaaS-provider. That is the freedom RMS wants.

Re:Dupe?

[dreemernj]

I look forward to him publishing future articles from a home-built, hand-fabricated microcomputer, or perhaps some sort of elaborate open-source mechanical turing machine, when he decides that nonfree microcode is unacceptable. ;)

That article will be "Free as in Beard"

Re:Dupe?

[dbrutus]

Many people who run Linux don't have the expertise among their own employees to properly manage it. This is why they hire other companies to do it for them. This is not an indictment of Linux nor would it be an indictment of SaaS. In fact, the major business model of the FSM is to give the code away and provide services to maintain and fix the code for clients. Are you really indicting that business model as non-free? I thought I'd never meet anybody who was stricter that RMS but...

Re:Dupe?

[LingNoi]

One of the cornerstones of his free software thesis is that software has no (or negligible) manufacturing cost (R&D, yes, but not manufacturing).

Except that's not true. Even if you're giving it away via Bit Torrent it's still going to cost you in bandwidth.

Re:Dupe?

[HeronBlademaster]

Oh, no, you misunderstand. I'm not arguing that anything should be more strict than what RMS wants. (Quite the opposite; I think RMS is ridiculously purist in his views.)

I was simply pointing at a flaw in my parent post's argument (he claimed that simply releasing the source code to the SaaS would be sufficient to make that SaaS "free" under RMS's definition). This is why I put "free" in quotes - I'm using the word as defined by RMS, but I don't agree with that definition.

Re:Dupe?

[klapaucjusz]

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

[...]

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.

What about data retention? You'll want your clients to have the ability to delete any data they ever stored on your servers, including logs. And you'll want to do that in a manner that is compatible with the data retention laws of your jurisdiction.

Re:Dupe?

[klapaucjusz]

I look forward to him publishing future articles from a home-built, hand-fabricated microcomputer, or perhaps some sort of elaborate open-source mechanical turing machine, when he decides that nonfree microcode is unacceptable. ;)

I'd put it somewhat differently. Somebody once said that technological progress is like a herd of pigs: it gives you bacon, so who cares if it your courtyard smells funny.

The problem that RMS is trying to tackle is how to get your bacon without being overridden with the shit.

Re:Dupe?

[Kjella]

I would argue that simply releasing the source code is insufficient. Many companies who use SaaS webapps and such simply don't have the expertise among their own employees to run the source code themselves if the provider were to disappear overnight.

The point of the GPL isn't that everyone that downloads a FLOSS applicatino should compile and/or patch it. It's that someone else, willing to provide the effort necessary could. I don't see why you should be held to any other standard wtih SaaS. I think there's a huge definition problem with the "work as a whole" though, with distributed applications it's easy to define what "the whole" is. What's a service that hooks into many other systems, data warehouses, web services and so on? I think it'll be far too easy to end up with either empty shells calling proprietary code or over-viral services that'll require you to expose everything it touches.

Re:Dupe?

[dwye]

> but he's ignoring the fact that many of these
> computation-as-service frameworks are built on open source.

But if they are not open source, themselves, you run into the same problem as proprietary software compiled with gcc. Now, that may be good enough for you (or me, or company X) but it is not for him. Actually, even if they have open sourced something that looks like their software, how can one be sure that they run it, and not an evil variant (for various levels and descriptions of evil)?

And, he may be right, over a long term. Just because Google has been able to waste money on the Google Apps in the hopes of getting eyes for its ads (the real customers are the ad companies and their clients, not you) does not mean that they will not decide to shut them down in this or the next advertising drought, or the one after that, if they start to go GM on us. Especially when the SaaS is not part of a contract between supplier (Google, in the example) and user (you, me, a company going cheap, etc), there is no way to prevent them from doing whatever they want to do.

Now, I am willing to take that risk to some extent (Gmail and Yahoo, although I cannot get my TV schedule to work well from Yahoo any more), others to a larger extent, but he would just as soon run his own silicon foundry if he could, to guarantee what comes out. In this, his concerns are similar to that of government X using products from government Y, if X and Y are in some sort of conflict. For example, supposedly the USA bugged printers delivered to Iraq, before Gulf War I, to give a radio beacon to guide bombing missions of government offices. Likewise, there have been questions, here, about the wisdom of the US DoD depending on computers built in, or with parts from, the PRC, in the case where they decide to take Taiwan.

Re:Dupe?

[EvilIdler]

I'm just waiting for him to come to the conclusion that only Internet access you provide on your own is safe. Or is he already running his own ISP? What about the many other servers on the 'net which his packages could pass through? I know he doesn't use the web (or even know what it is, and that it has graphics now), but his e-mail goes through The Outside. Can he ensure that only trusted servers see his mail? Encryption doesn't count; outsiders snooping can still see *who* he's having contact with, which can be just as harmful as sensitive content.

At least I would consider it harmful to my image if I was caught e-mailing back and forth with him ;)

Re:Dupe?

[Sockatume]

The post I just acknowledged and agreed with? That one?

Re:Dupe?

[Sockatume]

I'm not arguing that he's a hypocrite, although I didn't do a great job of making that clear. I just had an amusing image of "free software only" taken to its logical conclusion. As has been pointed out, though, "free software only" requires a lot less homebrew than I had previously assumed.

Re:Dupe?

[pseudonomous]

And know a message from our corporate sponsers:

look at these

or try:

these

I would like to say that 'if I had the money, these would be cool to own', but I'm kinda thinking, "no". YMMV.

Re:Dupe?

[sanotto]

Well... he allready thinks so... have you heard of open bios???? http://www.openfirmware.info/Welcome_to_OpenBIOS

Re:Dupe?

[einhverfr]

But if a lot of processing, access control, etc. happens on the server, then what difference does this make?

Re:Dupe?

[againjj]

The difference is where the code runs. Web apps are downloaded to your machine and run there, which means that if the app is GPLed, then you have the source and can modify it, and run the modified copy. With software as a service, the code runs on the remote server, and so, even if it is GPLed, the code does not need to be distributed, so you can't get the version of the code that is running, though this can be mitigated with the GNU Affero GPL. Further, even if you could get the code, you still can't run a modified version, since the code is running on a machine you don't control.

In sum, the previous article says that web apps are programs that ought to be GPLed so you get your freedom, and the current article says software as a service inherently makes freedom impossible.

Re:Dupe?

[ShieldW0lf]

I believe that SAAS and freedom are fundamentally incompatible. I don't believe the entrapment issue is entirely solvable. Even if a company can take their data with them, they will need to reproduce the service before they can continue operating. This is similar to proprietary software where large investments may be made into data and processes that are difficult to perform in another way. If, as a business, you distributed your entire stack, including the custom stuff, to the customers, what is to stop a customer from starting their own business using it? They would use your R&D to compete.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that. For example, if you can use Google Apps to work on your documents from any browser and access them from any computer, that's a service. If you're able to download them in ODF format and open them on your computer with OpenOffice, you haven't lost any freedom, even if you decide you don't want to continue with Google Apps. And if the service automatically transmits a copy to an archive you designate on a network connected device that you own on a regular basis, you can be assured that you won't lose any freedom.

Re:Dupe?

[janwedekind]

In my opinion true cloud computing means that you can share processing power (e.g. Boinc) and storage (e.g. file sharing) with others. At the moment we still have somewhat centralized solutions where everyone relies on a few big companies (Google, Amazon, SAP, ...) which are providing special services. On the long term this is too limiting since those companies always need to find ways to make their service financially viable.

Re:Dupe?

[SectoidRandom]

(Hmm, warning unpopular idea coming up!)

As someone who has designed SAAS services based both on commercial custom applications and off the shelf applications, I would say that the way to do it "ethically" would be to use known quantities.

E.g. Want a SAAS mail solution? Don't use Gmail because you don't know where it came from, instead sign up with a provider running Exchange Hosted Services, you can then be sure that what you are working with firstly is used by millions of other people around the world (security through obscurity, we love it), but more importantly if something goes really badly wrong, you have the good old fashion business favourite option to SUE someone!

What better steps or clever ideas can you take to ensure that "someone else" is creating this software as a service with your security first and foremost in mind?

Yep I know it's an unpopular idea, but when taking about businesses the best way to make a manager comfortable with something is a clear and undeniable chain of blame. :)

Re:Dupe?

[DarkTygur]

Non-free microcode? Your post caused me to read Wikipedia's microcode article, and I learned some stuff. It mentioned Linux patching microcode.

Re:Dupe?

[ajs]

That's a distribution cost, and yes, software has a negligible distribution cost. Compared to most goods, it's practically free to distribute.

Let's get our costs straight here, since you don't seem to understand how manufacturing works. Here's what you spend money on for a product:

• Overhead (e.g. HR, admin and other support staff as well a regulatory costs, legal fees, etc.)
• R&D (this may include physical costs such as laboratory time and the like, but primarily you're talking about salaries dedicated to prototype creation)
• Manufacturing (line workers, assembly/publication equipment ranging from looms to robots to printing presses)
• Distribution (shipping, upload bandwidth (as you point out), retail arrangements, etc.)

Now software has the largest expense associated with it on the R&D and overhead sides, but clearly there are distribution costs, and even some manufacturing costs (boxing up shrinkwrap copies and paying for CDROM duplication), but compared to an industry such as textiles or food, there is essentially no manufacturing and distribution costs. Software doesn't grow mold in transit, need giant looms and operators, etc. Software is essentially the best-case scenario for manufacturing and distribution costs.

Want proof that that's true? The advent of FOSS. This would not be possible in the textiles industry or the automotive industry and as other posters pointed out, it's not even possible in computer-science related fields such as computer hardware. It's the fact that costs are negligible that allows companies to justify contributing to these projects and for students, researchers and amateurs to donate their time. The value received in terms of recognition, collective problem-solving and other less tangible rewards are able to offset the costs involved such as buying computers and storage space and even for companies to fund bandwidth costs.

Sometime ask a produce distributor if he'd like to have the distribution costs of software that allow for a company to distribute thousands of products to millions of consumers as a free service to promote their other efforts (e.g. Sourceforge, Google Code, etc.)

Obviously!

[RiotingPacifist]

I'm no RMS fan (GPL2 all the way) but isn't this shit obvious?
The only point in software as a service's defense, is that at least you know you don't own the software.

Re:Obviously!

[rumith]

The problem is, paying for all that computing power, data storage, software development and other stuff may occasionally not be my goal. Sometimes I just want to browse a damn photo gallery or write an online document.

Re:Obviously!

[Lumpy]

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."

Re:Obviously!

[Jurily]

I'm no RMS fan (GPL2 all the way) but isn't this shit obvious?

Do my rms-ian freedoms include deciding to use a website I know doesn't release the source code? Or is that more like the BSD freedom?

Re:Obviously!

[maxume]

Delicious currently gives me full access to the data that I have generated using the service, and they are actively developing new features.

Where's the problem? I guess I could worry that they might change what they are offering, but for something like a bookmark, access to the data is 99% of the equation for me, not access to the software.

Re:Obviously!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Nobody has any intentions of stopping you from doing so. RMS merely recommends that you don't. I've never understood why that raises so much ire. Were he proposing coercive measures to stop you, I'd see it; but (correctly) noting that, if you use SaS, you have fuck all control over the software is simply true.

Re:Obviously!

[geminidomino]

Nobody has any intentions of stopping you from doing so. RMS merely recommends that you don't.

Really? He should read RFC 2119.

"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!

Sure sounds like an imperative to me.

Re:Obviously!

[Sockatume]

That's not software freedom, that's information freedom, though. Actually concepts like freedom of information mandate such destruction of data by those you hand it to.

Re:Obviously!

[plague3106]

I think it's because instead of saying "before using SaS, think about these points," he says "just avoid SaS at all costs." There's no place for it... which isn't always the case for some or most people.

Re:Obviously!

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand the difference between "must not" and "MUST NOT".

Re:Obviously!

[GreyWolf3000]

Do you know who wrote GPL2?

Re:Obviously!

[tnk1]

That's because he's like the grubby prophet who comes out from the wilderness every few months or so and points out that what you are doing is all well and good, but the Lord God doesn't like it.

Many people just want people like that to STFU and let them go about doing what seems to be working for them.

At the same time, may of the same people do give lip service to the concept that the prophet is ranting about. They can't quite call him a fool, because after all, they all believe in God/Open Source too, right? So, he makes them uncomfortable, and when some people get uncomfortable they get defensive.

Now obviously, RMS does not talk to a deity, nor strictly speaking, is Open Source a religion. Still, the idea of the man who believes that his message is not just something that "sounds good in theory" is similar. To RMS, its okay that you like "Open Source", but it's not enough to simply like it or dabble in it. You have to be constantly watching to make sure you follow the path, or you end up finding yourself slipping back into old practices without realizing it.

People and industries tend to slip into certain comfort zones, and sometimes those comfort zones are a little too comfortable for their own good.
No one wants to leave that zone, but invariably they will fail in the long term unless they are open to reassessing their direction every so often.

In this case, they are failing to follow RMS' complete vision of Open Source. While he may well be wrong about the value of his path in its entirety, people who profess to believe in it now have to sort out the discrepancies between their theory and practices.

Re:Obviously!

[poetmatt]

Uh? What delicious offers is not SAS. SAS is closer to virtualization or cloud computing, all 3 are pretty much somewhat similar (and equally misunderstood) concepts. The difference is that SAS is like virtualization but you have no control over the host machine. The concept of "don't put all your eggs in one basket" is pretty much what cloud and SAS do. The host makes all the decisions, control, and you are forced to abide irregardless of all conditions. That would be called a horrible business and economic decision.

This would be akin to giving the keys to your car to your chaffeur. Sure, they might drive you everywhere, but if that car gets stolen, whose car is lost? If they choose a route different than your own, it's no longer your choice. Surely not the chaffeurs fault, as you give them the keys. In the case of this access/control can also be applied to the software. This is less ownership than renting something, merely for the purpose of lowering cost.

Those who give up all quality for efficiency/economy deserve neither.

Re:Obviously!

[Tuoqui]

Well it is a bit unprofessional. As a backup company they should keep the backup on hand for a period of time (probably 6 months) before deleting it. I mean at least then you can charge for several months of service at once and possibly a graveyard fee, that is dusting off the backups of your backups to get the data accessible. You might come off as a bit of an asshole but at least you'll have saved the day.

Re:Obviously!

[RiotingPacifist]

Just because i like some of his work, doesn't make me a fan of him.
I realize it was a stupid thing to put, but my point was that i prefer the gpl2 like freedoms over the more 'hard-line' gpl3

Re:Obviously!

[socalmtb]

If you don't pay rent at your storage facility, they auction off your stuff to the highest bidder. It doesn't matter if its furniture or business records. If he's not paying for the service, why would they maintain his data? Storage is cheap, but it's not free.

Re:Obviously!

[blackchiney]

Actually, that doesn't make sense. If you are backing things up it means you are in the habit of backing things up. If you stop paying for a backup service it means you either don't care or went with plan B. It's like smoking, either you continue to use the brand you always used, you found another, or you stopped completely. But Marlboro isn't going to keep a 6 months supply just for you incase you fallback.

The graveyard option wastes resources that could be allocated to current paying customers. And most likely their will be a lot of backup data from former customers who don't want the data or don't think it was important enough to keep a backup

Re:Obviously!

[Registered Coward v2]

Well it is a bit unprofessional. As a backup company they should keep the backup on hand for a period of time (probably 6 months) before deleting it. I mean at least then you can charge for several months of service at once and possibly a graveyard fee, that is dusting off the backups of your backups to get the data accessible. You might come off as a bit of an asshole but at least you'll have saved the day.

While that may be a good idea in general it can also cause problems as well; unless what they do is specifically called out in the contract.

For example:

If the owner assumed the information was deleted when the account was canceled; if they discover you kept the data they may get upset and decide to sue.

If they cancel and you still have the data and they get involved in litigation you may then get dragged in and have to provide the data. Who pays for the recovery? Or, if you delete at some later date you might be in trouble for "obstructing Justice" if criminal acts are involved.

You don't delete it for some period of time after the contract expires; but for some reason you lose the data. Who's responsible for recovering it?

Far fetched? Maybe. But why risk it. Delete it when the contract expires and move on. Why take the risk?

Re:Obviously!

[ArsonSmith]

You seem to be confuseing:

1. In order to comply with my way of thinking you must not ...
2. In order to comply with a legal imperative you must not ...

Re:Obviously!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I'm no RMS fan (GPL2 all the way)

Huh? Who else gets credit for GPLv2?

Re:Obviously!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The problem is, paying for all that computing power, data storage, software development and other stuff may occasionally not be my goal. Sometimes I just want to browse a damn photo gallery or write an online document.

And it sure sucks when there is a bug on the server side that prevents it from working with your browser.

Re:Obviously!

[maxume]

So is it not software, or is it not a service?

I don't think the relative lack of complexity on the server at Delicious makes it particularly less useful as an example, and unless you can explain in about 15 words why it isn't SaaS, we are stuck with 'poetmatt knows it when he sees it', which is going to be incredibly boring for everybody in the room but you.

Re:Obviously!

[fm6]

Sometimes I just want to browse a damn photo gallery or write an online document.

You can't! It's wrong! Stop now, before it's too late!

Yeah, I'm being sarcastic. I've always thought that RMS's notion of "free software" was totally out of touch with practical realities. But this latest proclamation makes me realize that he subscribes to the Everybody's Like Me fallacy. That is, he believes every computer user is enough of a hacker to compile and run all the software they will ever need. For some of us, that's simply too much trouble just to make a silly ideological point based on bad economics. But for most people, it's simply not possible. About 90% of humanity is not a hacker and never will be. Either they lack the intellectual fundamentals or (more commonly) simply have too much of a life that has nothing to do with computers.

Another thing: if RMS thinks that using an application that somebody else hosts is Evil, why does he stop at Software as a Service? When you surf the web, you're relying on HTTP servers you don't control. When you send email, you rely on SMTP servers you don't control. And consider that there's simply no way you can make a phone call without using somebody else's software.

I give RMS credit for helping to create Open Source. (Credit he won't take, since he thinks the concept is as evil as any other "non-free" software.) But when it comes to almost anything else he's done, including most of the software he's written (baroque bloatware most of it), he's a mediocrity at best.

Re:Obviously!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If you don't pay rent at your storage facility, they auction off your stuff to the highest bidder. It doesn't matter if its furniture or business records. If he's not paying for the service, why would they maintain his data? Storage is cheap, but it's not free.

They don't usually do it right away. Depends on the business, but it could easily be 6 months before they auction off abandoned stuff.

Re:Obviously!

[Yvanhoe]

And, sir, you are making an insightful point and making RMS statement insightful as well : the FOSS world lacks a solution for what you propose. I am of the opinion that now that it is possible to use a FOSS machine comfortably as an internet client, we need a way to put easily, securely, and without too much required knowledge a web/mail/picasa/DNS/whatever server at home and stop relying on companies to do this.

Ubuntu Server is going this way but is not there yet completely.

you are right, sometimes I just want my friends to be able browse the 200+ pictures of the party we had last weekend without sending 400 MB by email. Well, when I need that I put it on my webserver. But when my mom wants to do that, well, she uses a photo gallery of some random Mountainview company...

Re:Obviously!

[Bruce Perens]

The GNU system works equally well today with Linux and BSD. Debian has released a BSD version, and a Linux version, both with essentially the same software from GNU LIBC up, just a different kernel.

What is it then? Surely not a "Linux" system when it's using the BSD kernel but is otherwise identical. RMS has always called this a "GNU system", and he had a point.

Re:Obviously!

[maxume]

Really, they should make it very clear what they do and then always do that (some users may find it desirable to receive a promise that data is destroyed when the relationship ends; it is only a promise, but it may be more attractive than a vague statement that the data might eventually be destroyed).

Re:Obviously!

[pembo13]

How much computing power do you need to do either of those things?

Re:Obviously!

[nedlohs]

But there's liability with data.

If the backup provider get broken into (either computer wise or physically) and someone copies (or physically steals) the no-longer-a-customer's data there's going to be a world of hurt. Yes said ex-customer should have encrypted things before handing them to another party anyway but that won't matter.

Safest option is to purge the data once you have a "cancel account" request. You don't want to purge the data because they are a day late on paying, but once you have the "we are cancelling the service" notice, bye-bye data.

Better a grumpy ex-customer who is being unreasonable, then a grumpy ex-customer being reasonable and suing.

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

Running the code yourself doesn't prevent that, you know, even if you have access to the source code.

Furthermore, the risk of server-side bugs is often offset by removing the need to pay for servers, data storage, software development, and other stuff (as your parent post mentions). Sometimes it's better to trust other people.

Would RMS argue that it's stupid to drink milk produced by someone other than your own cow in the backyard? At some point we have to trust the product of someone else's work, and (IMNSHO) it's ridiculous to be as pure about it as RMS seems to be.

Re:Obviously!

[nedlohs]

I was sure no human could be that stupid. Oh well, thanks slashdot for further eroding my faith in humanity.

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

It's all well and good to provide a Linux distro with e-mail, httpd, etc preinstalled and pre set up (though it's far from trivial to preconfigure a mail server such that any given home user could use it), but do you want to be the one who gets a phone call from your mom every time her home server stops working for whatever reason?

For that matter, do you really think the average home user wants to run two computers (their desktop and a server) to do what they normally do when right now they only need to run one? Do you really think the average home user will be willing to pay for a server, however low-end?

As others have pointed out, RMS doesn't seem to realize that Not Everybody Is A Programmer, and even more interesting, that Not Everybody Wants To Be A Programmer.

My dad (an accountant with vague programming experience) has no interest in running his own web server, e-mail server, and so on for his company, even though he's capable of doing it himself, because his time is expensive, and he makes a heck of a lot more money doing someone's audit than he would "save" by not using SaaS. Hiring someone else would lose him just as much money.

Re:Obviously!

[Nursie]

"The GNU system works equally well today with Linux and BSD."

Are there as many drivers for BSD as Linux?

I find that the differentiator, plus there's so much more online help available for when you screw up.

Re:Obviously!

[bentcd]

As others have pointed out, RMS doesn't seem to realize that Not Everybody Is A Programmer, and even more interesting, that Not Everybody Wants To Be A Programmer.

This isn't his point though, his point is that if you use Free software then you can have it fixed or customized to your needs should you so desire. Whether this is achieved by you coding the changes yourself or by you getting someone else to do it is not important, what is important is that you can make it happen without a lot of trouble. It may cost you money to get this done of course but it is also not his point that Free software must be free of cost.

Re:Obviously!

[Dog-Cow]

Exactly. Many (small) businesses out-source their pay-roll systems. They actually let other companies manage their money. If that doesn't scare them, the idea of letting a 3rd-party manage an incidental to their business sure isn't going to faze them.

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

Then he's failing in his argument - business decide most things by cost. If using SaaS costs $X/year, and running it themselves costs $(X + 5000)/year, why on earth would they run it themselves?

Not to mention the initial setup cost - purchasing servers, hiring someone to set up those servers and software, and so on.

It's all well and good to say "This is evil!" but if he really wants people to stop using SaaS, he needs to provide concrete reasons that a business should take the more expensive route.

If you're about to tell me that running it themselves isn't really more expensive... go ahead and show me how I can run a mail/calendar/document server on site for less than what Google charges for Google Apps. (Hint: Google Apps is free, and you can pay a small fee to get uptime guarantees.)

Re:Obviously!

[jellomizer]

That is the reason a lot of people go with SaaS, Because they don't own the software, and the responsibility to maintain it.
I am sure some SaaS companies will be willing to Sell you the Software and some would even give it to you Open Source, where you can modify it to your whim. But the value of SaaS is the fact that you don't need to keep the code up to date or all the maintenance and backups.

SaaS is like taking the Bus,Cab, Limo vs. driving yourself. Are you giving up your freedom if you let someone else drive for you, and what is stopping you from making your own SaaS anyways, or doing all the work in house.

RMS is just trying to make himself seem relevant finding a new cause to talk about, as his old cause is getting boring to listen to.

Re:Obviously!

[Bruce Perens]

Are there as many drivers for BSD as Linux?

In some cases there are more for BSD, as things not clearly legal for Linux and the GPL do not present a problem with BSD's license. Linux tends to be more developed. In general Linux is more friendly to the less experienced user.

I like that the BSD kernel runs close to equally now, just because it means that Linux is no longer essential to the GNU system.

We can all tell Linus to *uck off now :-)

Re:Obviously!

[emmCee]

RMS doesn't assume that humanity has a hacker complex: he neither insists nor expects that most users of Free software do anything other than use the binaries.

RMS doesn't think using an application that someone else hosts is illegal: he suggests Free software projects use Savannah, a Free web app.

In fact, RMS wholeheardedly supports commercialisation of Free software. After leaving his university position, he made his first bunch of cash by selling binaries of Free software.

SMTP servers that you use, he believes, should use software that is Free so, should you decide, you can buy some hardware and bandwidth and host your own email server with alterarions you decide.

RMS doesn't believe open source "is as evil as any other software". Indeed he doesn't care about open source as a movement. He can't hate the software since most of it is technically Free software too. He just doesn't like the philosophy of software freedom being confused with the engineering method of open source.

Obviously I'm not RMS and can't speak for the man himself, but it seems to me that you're being rather unfair on him.

Gav.

Re:Obviously!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Running the code yourself doesn't prevent that, you know, even if you have access to the source code.

It lets you do something about it.

If you really want to understand RMS's position all you need to know is the story of the jammed printer.

Any time a question comes up in your mind about what would stallman do - just ask yourself how the parable of the jammed printer applies.

Re:Obviously!

[kLaNk]

When you surf the web, you're relying on HTTP servers you don't control. When you send email, you rely on SMTP servers you don't control. And consider that there's simply no way you can make a phone call without using somebody else's software.

I was thinking the same thing. Even if you go down to lower layers, IP routing, packet tranmissions etc. you end up relying on remote servers with non-"free" code executing to handle your requests.

If I want to search an online dictionary how, according to RMS, should I morally perform that operation? Replicating the dictionary and search executables to every individual node wishing to perform a search would be a (bad) options. But what about when the dataset is way too large? (maps data for example).

Re:Obviously!

[drooling-dog]

...he subscribes to the Everybody's Like Me fallacy. That is, he believes every computer user is enough of a hacker to compile and run all the software they will ever need.

My dog lacks the skills to survive in the wild, and so she happily submits to all of the restrictions that I impose on her life. She can't even pee unless I'm willing to get off my ass and take her outside. The tyrrany is about as absolute as tyrrany gets. If she could talk to you, though, she would probably say that this is just fine, and there's no need to change things.

Sometimes the hardest part about freeing the oppressed is convincing them that they are indeed oppressed. If all they know is life as it is and always has been, they'd rather just live that life -- where things are predictable and their habits get them by -- than to face the shock of having to reinvent themselves.

What RMS is saying is this: You don't have to put up with this crap. There are alternatives. But he shouldn't stop saying it just because only a small percentage of people are willing to wander beyond the fences at any given time. It's still important for the others to know the option is always there.

Re:Obviously!

[marco.antonio.costa]

That is, he believes every computer user is enough of a hacker to compile and run all the software they will ever need.

Yes! I mean, what the fuck is he thinking?! I'm not a damned hacker who can type a document in OpenOffice and save it to - of ALL PLACES - my LOCAL machine!

This man should have a haircut and shave mandated by law enforcement!

Talk about fallacies...

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

Oh, I understand RMS's position - I just think it's fundamentally flawed in certain respects.

Besides, having the source code doesn't mean you can do something about it - you have to find someone with the skills necessary to understand the source code and make the appropriate modifications without breaking anything else, and you have to be able to afford to hire that person.

This is much easier said than done, of course; how is your average small business owner supposed to be able to determine whether programmer X is better than programmer Y, or even whether either programmer actually has the skills necessary?

Most of my disagreement with RMS's position comes from the actual logistics of what he wants people to do - he ignores the real-world with his fanatic purism, and IMHO the entire open source community is suffering because of it.

Vocal OSS purists like RMS are, IMHO, driving the average person away from open source software. A good many people shy away from zealots and their goods.

Re:Obviously!

[drooling-dog]

I've never understood why that raises so much ire.

Well, of course it raises ire because it goes against the collective wisdom that billions of marketing dollars are trying to convey to us: That cost equals quality, you get what you pay for, and responsible corporate citizens will treat you in a fair and ethical manner. Not everyone realizes that this is all a load of crap.

There's a good deal of classical cognitive dissonance going on, too. Nobody wants to hear that the fancy $4 bottle of water they're drinking is just somebody else's tap water. They paid four bucks for it, so you'd better believe it's going to be good!

Re:Obviously!

[perryizgr8]

I give RMS credit for helping to create Open Source. (Credit he won't take, since he thinks the concept is as evil as any other "non-free" software.)

why does he consider open source as bad as non-free? i thought open source was what he was all about. i mean that's what he wants, doesn't he?

Re:Obviously!

[geminidomino]

Legal imperative is not the same thing as speaking with an "imperative mood."

Re:Obviously!

[Registered Coward v2]

Running the code yourself doesn't prevent that, you know, even if you have access to the source code.

It lets you do something about it.

If you really want to understand RMS's position all you need to know is the story of the jammed printer.

Any time a question comes up in your mind about what would stallman do - just ask yourself how the parable of the jammed printer applies.

Don't use Xerox printers?

Re:Obviously!

[cstdenis]

You do know that RMS made GPL2 right?

Re:Obviously!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

having the source code doesn't mean you can do something about it

Since you chose to drag out that old and tired argument its pretty clear you don't understand RMS's position.
You can't hire someone to fix software if the source is not available. Logistics mean nothing if the choice is not available in the first place.

Vocal OSS purists like RMS are, IMHO, driving the average person away from open source software. A good many people shy away from zealots and their goods.

Which is precisely why more money is made with GPL licensed software than any other.

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

You can't hire someone to fix software if the source is not available. Logistics mean nothing if the choice is not available in the first place.

You misunderstand. I'm not arguing that things shouldn't be open source. On the contrary, I'm arguing that, assuming the source code is available, the logistics of using that source code can make the situation just as difficult to resolve as if it were closed-source software.

In other words, claiming that making software open source will solve all our problems is, at best, overly simplistic.

Again, my argument is not against making software open source - my argument is that RMS's philosophy is flawed and, in many cases, logistically impossible in the real world.

Re:Obviously!

[poetmatt]

ha, I get what you mean. How about "storing bookmarks online is not SAAS"? (6 words, or 9 expanded)?

Re:Obviously!

[bentcd]

It's all well and good to say "This is evil!" but if he really wants people to stop using SaaS, he needs to provide concrete reasons that a business should take the more expensive route.

RMS doesn't address monetary cost, but freedom. Sometimes giving up freedom is going to earn or save you money. RMS will tend to advocate hanging on to your freedom instead and paying whatever monetary cost is associated with that choice.

The opportunity cost lost to having to use a piece of software the way the vendor intended it rather than being free to customize it to your own specific needs is difficult to estimate and I am not aware of RMS having tried to do this.

Re:Obviously!

[Migala77]

Wait... So all this GPL-stuff is because Stallman couldn't print his TPS reports?

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

That's exactly my point - this nebulous (to most people) idea of "freedom" (which, you must admit, the average non-programmer will not be able to exploit) is not a convincing argument against paying someone else to host a service for them (and certainly not against using a free service like Google Apps).

Yes, there are legitimate privacy concerns inherent to storing your data on other people's machines. However, unilaterally calling SaaS "evil" is not going to convince anyone that his arguments have merit. He needs to present more concrete arguments that the average businessman will understand - and, in most cases, that means talking about money. Unfortunately, it will often be the case that bringing up money will be counter-productive to RMS's argument.

Re:Obviously!

[GargamelSpaceman]

I didn't quote the statements about the GNU kernel and Guile because they were paraphrased from my memory of TFA, but I think he is talking about GNU/HURD when he's talking about the GNU Kernel not working well, not BSD vs Linux.

Re:Obviously!

[david_thornley]

Hint: Anybody who thinks RMS has a vision of Open Source, or believes he thinks of it as an ideology, or wants you to support it, clearly doesn't know enough about RMS to analyze him.

Re:Obviously!

[bentcd]

this nebulous (to most people) idea of "freedom" (which, you must admit, the average non-programmer will not be able to exploit)

I cannot agree with this. Your average computer illiterate can pay the kid next-doors twenty bucks to customize his software, and your average non-IT company can hire consultants to customize their software. So long as both are using Free software they are entirely free in who they hire to do these jobs and they can get it done to their exact specifications. Moreover, if the software is Free then whatever problem the average computer illiterate has is probably shared by others and chances are someone will have already done a patch for it.

However, unilaterally calling SaaS "evil" is not going to convince anyone that his arguments have merit. He needs to present more concrete arguments that the average businessman will understand - and, in most cases, that means talking about money.

I believe this is entirely orthogonal to RMS' endeavours and perhaps not possible anyway. Being evil can presumably be profitable at times so it doesn't seem feasible in the general case to construct a profit-based argument in favour of ethical behaviour. Moreover, even if you did so in a few practical cases in which it happened to apply it would quickly backfire on you since you didn't bring across your /actual/ point which is that ethical behaviour is a goal in itself.

Personally I consider the adoption of proprietary software to be unwise more than it is evil but RMS probably feels a need to be crystal clear in his statements so as to leave no room for doubt about his position.

Re:Obviously!

[fm6]

So explain to me why it's OK to buy access to somebody else's SMTP server, but it's not OK to buy access to somebody else's application server.

Re:Obviously!

[maxume]

People use it for more than that. Here is an example:

http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/02/26/collaborative-curation-as-a-service/

I'm not sure it is a good idea, but there it is, and I'm sure there are many other people who use it for more than storing bookmarks.

Re:Obviously!

[Bruce Perens]

Yes, we all know Hurd didn't turn out very well. There's a Debian port for it, too. But having one production-quality kernel that it ran upon was a bit of a pain.

Re:Obviously!

[fm6]

You consider your dog "oppressed"? You have a plan for rehabilitating her so she can go out and support herself? And use a toilet?

No? Didn't think so. Then your analogy is kind of silly. You have a relationship with your dog that (assuming you're a caring owner) suits your dog just fine.

Now, of course people have a greater need for personal freedom than dogs do. But living in a civilized society means accepting some constraints to that freedom — if only to allow for the rights and freedoms of other people.

Hyperlibertarians like RMS who think that "freedom" is this big absolute that trumps all other considerations have a simplistic, self-centered view of how society works. You may think that not being able to blast your stereo at 3AM restricts your freedom, but that freedom is impinging on my right to a decent night's sleep. People have to make compromises in order to live together, and only a child (or somebody with a child-like sense of responsibility) considers that "oppression".

In my case, I make the compromise to use closed-source software when its the best tool for the job. You doubtless think I'm a fool for voluntarily accepting this "oppression". Well dude, I think you're a fool for demanding that everybody make life indefinitely more complicated in the name of an imaginary absolute.

Re:Obviously!

[fm6]

I was under the impression that RMS would insist that you download the OO sources, make sure they work as advertised, and then compile them yourself.

People tell me I have this wrong. It's perfectly cool to just download the OO binaries. But that means I'm trusting the people who compiled the binaries to not have made any modifications without telling me.

And indeed I do trust them to do that. As I trust the people who run web application servers. I don't see why the two situations are different just because the software somebody compiled for me is running on my machine and in the other case the software that somebody compiled for me is running on their machine.

Re:Obviously!

[fm6]

Ask him. I don't particularly care.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

Doesn't he, though? Let's examine what he claims: closed-source software is evil. His solution to the evils supposedly inherent in closed-source software? Use open-source software.

Therefore, he claims that using open-source software will solve our closed-source-software-related problems.

I was perhaps a bit vague when I used the phrase "solve all our problems", however, I supposed it would be self-evident that I meant "solve all our problems related to this topic". Next time I will try to be more verbose.

Re:Obviously!

[DrgnDancer]

But at what point does it cost more money for you to pay some guy to come re-write your Free spreadsheet program that it costs just to freakin' buy MS Office, or pay Google to use their "cloud based" spreadsheet. Not a great example, I'll grant you, OO.org's Calc program is pretty good, and probably requires a minimum of "fixing", but what about accounting software or specialized engineering software? And how do you replicate the time that commercial companies spend testing this stuff? I download this piece of software that I assume works, because the guy that wrote it told me it does. Of course, I have no contract with him, so I have to take it at face value. I realize that the UI sucks, so I hire someone to modify it. Now the first guy may or may not have extensively tested it, but this guy I just hired to redo the UI... He says he needs two or three times as much money to actually make sure he didn't introduce any new bugs into the system.

For software that everyone wants and needs, with a huge user base making making contributions and suggestions, Free software seems to work pretty well. I'm not at all convinced that it will work as well for special purpose apps in mission critical environments.

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

Your average computer illiterate can pay the kid next-doors twenty bucks to customize his software, and your average non-IT company can hire consultants to customize their software.

I think we're using different definitions of the word "can". You're using it in the theoretical sense; I'm using it in the logistical likelihood sense.

First obstacle: Why should Joe Sixpack be required to run his own server just so he can use e-mail? Joe Sixpack will not like having to purchase the extra machine, nor will he like the resulting increased power bill, nor will he like having to call the kid next door every time it stops working. (Let's face it: even Linux machines stop working once in a while.)

But let's suppose Joe does purchase a server and install the various applications on it that he regularly uses. What are the chances that the kid-next-door will a) know how to properly modify the software, and b) be willing to do it for $20?

A thought occurs to me. What about social networks? Even if they were open-source, it would be a nightmare to get everyone's personal installation of the software to interoperate - not to mention that reliability would go down the toilet. Joe's fiber line was cut by a backhoe? Well, too bad, his e-mails bounce and his Facebook page is unavailable until the ISP replaces the cable.

That is the kind of logistical problem inherent to RMS's position. Sure, we'd solve all our privacy problems since the only possessor of my data would be me. But we'd then have to deal with all sorts of other problems, and some existing applications would simply be impractical without centralized servers under the control of a single party. Or do you believe Facebook would function correctly if it were decentralized and everyone had their own custom version of the software? (Disclaimer: I don't have a social networking site profile, Facebook or otherwise. I simply use Facebook as an example.)

I believe this is entirely orthogonal to RMS' endeavours and perhaps not possible anyway. Being evil can presumably be profitable at times so it doesn't seem feasible in the general case to construct a profit-based argument in favour of ethical behaviour.

Indeed you have a point. However, in a world where most users are not ever going to understand the difference between open source and closed source, RMS must be insane to think that telling people "SaaS is evil" will be productive! The average lay person won't know what he's talking about, and as we can see from this discussion here on Slashdot, the nerd populace of the world is far from united on the subject. If RMS wants to convince any average non-technical person, he needs to present reasons why the average person would want Facebook (for example) to be open-source.

Personally, I don't think the average person could care less whether Service X is open source, they just want it to work when they need it - and they certainly don't ever want to buy their own server to run their own services (complete with all its maintenance problems and power bills).

Re:Obviously!

[Hatta]

Freedom is inconvenient. Remember, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.".

Re:Obviously!

[Methuseus]

Depends on where you are and whether you terminated or just missed a payment. If you terminate the contract, then they tell you "have everything out by Friday, or it's going." Otherwise, they are just keeping your stuff for a month or three until you pay. Never heard of a place keeping it more than 3 months though...

I see no problem with them selling stuff off as soon as you say "I don't need this service anymore, and I am paying no longer."

Re:Obviously!

[pseudonomous]

Speaking of this, if you actually read the review he also talks about two new projects:

GNUpdf - a completely FOSS pdf viewer
Gnash - a completely FOSS flash player

but there are already tons of existing FOSS pdf viewers, evince, Epdfview, Okular, xpdf, and I'll bet at least one of these is GPL licensed.

And for gnash, there's swfdec, which is lgpl, and at least partially functional. (swfdec plays youtube vidoes on my computer w/o sound and frequently crashes firefox, last time I tried gnash I couldn't play youtube videos at all)

Then there's the whole "snipping bits out of the linux kernal". Which makes me feel like RMS & followers are doing a whole lot of pointless work, when they could actually be doing something useful, like maybe working to improve existing FOSS projects (I mean, swfdec could definately use some improvement)

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

I think this is a problem in the OSS world in general, not just with RMS. People can't agree on specs for new projects, so they just all make competing programs, and in the long run few of them survive, whereas if they'd just work together they'd see some significant progress.

I applaud Google and other companies who pay full-time employees to work on existing OSS projects. I wish more companies would do it - it means that features that are actually needed by the sponsoring company get written, rather than the spiffy new pet features of the hobbyist devs. (I'm not saying all hobbyist devs focus on pet features, I'm just saying it happens all too often.)

Re:Obviously!

[pseudonomous]

In the real world SAAS is a gamble which hedges lower startup costs as well as (possibly) lower maintenence costs) against the following:

1) Software / Hardware failure on your provider's part
2) Discontinuation of service, bringing costs associated with migration
3) Inability to recover data encoded in proprietary formats and/or stored remotely upon discontinuation of service
4) Inability to find an alternate service provider in the event of discontinuation of service
5) Increased prices for renewel of your service contract

Good planning can help mitigate the risks above, but when you look at SaaS providers with an eye toward mitigating the above risks you may find that it is indeed cheaper just to do it yourself.

Re:Obviously!

[AnyoneEB]

You are right. The technology available is horrible. There is no good reason that you should have to run your own server or rely on some specific company. Your computer should have a "share this photo album" button that magically creates a torrent and makes it easily accessible with a pretty interface. Just no one has written that program yet because Flickr/Picassa/Facebook photo albums work well enough. RMS is not saying there that are good solutions, just that all of the currently used ones have huge issues and they should not be considered good enough.

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

Yes, it is often the case that providing a service yourself can reduce costs. However, it's not always the case:

The company I just left was hosting their software distribution on a dedicated FTP server. The bandwidth used by the server was costing them $200/month on top of the $195/month they were paying to co-locate the server. (The data center has a much bigger pipe than they had on-site, so we were essentially "doing it ourselves".)

I migrated our software distribution to Amazon S3; they essentially guarantee redundancy and availability (point 1 above). If they were to discontinue service, we could go back to a colocated server or host things on-site if necessary (points 2 and 4). We have local copies of the data (we have to generate the files before posting them for distribution!), and there's no concern about proprietary storage formats or anything, since Amazon simply stores the files we put there (point 3).

Our costs went from $200/month in bandwidth to about $90/month in Amazon S3 charges, but here's the kicker - the number of downloads increased fivefold, and our customers stopped complaining about slow downloads (Amazon's pipes are pretty big). Even if Amazon's prices were to double (unlikely, as they've actually been slowly decreasing over time), we'd still be saving money and utilizing a much superior service.

In otherwords, moving away from self-service not only saved us over 50%, but it vastly improved the service provided to our customers and increased our ability to provide for demand in the process.

It's hard to argue that we'd have saved money doing it ourselves, because our experience was precisely the opposite.

I know, I know, anecdotal evidence is just anecdotal, and YMMV, but that's precisely why RMS's philosophy is not always logistically doable. SaaS providers can amortize the costs of big pipes and data centers over all users of the service, but a small company could easily bankrupt itself trying to match the capabilities of SaaS providers in situations like that of my old employer.

Re:Obviously!

[emurphy42]

Why do you hate canine freedom? :)

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

He's not just saying that all currently used solutions have huge issues - he's saying the currently used solutions are inherently evil! That's a far cry from "they have huge issues".

In any case, I don't have issues with his philosophy so much as I have issues with the solutions made necessary by living under his philosophy. It's ridiculous to believe that everyone should run their own home server - it's not financially viable (in many cases) nor is it an appealing solution to the average user.

Re:Obviously!

[tnk1]

Hint: Anybody who thinks RMS has a vision of Open Source, or believes he thinks of it as an ideology, or wants you to support it, clearly doesn't know enough about RMS to analyze him.

Which may well true, but it doesn't change people's perceptions of what he is saying and how he is received.

I think you took the reply out of context.

Re:Obviously!

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

And if/when the software as a service shuts down, goes away, increases prices, and the data is held hostage, temporarily unavailable or lost, how much will THAT cost?

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

Depends heavily on the service in question. If we're talking about Amazon S3, it's fairly trivial to switch to a standard web server for serving files. If we're talking about something complicated like Google Docs, then it gets messy.

But calling all SaaS "evil" because it might go wrong sometimes is ridiculous.

Re:Obviously!

[agm]

Freedom also includes the freedom to make choices that may be perceived as non-free. If I want to let someone else host services for me and control a certain amount of my data, then I am (and should be) perfectly free to do that.

A key aspect of freedom is the freedom to choose, even if that choice somehow limits my freedom. What isn't ok is making that choice on someone else's behalf. That's why socialism is a flawed system as it allows one man to limit the primary freedoms of another.

Re:Obviously!

[agm]

Indeed. I wonder whether RMS uses google - if he does then isn't he a hypocrite?

Re:Obviously!

[pseudonomous]

It's true that this IS a general problem, and the decision to work on Gnash might actually be technically motivated, as opposed to politically motivated, but I can't think of one good reason to implement yet another pdf viewer, evince covers Gnome and Xfce users, Okular and the old kpdf-viewer covers KDE users, people looking for seriously lightweight apps can use Epdfview or the, admittedly dated, xpdf.

And I don't see how cutting source code out of the linux kernel is productive. If they (the FSF or whoever) were going to actually fix hurd to a point where it was usable, then I'd say more power to them. I ha

Re:Obviously!

[Workaphobia]

The strange thing is that this sounds like a reversal of his previous position. He used to believe that if you don't run the software then you don't need its source because you're incapable of modifying and running it anyway. It seems that now that he's realized this could become the norm, he's decided to oppose it as a threat rather than tolerate it as a fair loophole.

Re:Obviously!

[Workaphobia]

On the first point, software freedom doesn't depend any more on everyone being a hacker than open source depends on you personally reading and modifying the source code. The freedoms are still transmitted to endusers. To say otherwise is almost like saying your right to sue someone is meaningless since you're not a lawyer.

Also, distributing and using free software does not require compilation.

I won't argue about the second point because I don't understand his position here.

Re:Obviously!

[Workaphobia]

FYI, RMS has stated that if it were possible to require by law that all software fit the Free Software definition, he would elect not to do so until most of the public supported this aim.

Re:Obviously!

[Coriolis]

...he subscribes to the Everybody's Like Me fallacy. That is, he believes every computer user is enough of a hacker to compile and run all the software they will ever need.

Why did you quote this, and then not say anything that in any way rebuts or challenges his point?

My dog lacks the skills to survive in the wild, and so she happily submits to all of the restrictions that I impose on her life.

Sometimes the hardest part about freeing the oppressed is convincing them that they are indeed oppressed.

Dogs care about eating and peeing. They don't care that they have to be licensed, or that they can only be treated by licensed veterinarians. They don't care that, if their dog house breaks, the parts have to be shipped from one company in Korea, because they own a world-wide patent. Actually, you know that's a pretty good analogy, because most people don't care either. You can't be oppressed if you don't give a damn.

If all they know is life as it is and always has been, they'd rather just live that life -- where things are predictable and their habits get them by -- than to face the shock of having to reinvent themselves.

That's offensive. They could be reinventing themselves and challenging dogma every day for all you know. Just because these people have priorities in their lives other than Free Software does not automatically make them sheep.

What RMS is saying is this: You don't have to put up with this crap. There are alternatives. But he shouldn't stop saying it just because only a small percentage of people find it at all relevant to their day-to-day existence.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Obviously!

[Yvanhoe]

That is fine and all. No one is saying everyone should do this, but that if you like OSS enough to use linux as a main OS, it would be sensible to also have a server for your online needs. It is also sensible to say that the FOSS community needs to have an answer when someone says "Alright, I never realized that Google could read that easily all my emails. How can I set up an address without relying on a third party ?". And when someone like the GP says "sometimes I just need to put my pictures on a gallery", well, he is right, right now, there are no easy alternative option to using a company's service. It doesn't have to be that way.

However:

For that matter, do you really think the average home user wants to run two computers (their desktop and a server) to do what they normally do when right now they only need to run one? Do you really think the average home user will be willing to pay for a server, however low-end?

The average home user already has more than one computer. The average home user has upgraded his/her main computer several times already and probably has a computer perfectly suitable as a server sleeping in a closet.

Re:Obviously!

[Yvanhoe]

It's ridiculous to believe that everyone should run their own home server - it's not financially viable (in many cases) nor is it an appealing solution to the average user.

It is as ridiculous to believe that average Joe needs a computer at home. Financially it doesn't have to cost anything. The average user already has an old computer sleeping in a closet. The average user cares about recycling. The average user cares about privacy. They just don't care much about technical details. Therefore, it makes sense for IT specialist to help them find a solution to recycle their old junk into a solution that will help them salvage their privacy.

Re:Obviously!

[maxwell demon]

But if the SaaS uses standardized protocols, and you have full access to your data, then if you don't like the desicions of your SaaS provider, you just can take your data and pass it to another SaaS provider, or can just start to do your stuff locally then.

So what you need is

• the service running on standardized protocols (so you can easily switch providers)
• full access to your data (so you don't lose anything when switching)
• A Free implementation of the protocol (so that everyone who wants can set up another server providing the same service).

If those three conditions are satisfied, then SaaS isn't bad at all.

Re:Obviously!

[maxwell demon]

If you don't pay rent at your storage facility, they auction off your stuff to the highest bidder. It doesn't matter if its furniture or business records.

You mean the backup provider sells your data if you don't pay?

Re:Obviously!

[maxwell demon]

Does RMS write mail? He's using other people's mail server's software to provide a service (delivery of his mail), then. Or maybe to get mail from him, I have to have an account on his mail server? But then, I would use his mail server's software as a service, and I'm not supposed to do that!

Also, I guess I shouldn't download Free Software, because I'm always using some server not under my control (be it a web server or an FTP server) to do so.

Re:Obviously!

[maxwell demon]

How can your chauffeur drive you if you don't give him the keys of your car?

Do you also consider it a bad idea to give your personal travel needs into the hands of airlines, train companies, bus companies, taxi drivers etc.? In all those cases you don't own the vehicle, and in most you cannot even freely decide the routes and times of your travel (and even with the taxi, the driver might just not follow your wishes). Probably you have a pilot's license for all your flying needs, and do all your other travel needs by your personal car, right?

Re:Obviously!

[bentcd]

But at what point does it cost more money for you to pay some guy to come re-write your Free spreadsheet program that it costs just to freakin' buy MS Office, or pay Google to use their "cloud based" spreadsheet.

Neither of those is going to do you any good if they don't provide the functionality you are looking for. Part of the point of using a Free spreadsheet is that however fringe your needs are you can provide for them without having to write the entire software from scratch.

For software that everyone wants and needs, with a huge user base making making contributions and suggestions, Free software seems to work pretty well. I'm not at all convinced that it will work as well for special purpose apps in mission critical environments.

In this scenario it can help guard you against price gouging from, or bankruptcy of, the one and only niche vendor in the market.

Re:Obviously!

[bentcd]

First obstacle: Why should Joe Sixpack be required to run his own server just so he can use e-mail?

He shouldn't of course. It's the mail software that should be required to make it /possible/ for Joe to run a local server /if he wants to/. Most Joes won't want to.

That is the kind of logistical problem inherent to RMS's position. Sure, we'd solve all our privacy problems since the only possessor of my data would be me. But we'd then have to deal with all sorts of other problems, and some existing applications would simply be impractical without centralized servers under the control of a single party. Or do you believe Facebook would function correctly if it were decentralized and everyone had their own custom version of the software?

It's not entirely clear what RMS really means with his objection to SaaS as a concept. I can't recall him having objected to HTML or cgi-bin as conceptually wrong in the past so it can't be that anything that happens remotely is bad for you. It appears to be connected with the idea that if you are running a calculation that is very important to you then you really want to be in control of the machinery that is doing that calculation. Most of what people do on Facebook is probably not all that important to them, at least not in detail even if the aggregate may be. I think he's saying something more along the lines of "make sure you own the hardware /and/ the software you are running mission critical calculations on".

If I am correct in this then Facebook is fine as a centralized repository and gateway for information (better, of course, if the Facebook software is Free), but if you are wise then you will have created that information on software and hardware you control before uploading it.

If RMS wants to convince any average non-technical person, he needs to present reasons why the average person would want Facebook (for example) to be open-source.

This doesn't appear to be his strategy though. RMS' strategy is to convince enough programmers of his ideas to get enough quality Free software (mostly useful libraries) made that it will become impossible for all the other non-convinced developers to ignore it. The libraries must be of such quality and usefulness that non-Free developers feel compelled to use them and thus get dragged into the movement kicking and screaming. This, of course, works best with a license like the GPL which enforces the inheritance of its freedoms to derived software.

To a large extent this has been an outstanding success. Free and open source software is taking the world by storm but unfortunately not all of it is GPL. These days I expect RMS to spend a lot of his efforts trying to convince OSS project leads that they need to take their projects over to GPL-like licenses.

End users and CEOs are presumably not in the target audience - they are just left to accept whatever software the techies throw at them and if the techie world is full of Free software then Free software is what the end user will get.

Re:Obviously!

[bentcd]

But if the SaaS uses standardized protocols, and you have full access to your data, then if you don't like the desicions of your SaaS provider, you just can take your data and pass it to another SaaS provider, or can just start to do your stuff locally then.

I /think/ what he is trying to say (it's not entirely clear) is that if you get your results from a SaaS then you have no good way of making sure the SaaS didn't produce bogus data or otherwise try to rip you off, or perhaps it is that if the SaaS starts malfunctioning you are at the mercy of others wrt getting it fixed so you can resume normal operations. This particular objection of his really needs to be developed further so that it can be better understood.

Re:Obviously!

[nidarus]

My dog lacks the skills to survive in the wild, and so she happily submits to all of the restrictions that I impose on her life. She can't even pee unless I'm willing to get off my ass and take her outside. The tyrrany is about as absolute as tyrrany gets. If she could talk to you, though, she would probably say that this is just fine, and there's no need to change things.

Wow, wonderful example. The only alternative is to set her free. Try it. See how she likes it ( =how long she survives) on the streets. If your dog knew about how "free" dogs live, it would've only made her more loyal to you. To think of it, it's not that bad of an example - I used Linux (just kidding...).

Or maybe the dog in this example is you, and RMS is the master? In that case he better do more than give you a shitty LISP VM posing as a text editor, some UNIX utility clones, and scores of misguided, narcissistic edicts (sure his UNIX utility clones is what really makes an OS - how could you browse the Internet without mailing to a daemon that runs wget?)

Re:Obviously!

[nidarus]

That is, he believes every computer user is enough of a hacker to compile and run all the software they will ever need.

Yes! I mean, what the fuck is he thinking?! I'm not a damned hacker who can type a document in OpenOffice and save it to - of ALL PLACES - my LOCAL machine!

This man should have a haircut and shave mandated by law enforcement!

Talk about fallacies...

Maybe, but serving a photo gallery so your uncle who lives abroad could see it might prove somewhat harder.

Re:Obviously!

[nidarus]

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.

Wow, talk about contrived analogies. Unless the purpose of carbonite is to remove the data from you, I don't see how it's even related. A parking lot that destroys your car if you don't pay them is a more precise (though more extreme) example.

And it's incredibly unprofessional, and not at all obvious. You'd expect a backup service to handle your data with some care - their fucking motto is "Because your life is on your computer"! At the very least, they could've put it in big, red letters on the front page, instead of cowardly hiding in section 10 of the TOS. I have no idea why you'd go as far as to belittle your "college-educated business owner", for being absolutely right.

Re:Obviously!

[fm6]

Good question. I tried to google an answer, but this is the best I could come up with:

http://www.webweavertech.com/ovidiu/weblog/gallery/richard-stallman/richard-stallman-Pages/Image0.html

Notice the "NDA declined". Always standing on principle.

I suspect that if somebody pointed out the inconsistency to him, he'd come up with one of his long, complicated monologues arguing that there's no inconsistency. His arguments require a huge amount of effort to parse, never mind refute. Not worth the trouble. I'll content myself with refuting the arguments of his fanboys, who haven't mastered the art of rhetorical carpetbombing.

Re:Obviously!

[Registered Coward v2]

That is, he believes every computer user is enough of a hacker to compile and run all the software they will ever need.

Yes! I mean, what the fuck is he thinking?! I'm not a damned hacker who can type a document in OpenOffice and save it to - of ALL PLACES - my LOCAL machine!

This man should have a haircut and shave mandated by law enforcement!

Talk about fallacies...

Didn't you mean follicles?

Re:Obviously!

[fm6]

Several people have told me that my understanding of Stallman's position on distributing binaries was wrong. I'll accept that.

On the issue of Software as a Service, I wonder if he would say it was OK if the hosted application was "free". I lack the patience to parse his convoluted arguments in order to figure that out.

Re:Obviously!

[HeronBlademaster]

Someone mod parent up :) I hadn't thought of RMS's statements in that light.

Re:Obviously!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Next time I will try to be more verbose.

No need, just don't use biased phraseology.

Let's examine what he claims: closed-source software is evil.

You are going to have to do a hell of a lot better than just use the word "evil." That's more biased phraseology designed to vastly oversimply his argument, making it essentially a strawman.

You think that logistics is the real problem. As has already been said, open source is necessary but not sufficient. Logistics is just another hurdle. But you will never get to the point where logistics can be dealt with without first insisting on open source.

For example, there are probably roughly just as many mechanics as there are software developers and yet, because the overwhelmingly vast majority of car buyers would not consider purchasing a car with the engine compartment welded shut the logistical issue of supporting the all of these cars by all those mechanics has been essentially handled by the marketplace. That could never have happened if the market for cars generally accepted them as untouchable black boxes.

Re:Obviously!

[emmCee]

And where, specifically does he say it's ok to buy access to someone else's SMTP server when said server uses non-Free software?

As for Google, agm is exactly right: he shouldn't use it (or any of its non-Free services) according to his own philosophy.

And for what it's worth I owe you no explanation; I'm just trying to do my bit to kurb ignorant ranting by presenting the facts.

Re:Obviously!

[fm6]

And where, specifically does he say it's ok to buy access to someone else's SMTP server when said server uses non-Free software?

You might be able to find a provider who will guarantee that it's SMTP server is "free". (Though I don't know of a single provider that does this.) But how on earth do you guarantee that every server your email passes through is "free"?

And for what it's worth I owe you no explanation; I'm just trying to do my bit to kurb ignorant ranting by presenting the facts.

If you feel no obligation to listen to my arguments, why should I feel any obligation to listen to yours?

Oh I forgot, you don't have arguments, you have "facts". Grow up.

Congratulations to RMS...

[AKAImBatman]

...for spotting the major con of software as a service. I'm sure companies and individuals considering the use of such services will now weigh this con against the pros and develop an informed decision about whether or not a given service is right for them.

For services where personal data is kept, I'm sure that concepts like security, trustworthiness, and portability of data are key concerns.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[Bigjeff5]

Is it really a con?

I always thought the whole idea of SAS was simply shifting and consolodating the effort of creating and servicing software to (hopefully) lower costs. Not eliminate them. Kinda like call centers for help desk support (they usually manage multiple companies' help desks at one center), only it's serving your software. Honestly, who said paying someone else to serve software for you to use would be free? There's a contradiction in that statement if they did.

I'm surprised anybody needed to point this out. It blows my mind. And calling it a con? I'll bet they never thought anybody would be dumb enough to think it's free! Even at the most basic level.

Wow.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[AKAImBatman]

I always thought the whole idea of SAS was simply shifting and consolodating the effort of creating and servicing software to (hopefully) lower costs. Not eliminate them.

That would be under the pros category.

There are a lot of advantages to having someone else host your data. But there are also risks. Which RMS did put his finger on, but he's far from the first to do so. If anything, he's blowing the whole thing WAY out of proportion. (Thus the mildly sarcastic tone of my post.)

My basic issue with RMS's logic is that he doesn't want to trust anyone. Because if you don't trust anyone, you can't be double-crossed. Right?

The only problem is, society cannot operate without trust. At some point I have to trust someone else to handle a repetitive task, least I needlessly waste my time. Not to mention the myriad of skills I'd need for basic survival!

Think of it this way: Without trust, we would all be too busy farming, hunting, building our own homes, fabbing our own materials, and providing our own healthcare. Technology would go absolutely nowhere, because just one of those items is a full time job. Anyone not skilled enough in any of those trades would probably suffer a horrible death from starvation, disease, exposure, or predators. Even if people share discoveries ala the GPL, who would have time to examine and build upon the discoveries?

Thankfully, we trust each other. At least enough to where I let someone else farm the food, someone else build my house, someone else provide medical attention to myself and family, etc. I pay for those services with the expectation that my food will not be poison, my house is safe to occupy, and my doctor is a skilled medical practitioner. Society has a number of checks and balances to help verify those levels of trust, and thus we arrive at "good enough".

If there's anything I've learned over the years, save for a small percentage of exceptions, "good enough" is many orders of magnitude better than "superior". :-)

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[iplayfast]

My basic issue with RMS's logic is that he doesn't want to trust anyone. Because if you don't trust anyone, you can't be double-crossed. Right?

I think the gpl shows the opposite. You can trust everyone, you just need to enforce it. He figured out a clever way to do that.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[iplayfast]

Arg. That was supposed to be...

My basic issue with RMS's logic is that he doesn't want to trust anyone. Because if you don't trust anyone, you can't be double-crossed. Right?

I think the gpl shows the opposite. You can trust everyone, you just need to enforce it. He figured out a clever way to do that.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[melikamp]

Dude, compared to your idealistic hippie post (not that it's bad in itself), RMS sounds like the oracle of common sense.

The only problem is, society cannot operate without trust.

Certain aspects of it do operate without trust. Any time you see 1000000.00 written on a check, you can (and should) forget about trusting anyone.

Think of it this way: Without trust, we would all be too busy farming, hunting, building our own homes, fabbing our own materials, and providing our own healthcare.[sic]

You are thinking of what we would do if we did not have a money-based economy. This has nothing to do with trust.

RMS is correct in distrusting commercial software manufacturers and providers. Time and time again these people (with MS and Apple in the lead) have tried to fuck us over by supplying us with software that is bloated, insecure by design, intentionally buggy (DRM), cannot be configured, spies on us, comes with file format lock, etc., etc. A few exceptions aside, none of their code ever gets open, not even the oldest stuff. In order to get a functional product, the community has to rewrite everything from scratch, and they won't even open their code after we have a superior FLOSS product. Why??? Because commercial software manufacturers hate us and distrust us. They want us to bend over, take it from behind and scream like we are enjoying it while writing them a large non-refundable check.

Fuck that. RMS may be nuts, but he is looking after your interest, unlike MS, Apple, Google.

P.S. I really don't mean to sound dickish, I am just sick tired of stupid commercial commodity software. It's hurting pretty much everyone, and it's awful.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[Hurricane78]

Well, in my dictionary, "enforcing" is the opposite of "trusting".

This smells like those 15 year old girls, who don't know what boy to trust, and which one to open their hearts for.
Some time in our life, we learn, that it's not black and white, but that trust is an individual and relative thing, and not binary, but a continuum.
Would you use software as a service, if your girlfriend were the one offering the service?
How about a Haliburton / Chinese government joint-venture? ^^

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[The Cisco Kid]

You have misunderstood the meaning of the word 'Free', in the context RMS is using it. Hint - it has nothing to do with money or finance.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[maxume]

"This smells like those 15 year old girls" probably isn't among the better idioms to go around using.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[The Raven]

Thank you. I've often wondered exactly why RMS' hard line stance bothered me, and you helped me see the light. I do agree that closed software has significant drawbacks, but some of his other opinions didn't sit quite right with me. And that's because I'm a pretty trusting person. I assume the best, and it has yet to burn me.

Heck, even with OSS we still rely on trust except in very rare cases. We trust the OSS writer to be competent; we trust the community (as in, someone other than us) to look at the software and check for problems; we trust that nobody adds an obfuscated backdoor; we trust security experts to find flaws in our encryption methods. Nobody can be an expert in everything.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[iplayfast]

If you consider source code in which on a typical distro is made up of the work from 100's of thousands of programmers/designers/artists/documenters etc. And you use these distros on the faith that they are well put together. This to me is trust.

If you consider that the reason this came to be is due to RMS's ideals, which enforce those ideals, I have no problems at all.

BTW, why are you smelling 15 year old girls?

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[HeronBlademaster]

Certain aspects of it do operate without trust. Any time you see 1000000.00 written on a check, you can (and should) forget about trusting anyone.

Except the check system itself is based on trust. Your local grocery store trusts that your check won't bounce, and they trust that when they take the check to the store it won't be fake, and that the bank will process it correctly and deposit the appropriate amount in their bank account. You trust that your bank will debit the appropriate amount from your checking account.

You are thinking of what we would do if we did not have a money-based economy. This has nothing to do with trust.

The money system itself is based on trust. We trust that the government isn't printing too much and making it worthless. We trust that they're actually keeping enough gold to back some of it. We trust other people not to give us counterfeit bills (or do you examine the $20 the grocery store gave you as change for your $50?).

It is laughable to claim that the money system has nothing to do with trust.

Sure, there are instances of ridiculousness that outweigh the trust inherent in the system - when an 18 year old college student writes a $1 million check, for instance.. But who is RMS to decide that SaaS is inherently untrustworthy?

The way I see it, when RMS claims that SaaS is evil because someone else has control of your data, he's claiming that other people are not to be trusted. This view, when carried out to its logical conclusion, ends up just where your parent post put it - with everyone making their own milk with their own cow in their own backyard.

RMS may be nuts, but he is looking after your interest, unlike MS, Apple, Google.

One could argue that by asking us to provide services ourselves, and thus spending more money, RMS is actually harming our well-being, while Google, who gives us Google Apps at no charge, is improving our well-being. This isn't a flawless argument, of course, but it's just as valid as RMS's (IMNSHO flawed) philosophy.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[melikamp]

No he isn't. He's looking after his own interests while trying to convince everyone else that their interests are the same as his.

I am sorry, I have to call bullshit. RMS contributed for some 20 years and never asked for anything in return, except for people to volunteer to help and for companies to stop waging a war on a software user. He contributed some of the most brilliant development software, an incredibly useful software license, as well as philosophical and ethical arguments (in writing and in video) for abandoning non-free commodity software. RMS never charged anyone for software, never forced or coerced anyone into using his or anyone else's software, never "locked" anyone into using an open standard file format (mostly because it would be logically impossible). It is OK to disagree with his arguments for one who is evil like Microsoft and other commercial software vendors, but it just not OK to say that he is exploiting the trust of the community for his own narrow interest. This is utter bullshit. Please provide an example or shut the hell up.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[melikamp]

The money system itself is based on trust.

No, this could not be more wrong. Money is based on faith. Money works because we believe, as a society, that a number can be used for exchanging goods and services. No one is trustworthy when a lot of money is involved, and the system is designed so that no one has to be. When you write a check, you have to show your ID, because (drum rolls) the store does not want to give you a big screen TV in exchange for a piece of paper. When you bring a bunch of Franklins to a bank, they put them under a fancy light, for the same reason. I don't know why it is such a shock to you that money is designed to be functional even for parties which distrust each other completely.

Do a thought experiment, imagine that everybody decided to distrust everybody else with money, as a matter of principle. So you keep your own balance sheets, you pay attention to what your competitors and allies are doing, and when you do outsource your finances to someone else, you also make sure that there is plenty of oversight and accountability. Oh, wait, this is not a thought experiment at all, this is how we actually operate.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[DannyO152]

Good point about trust. There's a mechanism for mitigating the risks of trust, and that is a contract. Currently we have Terms of Service which are all one way, i.e., the service provider promises nothing and imposes rules for usage which they can change with minimal notice. Contrast that with my electricity provider: I pay for use, there are occasional outages (with no reimbursement for consequential damages), and there are no rules as to how I may use the electricity once I plug in.

While software freedoms don't quite fit here, in my opinion, there's a need to address services and make them more equitable with a consumer bill of rights and/or modifications to the commercial codes.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[HeronBlademaster]

Very well, I'll play your game.

You've simply shifted the trust from money to other places.

For example:

When you write a check, you have to show your ID, because (drum rolls) the store does not want to give you a big screen TV in exchange for a piece of paper.

This does not verify the validity of the check. It simply verifies that the name on your ID is the same as the name on the check. They still have to simply trust you that the check won't bounce, and that it's not a fake check. Furthermore, they're trusting you that the ID itself isn't fake - and they're trusting the issuing authority to do their job correctly when deciding whether to issue you the ID in the first place.

When it comes right down to it, if the store hands you the TV without making sure the check clears first (and this takes a few days, you know), they are, in fact, handing you a TV in exchange for a piece of paper.

I don't know why it is such a shock to you that money is designed to be functional even for parties which distrust each other completely.

Any money system inherently trusts the issuing authority - whenever I use or accept a $20 bill as payment, I am trusting that the US government is vouching for the value of that bill. Yes, stores do a quick check to see whether large bills are counterfeit - but have you ever seen them check a $10? A $5? Certainly you haven't seen anyone try to determine whether a $1 bill is counterfeit. (This is a function of cost - trusting $1 bills to be real costs a lot less than trusting $20 bills to be real, in the event that a bill is fake.) But even so, the store trusts that when they deposit the bills in the bank, the bank will credit their bank account correctly, the bank trusts the government to keep the bills' value relatively intact, and so on. There's no escaping trust.

And then there's credit cards - stores trust that Visa will provide the charged funds.

So you see, rather than go into detail about where exactly the trust lies, I simplified the explanation in saying that the money system is based on trust, as I have just shown.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[perryizgr8]

Certain aspects of it do operate without trust. Any time you see 1000000.00 written on a check, you can (and should) forget about trusting anyone.

no, trust is the reason you can encash that million dollar check handed to you. you would give it to a bank teller and tell him to give you your money. if he does not do that, he will lose his job. fine, no trust required. this teller takes the check to a supervisor (million dollars being a large amount to encash). the supervisor checks all the details and orders another group of persons to fetch the money from the vault. now consider the possibility that these persons may take the money and run away. but they can't, because they would be caught by security. no trust needed. but suppose the security guards are in on the plan, along with the supervisor and the teller too. then they can run away with your money. but they would be caught and tried in court.
but if the cops and the judge were also in on the plan, you would lose your money.
in other words, you trust atleast one person in the chain to do his job properly. and there is nothing other than trust that will make you certain that they will, howsoever strict the law is made.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[melikamp]

None of your examples are trust-based.

The validity of the check is not as relevant as the accurate record of your identity. You see, a store will trust you as long as they have your ID on file, i.e. they have you by the balls in case if your check bounces. This is not what I would call a trust-based transaction.

whenever I use or accept a $20 bill as payment, I am trusting that the US government is vouching for the value of that bill.

I don't even know what this means. All I know is that dollars are legal tender and people do accept them as payment for anything I ever care to obtain. I also suspect that nearly everyone treats money very selfishly. No one (besides the treasury) is trying to actually make the system work. On the contrary, everyone is trying to make as much money as possible without doing too much work. It is freaking amazing to me that the economy works at all.

Credit card companies trust you as much as a hold-em player trusts you when you make a large bet. They are basically gambling on credit. They are well aware of the fact that sometimes they will loose and will have no way to recover their bets, but they know that they are winning overall, and they do so by jacking up the rates and fucking over honest customers. And again, they have your phone number. They may not be able to take any money from you, but you can be sure that they will drag you through the mud if you cross them.

An example of a trust-based transaction is when you lend $120 to your friend or housemate, for a week or two, with no interest and no certified IOU.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[HeronBlademaster]

The validity of the check is not as relevant as the accurate record of your identity. You see, a store will trust you as long as they have your ID on file, i.e. they have you by the balls in case if your check bounces. This is not what I would call a trust-based transaction.

I've never had a store make a copy of my ID when I hand them a check. What makes you think they have my ID on file? All they have is a check, and until they cash it they're simply trusting that it's valid.

In other words, you're completely ignoring the inherent trust in the system. Even if they did make a photocopy of your ID, the store is trusting you that the ID you have provided is not fake. If it's not fake, the store trusts the issuing authority that the ID was issued to the correct person.

You can't claim there's no trust simply by ignoring the trust involved.

All I know is that dollars are legal tender and people do accept them as payment for anything I ever care to obtain.

And why is a $10 bill legal tender? Because we trust the government to uphold its value. The selfishness of individuals does not remove the trust inherent to the system.

Credit card companies trust you as much as a hold-em player trusts you when you make a large bet.

I wasn't talking about credit card companies trusting the credit card holders, I was talking about merchants trusting the credit card issuers.

In any case, loans (credit cards or not) are also based in part on trust. The loaner trusts that you'll repay the loan with interest, rather than simply taking the money and disappearing. They trust that the documentation of your income (which you provided) is legitimate (this is especially the case if you're self-employed). There is a lot of trust built in to the system, and claiming it's not there is laughable.

Again, ignoring the trust inherent to a system doesn't prove there is no trust involved; it just shows you don't want to believe there's trust inherent to the system.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[TrekkieGod]

My basic issue with RMS's logic is that he doesn't want to trust anyone. Because if you don't trust anyone, you can't be double-crossed. Right?

The only problem is, society cannot operate without trust. At some point I have to trust someone else to handle a repetitive task, least I needlessly waste my time. Not to mention the myriad of skills I'd need for basic survival!

Strictly speaking, you should only trust people if you believe they share compatible goals with your own. You can generally trust the people you buy food from, because killing their customers is incompatible with their goals. You can trust your friends and family because you believe they value their relationship with you as much as you value your relationship with them.

On the other hand, if your goal is to keep source code open, then that goal is contrary to that of the business model of many other companies. They believe in hindering competition, and in profiting from selling you improvements you could create yourself. So we need the GPL in order to enforce that anytime someone uses GPL'd code and distributes the result, the code and any changes to it are also kept open. Software as a service bypasses that. They can use modified open source software, but since they're never distributing the software itself, they never have to distribute the changes. Since their goals are clearly contrary to RMS's goals, why should he trust them?

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[VGPowerlord]

The validity of the check is not as relevant as the accurate record of your identity. You see, a store will trust you as long as they have your ID on file, i.e. they have you by the balls in case if your check bounces. This is not what I would call a trust-based transaction.

I've never had a store make a copy of my ID when I hand them a check. What makes you think they have my ID on file? All they have is a check, and until they cash it they're simply trusting that it's valid.

In other words, you're completely ignoring the inherent trust in the system. Even if they did make a photocopy of your ID, the store is trusting you that the ID you have provided is not fake. If it's not fake, the store trusts the issuing authority that the ID was issued to the correct person.

You can't claim there's no trust simply by ignoring the trust involved.

That's not all stores do with checks. Haven't you noticed they run them through little machines at the checkout counters?

The numbers on the bottom of cheques are printed with magnetic ink so that the numbers can be scanned into a computer, which are then checked against the computers of a payment processor to verify that you haven't written bogus cheques before.

Some stores (such as WalMart) even turn them into an EFT transaction on checkout, meaning that your account is checked and instantly debited for the amount of the check.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[dwye]

Except the check system itself is based on trust.

No, it is based on criminal penalties against those who try to abuse its trust.

Your local grocery store trusts that your check won't bounce,

No, they trust that if it does, they can still get the money, if it exists, and if not they can get you sent to jail where you learn the dangers of check kiting to the forger.

and they trust that when they take the check to the store it won't be fake, and that the bank will process it correctly and deposit the appropriate amount in their bank account. You trust that your bank will debit the appropriate amount from your checking account.

Again, every step in this process is surrounded by criminal penalties for deliberate violations, as well as civil recourse for small and/or accidental ones. It is only the fact that they can repossess the car that allows auto loans; if there were no such ability no one would loan except to their best friends, or those that they outgunned. Thus, the mortgage market has dried up because housing prices have fallen to the extent that banks cannot guarantee that they will get their money if they repossess your house.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[melikamp]

I am not sure if "trust" means what you think it means. In retail especially, they "trust" you barely enough not to drive you up the wall. They scan your checks and many shops will ask for your photo ID when you pay with anything but cash.

Regardless, do you feel like explaining what you mean by "we trust the government to uphold its [$10 bill] value"? I just do not get it. It seems to be outright false. What I expect the government to do is to force anyone who does commerce to use money. "Legal tender" means that by law, if you are in debt, then you can pay with dollars. You don't have to pay with labor, words, daughters, personal freedom or anything else if you do not feel like it. If you owe at all, the government guarantees that you can repay your debt with nothing but dollars. The dollar value of your debt is not guaranteed by anyone, and difficult cases usually require a court settlement.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[HeronBlademaster]

*sigh*

The stores are trusting that the courts will enforce the law, then. The courts trust that the cops will track down the fugitive.

However you break it up, it comes down to someone trusting someone else to do something properly.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[HeronBlademaster]

The government has great control over the value of the dollar. If they wanted it to be worth less (or worthless) for whatever reason, they'd simply have to print out so many bills that the value decreases. We're trusting them not to screw us over like that. (Some inflation is necessary as the population grows and such; we trust them not to overdo it.)

If you prefer, we trust our elected officials (and the people appointed by our elected officials) not to screw us over.

I recall an instance in the Dominican Republic where they elected a president, who promptly stole much of the government's money, fled the country, and was never heard from again: this was an abuse of the kind of trust I'm talking about.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[HeronBlademaster]

I should also mention that paper money has value because the government keeps a stash of gold as backing for the money. Theoretically you can go to the government with cash and ask for the gold backing it. (Obviously the government doesn't have enough to back all the currency in circulation, but you can still ask for gold for your money.)

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[againjj]

Dude, compared to your idealistic hippie post (not that it's bad in itself), RMS sounds like the oracle of common sense.

The only problem is, society cannot operate without trust.

Certain aspects of it do operate without trust. Any time you see 1000000.00 written on a check, you can (and should) forget about trusting anyone.

Think of it this way: Without trust, we would all be too busy farming, hunting, building our own homes, fabbing our own materials, and providing our own healthcare.[sic]

You are thinking of what we would do if we did not have a money-based economy. This has nothing to do with trust.

This has all to do with trust. Checks are based on trust between banks, trust in the watermarks etc. on the check, and more. Money is based on trust: trust in money being hard to counterfeit, trust that the Feds will not send inflation too high (which depends on trust in the economy in general, etc.), trust that banks don't cheat you, and more. In general, many financial decisions are based on trust that fraud is low.

Both checks and money are about the financial system in general, which we have seen take a substantial downturn due to trust in things that turned out to be false, such as VAR, or the belief that insurance will cover you when things go bad (see Lehman Brothers). Had the trust in AIG been violated, then things would have been worse (see, "too big to fail").

You do not have to fully trust a number of the things above, but only if you trust that the government in the form of police, courts, and legislators are not going to screw you over. And there is enough evidence to show that you can't even fully trust them. How corrupt is the government? How likely is it that money will turn the tide against someone who is in the right? However, the level of trust in stable countries is generally high. If the government is corrupt, then things do not function as well.

Interestingly, countries that are doing better in this financial crisis are those that are less developed, as they have put less trust into the financial systems of the world. If they are less invested in finance, they have less to lose when things do bad. My in-laws in Laos are not happy that their money has gained 20% against the dollar in the last couple years, since it means the money sent back is worth less to them. And why has it? Their economy is based on labor and raw materials. They are trusting in different things.

As you seem to specifically talking about trust in non-human entities, I will not discuss trust in people.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[melikamp]

Why won't you compare these software products on merits? Why won't you post non-bullshit figures for MS Office sales and Emacs adoption, and then present a meaningful argument for how they compare? I know! Because you cannot be bothered with stupid things like facts.

Keep trolling, bud.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[melikamp]

I'll try one more time, resorting to a simple analogy, the slashdot way. This mess started after you said "The money system itself is based on trust." Here is why it is not.

If I am in a monogamous relationship with a real human female and we both have to wear titanium chastity belts, then our monogamous relationship is not based on trust. On the contrary, it will probably remain monogamous even though, apparently, we do not trust each other at all.

In US economy, players do not ever have to trust each other. In particular, they do not expect the other party to do things right without oversight. Titanium belts are light in comparison with legal mambo-jumbo which surrounds a transfer of an insignificant sum like $10'000'000. In this sense, the economy is not based on trust.

It is true, as I indicated above, that money system requires us all to believe in certain abstract principles. I also know that in order for money to work, we should have an expectation that the government will do its job competently, which implies upholding the law. If you call things like that "trust", that's fine, but they are different from trusting into someone's good will.

Which somehow brings us back to the question of whether or not it is wise to trust software vendors. Bam!

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[jpkotta]

My basic issue with RMS's logic is that he doesn't want to trust anyone. Because if you don't trust anyone, you can't be double-crossed. Right?

Respectfully disagree. I think his main point is that you should trust people, but make it so it is very hard for them to double cross you. I trust open source software because it can be inspected, not because I'm the one that actually inspects it. Also, one of the major benefits of OSS is that it is reusable, not just as a finished product (e.g. link a library to your project), but as raw code as well.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[martin-boundary]

in other words, you trust atleast one person in the chain to do his job properly. and there is nothing other than trust that will make you certain that they will, howsoever strict the law is made.

That's not how it works.

Your argument sounds good because you phrase it so that it's a two player game (you on one side, the whole of society on the other). If that was really the case, then you'd be right and the "you" player would have to trust the second player to be able to maximize his payoff.

Your argument breaks down because the world is a multi-player game. In a multiplayer game, there are subgames which don't involve the "you" player, and these subgames are independent of whether the "you" player happens to trust the other players or not, or whether the "you" player even exists or not.

For example, you don't need to trust that someone in your chain of responsibility will do their job correctly, because these players must already behave responsibly due to some combination of other games that they play among themselves which have nothing to do with your case.

So you can assume that some players do their job correctly not because of trust, but because there is a complicated web of cause and effect which guarantees that some players do their job whether they wish they did or not, etc.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[Workaphobia]

Absolutely. The principle reason I use FLOSS when possible is not the ideological goodness of Freedom or the technical merits of Open Source: It's a simple matter of not trusting proprietary software further than I can throw it. At least with FLOSS I can presume that the developer has may interests in mind, or at least doesn't actively work against my interests, because there's no financial incentive for him to screw me over.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[takowl]

Dude, compared to your idealistic hippie post (not that it's bad in itself), RMS sounds like the oracle of common sense.

No, he's quite right. Even if you don't want to call it 'trust' (I think the term fits), the whole basis of a money-based society is paying people to worry about things on your behalf. I buy a rail ticket, trusting the train company to take me where I need to go safely. I buy bread, I trust it contains carbohydrates and not strychnine. Most people buy software and trust that it will do what they need. And it generally does.

Yes, software companies have made plenty of mistakes, but for the average user, they're just not as bad as you describe. If FLOSS was so clearly superior, Microsoft, Apple and Google would be out of business by now. Of course they benefit from lock in and familiarity, but that can only go so far. They've maintained (or increased, in Apple's case) their market shares by having products that work for people.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[JD-1027]

I think RMS may be more interested in openness than trust. If you have openness, you don't need trust because everything is visible.

In your example of someone building your house, you don't really need trust if the blue prints are viewable by you, and you can inspect the house as it is being built. You can look inside the walls before the drywall is up. And actually, you could say that building a house is not a trusted thing since many many 3rd party inspections are always done before the house is "released".

I find it interesting that anyone blindly trusts anymore, especially slashdoters. I know I absolutely minimize the things I blindly trust in my life.

Re:Congratulations to RMS...

[RR]

Dude, compared to your idealistic hippie post (not that it's bad in itself), RMS sounds like the oracle of common sense.

The only problem is, society cannot operate without trust.

<snip>

You are thinking of what we would do if we did not have a money-based economy. This has nothing to do with trust.

Uh, money is nothing but trust.

I think everybody here is on the same side, but we may disagree on just how much we’ll trust a vendor. Personally, I see nothing fundamentally wrong with having someone else run your software for you, but of course most businesses will do it wrong. There will be scandals as the whole field is sorted out, but I’m optimistic that it’ll work out.

Personally, I think Stallman is so strident partly because he wants people really to think about what they’re doing, so there will be fewer horrible mistakes.

Not to mention

[atomicthumbs]

...you can't use it when you don't have an internet connection. Why doesn't anyone think about this?

Re:Not to mention

[jabithew]

This is Slahdot; we all live on the internet. We'd rather lose our air supply than our DSL!

Re:Not to mention

[fyngyrz]

you can't use it when you don't have an internet connection. Why doesn't anyone think about this?

Because people prefer to think more about how to have an Internet connection all the time. Which is why iPods, cellphones, Palms and even my bloody DVR have Internet jacks, and why I can connect walking around or in my car, even in my rural area of America. It's also why I have wifi access in my home and business, why the local coffee shops have wifi, and in fact, why the local *pizza hut* has free wifi.

'Tis simply all-around better to be connected. And most of us don't need control of the software, as most of us aren't programmers anyway, or programmers interested in fussing with any particular software-as-service. Those programmers that do need access, already have it -- the program authors. RMS is missing the boat. Or perhaps has simply fallen off it.

Re:Not to mention

[afabbro]

...you can't use it when you don't have an internet connection. Why doesn't anyone think about this?

Because companies that use these services often have redundant internet connections?

Re:Not to mention

[plague3106]

No, control of softare isn't only useful for programmers. All that means is that if gmail changes something, and you don't like it anymore, you're stuck. The control part comes in that if you like Outlook 2003, but hate the new UI for 2007, you aren't forced to upgrade to 2007.

Re:Not to mention

[Teun]

What, you don't live in your own (cloud of) air?

Maybe that's what RMS is hiding in his beard...

Re:Not to mention

[jalefkowit]

...you can't use it when you don't have an internet connection.

O RLY?

Re:Not to mention

[Svippy]

Your Slashdot, maybe. Mine arrives hourly on a diskette with the newest updates and comments.

When commenting, I simply ship a diskette back.

Re:Not to mention

[EastCoastSurfer]

You can't use your computer when the power goes out and you can't use your phone when the phone line (cell or land) goes down. Does this stop you from owning a phone or using a computer?

Re:Not to mention

[maxume]

With Google providing free POP and IMAP, that is sort of a bad example.

Re:Not to mention

[HeronBlademaster]

I decided to access my e-mail (incidentally run on my own server) via IMAP, knowing that if my internet connection goes out I wouldn't be able to read my e-mail. Why did I choose to do this? Because I wanted to be able to access my e-mail from other computers.

For me, the advantages of having access to my e-mail from anywhere outweigh the risk of losing my internet access and thus not having access to my e-mail. Yes, this has inconvenienced me on occasion, but I'm the one that took the risk, and I find it acceptable.

My point is, we often do consider what happens when we lose our internet connection, and we often decide it's worth the risk.

Re:Not to mention

[PJ1216]

And Google deciding to stop offering free POP & IMAP that re-illustrates the point to an even better degree.

Re:Not to mention

[maxume]

Sure, and gives a lot of people a very clear picture of how far their behavior is from what RMS is espousing (I tend to believe that behavior paints a nice picture of principles).

Re:Not to mention

[Rary]

...you can't use it when you don't have an internet connection. Why doesn't anyone think about this?

Everyone thinks about this. It's mentioned repeatedly in every thread on this subject. And every one of those posts gets modded up to +5.

As a perfect example, the second reply to the first post in this discussion.

Re:Not to mention

[elmartinos]

You also cant use any software without electricity. Internet is nowadays almost as ubiquitous as electricity, so its not really an issue any more.

Re:Not to mention

[atomicthumbs]

The last time I checked I can't charge up my internet battery and have internet while driving or hiking.

Re:Not to mention

[caesarsgrunt]

Gmail Offline FTW!

I couldn't care less about the source code of services such as Gmail, so long as I have the data.


I think of RMS in the same light as extremist Muslims. I have nothing against Muslims and I'm a big fan of Free software, but extremists are extremists and are just pushing their point too far.
I feel no need to restrict my software usage to what fits RMS's ideals or anyone else's. I have the freedom to use the software I choose to use, be it GPL or no.

Re:Not to mention

[lazyforker]

...you can't use it when you don't have an internet connection. Why doesn't anyone think about this?

Isn't Google Gears supposed to fix that? I guess those morons at Google finally got something right. /sarcasm

Seriously - this is not news. Anyone who considers SAAS or web-based apps must have seen the same pros and cons that various posters have pointed out. RMS may look like an Old Testament prophet but that doesn't mean every pronouncement has to be dissected, studied and followed.

Re:Not to mention

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

What the hell can you do without an Internet connection? And when exactly do you run into this situation?

Internet goes down at my house? I can connect through my phone. Or go to one of hundreds of locations with free Wi-Fi.
Need internet on the road? Phone or aircard.

About the only place where I can't access the Internet is during a flight. And that's changing quickly.

Re:Not to mention

[fyngyrz]

No, control of softare isn't only useful for programmers. All that means is that if gmail changes something, and you don't like it anymore, you're stuck.

Look. If gmail -- an online service -- changes something, and you have server AND client source code, and you're a programmer, so you can change your client code, you MAY be able to work out a compatible new version, or you may not. You can change the server code all you want, but you can't make Google use it. Thank goodness. Because I trust them. But I *don't* trust you.

If you're not a programmer, having the source code won't help. Neither will having an old, incompatible version you refused to upgrade. Neither will having an older server of your own, because then you're not running gmail, are you? So in the end, you're probably stuck if you're a programmer, or not, and if you have source code, or not, and if you have a home server, or not. That's the risk of letting someone else hold your data. You want to have your own server, with your own code? Fine. When it gets out of sync with developments in the rest of the world, don't call me. Don't call anyone. It's your problem. Your code. Tough luck, Mr. Independent.

Your posts here on slashdot? They're gonna go away someday; when slashdot does, or perhaps sooner, when they have a policy change. Your ability to comment already evaporates shortly after the article posts. Your ability to edit is absolutely non-existent. The moderators act like frontal lobotomy patients with big red buttons they get a cookie for pushing, which do something completely unknown in another room entirely -- and that includes the slashdot mods, not just the users on a rampage.

You trade the benefit of community for the risks and costs of sharing. You wanna have a "slashdot" on your home server? Fine. You can have that. But you're not going to get the community, which is where the value is. Further, if you're really good at making your point, *no one* will post on your private slashdot, because you'll have convinced them that it's bad to let someone else hold your data.

Same thing with GMail. You trade some really smart, helpful people working on an email system that is really quite nice and VERY convenient, for some not very annoying ads on your web page and the risks associated with someone else holding your email. It's not a bad thing. You're not going to live forever, and things don't have to run or save your stuff forever. There can be both free and commercial software. Doesn't have to be GPL to be free, either.

Look here, this is a calculator I wrote to massage DSLR data and planet sizes to see if you could actually see something useful in the resulting image. It takes YOUR data, massages it, and gives you an answer. You don't get the source code, and it runs on my server, not your client. It's free. This, apparently, would terrify RMS. Which result would only make me laugh. You need the info it calculates? It's free. Go ahead. You won't use it because you don't have the source code? Then you're being silly. And so is RMS for his whole bizarre quest after purity of his own tired, restrictive, lawyer-infested vision.

Real freedom doesn't require lawyers or licenses. Count on it. You want real freedom, look to PD. There it is, pal. But that doesn't mean that independence trumps community, or that wanna-bes working in their basement have a ghost of a chance at beating commercial enterprises at the software game. There are very few freeware success stories, software that beats most commercial competition. Apache. Linux. PostgreSQL. That might be it. Gimp is so terrifyingly lame that Photoshop can sell for $800 or more. And that goes for most free software. Even those three examples still have competition. And the head of Oracle isn't exactly poor, is he? Microsoft does ok with servers and OS's despite Apache and Linux. So curious, these facts.

RMS (or RMS minions) ha

Re:Not to mention

[fishwaldo]

Good Luck getting first post then :)

Ok, seriously

[FictionPimp]

Does anyone give a shit anymore?

In any case, I use a few software as a service type websites that offer their software as a gpl download so I could install it on my server and run it myself.

In fact, I'm doing just that with dimdim (netmeeting software) for my work.

But seriously, this is getting old.

Re:Ok, seriously

[El Lobo]

Exactly. I use whatever tools I want, and "my freedom" and the limits I want to impose to "my freedom" (whatever THAT is) is only my business. I use the tools I like/need, and there are free tools, commercial, open source ones, binaries only, etc. They help me in my work and I pay whatever *I* think is worth to pay for them. That is my freedom. But having some long bearded troll telling me what my freedom is and what I must do and not do... that's not freedom, that's the closest to catholicism we got on the software arena....

And yes, I use public transport as well. And pay for the service. And no, I cannot repair their buses either if there are problems with them (don't have or want to learn mechanics).

Re:Ok, seriously

[miffo.swe]

"Does anyone give a shit anymore?"

Yes and i suspect many more will in a few years time once burned by SAAS and all of its implications. Other than software freedom there are countless liability and accountability issues thats totally unresolved right now.

As for software freedom RMS has done more for most of us than we see before we really think about it. Even if you dont run for example Linux its effect on Microsofts and their pricing, quality and security has been more than visible.

Sure he has an on the edge view of things but not at all any different or worse than on the other side where people are viewed upon as wallets to lure their savings from.

I dont have the same views as Richard Stallman but i strongly respect his views and the reasoning behind them is sometimes pretty solid. Its just that the world right now is ran by a bunch of greedy bastards that has nothing but themselves in view.

Re:Ok, seriously

[FictionPimp]

This is my stance. When I'm programing software, I want the best tools possible to do my job. I like to use open standards and libraries when possible because they tend to foster a solid product. I'd like to make my code open source, but in most cases I'm not allowed by my employer (besides it's all for our internal staff).

When I'm using software, I just want it to work. I don't want to fuck with it, or tweak it, or read the source code. I don't want to modify it, edit it, hell I really don't want to even open a properties dialog if I can help it.

This is how I ended up moving away from linux. I was a big linux buff for years. I have taught classes at a community college on linux. I have gone to events and handed out ubuntu CD's by the dozens. But in the end, I wanted my computer to let me do work, not to let me work on the computer.

So I settled on a middle ground. I stopped being a hard line must be open source advocate. I use a mac (the most unfree of unfree) because it is solid, unix, and has a good selection of software that I need to do work.

So I use open source software if it meets my needs. But I'll also use non-free software without any hesitation. Who cares if I can't edit the code to my liking. I can't think of a single time I've done that in an open source product. Who cares if it can go away. I keep good backups of my important data. I can move to something else.

In the end I just want to get the task done as efficiently as possible so I an move on to having fun.

Re:Ok, seriously

[Bigjeff5]

I think it's funny that, for all his talk about freedom, if you listen to what he says he doesn't just try to open your mind to what's out there. No, he tries to tell you what you should do! Freedom is doing exactly what I say? An odd way of expressing freedom, in my opinion.

I know he has been influential in pushing FOSS, and getting it where it is today. That's great, don't stop! But FOSS is just another option that may or may not fit the situation. It cannot meet every need, because there are different criteria for what is important, and honestly "free" doesn't offset the costs of using some FOSS tools, whereas a multi-thousand dollar price tag may be offset by another piece of software's toolset.

Same with SAAS, there are situations that make SAAS a better solution than purchasing and then supporting commercial software, or developing the software in-house, or hiring people who can support a FOSS solution. There are a lot more factors to consider than simply the upfront cost. That you are handing over control of your data to someone else. But that may not be a big deal, the important factor may be low support costs and the software service itself. Whether or not it gets over-used because it's the "hot new thing", well, that happens in all aspects of life and people who live that way tend to be fools anyway. Live and learn. Some people can't think through things, they have to screw them up first before it's clear that they probably didn't want to go that direction in the first place.

The true freedom is that we have options. RMS wants everybody to live by his definition of "freedom", but his is pretty narrow and restrictive, which kinda defeats the purpose of the concept of freedom.

Re:Ok, seriously

[tb3]

A Mac is not "the most unfree of unfree". The source to the Darwin kernel, the userland programs, Safari (Webkit), and a number of other programs are freely (gratis and libre) available here and here.

Now, it's not the source to all the apps, and it's not the source to the Quartz/Aqua window manager, but it's still a hell of a lot more than you'll ever get from Microsoft.

Re:Ok, seriously

[FictionPimp]

Having the source doesn't make it free. I can't change OSX. I can use Darwin to build my own operating system, but I can't use it to make changes to osx.

But what I feel is freedom is more then just source. I can't install OSX (easily or without violating their policies) on my own hardware. I can't run apps in the background on my iphone. The list goes on and on. I feel apple is way more restrictive then microsoft in many ways. They are just a little more forthcoming with the source code.

That's not to say I don't like apple. Obviously I do or I wouldn't have bought 2 macbook pro's, an iphone, numerous ipods, and the new 24inch display.

Re:Ok, seriously

[Tiberius_Fel]

The true freedom is that we have options. RMS wants everybody to live by his definition of "freedom", but his is pretty narrow and restrictive, which kinda defeats the purpose of the concept of freedom.

RMS wants to limit your ability to give away your freedom. You can't choose to sell yourself into slavery. Right now, you can choose to give your data to someone who can choose, if they wish, to restrict your freedom. Some people advocate that you should be able to sell yourself into slavery, but I'm not convinced that this is really a good idea...

Re:Ok, seriously

[agm]

I'd take him more seriously if his desire for freedom was directed towards *people* and not *software*. People need to be free, and that can never happen under a socialist system, because socialism is based on compulsion. If only RMS would direct some of his "freedom loving" energy towards the freeing of people instead of just software.

Re:Ok, seriously

[miffo.swe]

Any .ism ever has been greatly misused by the same type of people no matter what the underlying philosophy has been. The compulsion part comes from people who loves power but really just for its own sake and the wealth it brings to them and their kin.

The greatest threat to freedom are those people, not any .ism ever. Just look at what the neocons managed to do with the GOP party.

Re:Ok, seriously

[agm]

Any .ism ever has been greatly misused by the same type of people no matter what the underlying philosophy has been.

Socialism (and other political philosophies that are based on compulsion) are flawed from the beginning - they don't need to be "misused" to cause harm. All that is required for them to cause harm is simple use.

RMS arguing for software freedom is like trying to repair a small hole in the side of the Titanic and ignoring the huge gash down the side. Wanting freedom is a grand and just desire - BUT people should come before software. Sure - he can pick whatever fight he wants, but I consider fighting for the liberties of people to be a much more noble and worthwhile cause than fighting for the freedom of software.

The World doesn't care

[prayag]

RMS is right of course. Software as a service is not free and one should always be at guard while using them.

Having said that, it is also important to realize that general public does not care, if its free. If you just ask them, "Do not use it." It does not help the cause. Shouldn't you instead try to educate them and warn them of the pitfalls ?

The world is not black and white. And software as a service is here to stay. When would RMS realize that ?

Re:The World doesn't care

[mr crypto]

Agreed. RMS's advice seems to be to run your own server, but how many people can or will do that? If he presented a viable alternative for the masses I'd be more sympathetic.

Re:The World doesn't care

[intx13]

And software as a service is here to stay. When would RMS realize that?

I'm sure he realizes it, he just feels that it's at odds with how the world should work.

I think software-as-a-service is just one of the many difficulties that are going to be facing RMS and his black-and-white world (software) view in the near future (software-as-a-service has been around forever of course).

How is RMS going to handle on-board FPGAs for runtime code offloading into hardware? Your software, let's say it's Free, cranks through some possibly non-Free algorithm to produce (assumedly non-Free) hardware description language (softare? hardware?) which then turns into actual hardware on a non-Free device. Is it ok to use such a feature?

Let's say he answers that question in the affirmative. Now let's put that FPGA on each board in a cluster half-way around the world and let's pay for monthly access. How about now? Are we paying for software-as-a-service or hardware-as-a-service? Is it ok to use?

Again, let's say he answers in the affirmative. Now let's say the company has a phone system I can use to dial in and reboot the cluster. The software that runs the phone system is non-Free. Can I use the cluster? If my software requires a reboot as a part of its nature (and can only run on this particular system) is my software now non-Free?

Software, hardware, software-as-a-service, and other related concepts are only going to get more muddled as time goes on. The questions are going to get harder.

Free software has many practical benefits; I'm an everyday user thereof... but I'm not sure there's any moral rightness about it. As the questions get harder, if we stick to thinking of software as a moral question, as RMS tends to, we're going to elevate computer programming to a religion. When there's a desire for Free software (the open source community, for example) the need will be met (home-brew projects, Sun, IBM, Red Hat sponsored projects, etc). But is there some innate need for ALL software to be Free? I don't think so.

(Note that here I'm talking only about RMS's desire to classify each and every computing model as Free or non-Free - I'm not addressing the concept of IP ownership in general.)

Re:The World doesn't care

[ClosedSource]

RMS isn't concerned about privacy or any other legitimate concern with SoS. He just cares about his idea of "freedom".

Re:The World doesn't care

[Bigjeff5]

Emphasis on his.

Re:The World doesn't care

[Registered Coward v2]

RMS is right of course. Software as a service is not free and one should always be at guard while using them. Having said that, it is also important to realize that general public does not care, if its free. If you just ask them, "Do not use it." It does not help the cause. Shouldn't you instead try to educate them and warn them of the pitfalls ? The world is not black and white. And software as a service is here to stay. When would RMS realize that ?

The problem is that RMS is a zealot on a mission; and zealots never let things like reality intrude on that. While they can accomplish many things; they often begin to harm the very things they worked hard to bring about. To them, compromise is simply not an option; and will rail against those who do. Meanwhile, people who actually want to do things and understand that building lasting things requires compromise and viewing the current situation as it is, not as they want it to be as an important part of reaching their longer term goals. In addition, many supporters of a movement don't always have the same end point in mind; even if they agree with many of the concepts. That of course, is anathema to the zealots who insist their is only "One True Way."

In the end, the zealots are forgotten and the world and their cause moves ahead without them.

Re:The World doesn't care

[drzhivago]

Well obviously the viable alternative is to run software and services that he's approved.

That's the problem I've always had with him, that it's "my way or the highway."

Re:The World doesn't care

[Random BedHead Ed]

A geek's service call with a clueless relative:

"Aunt Tilly, you really shouldn't use Google Docs because you won't be able to patch it if you encounter problems with it. And that would seriously violate your freedoms.

Er ... you do know how to patch software by adding in a source patch and recompiling, right? That's obviously the bit that comes before you run a make test just to be safe and then make install, and then you restart the service's daemon. This is all stuff you do in that terminal window I showed you last week. But then, you probably write all the C code for your patches in a terminal-based editor anyway.

Hello? Aunt Tilly?"

Re:The World doesn't care

[agm]

Agreed. RMS's advice seems to be to run your own server...

How handy would a local Facebook server be when you're the only user on it?

How useful would a local Google server be when it's only indexing your local lan?

No need for him to lift a finger

[SuperKendall]

The first hiccup in your company internet connection will have you scrambling to replace many of the services you signed up for...

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[FictionPimp]

My internet connection has only gone down 3 times that I can recall in the last 5 years.

2 of those times were blackouts. So I wasn't using my computer. The 3rd was because of a communication problem causing my service to get shutoff a few days before my new service was installed.

I'm not worried about losing the internets.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[EastCoastSurfer]

Maybe we shouldn't rely on phone service or power service either then. Last time I checked phones were more critical to most companies than being able to access the internet.

You simply need to recognize the risk if you internet goes down and have back up plans to work around it.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Nerdfest]

As with mutual funds ... past performance is not an indication of future performance.

Then again, even if you can perform your work, not being able to communicate with anyone may render it useless in many cases as well.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Kell Bengal]

When did you last check? 1992?

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Mr_Magick]

The difference being that my phone and power have a specified up-time (that might even be set by government mandate, I'm not sure) that is much higher then my ISP uptime.

Most small to medium businesses that I know of use consumer grade DSL or cable connections that are notorious for going out weekly for minutes or hours, and yearly for a day or more.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Skuld-Chan]

I supported an SAAS app which did point of sale/accounting. Trust me - 30 minutes without internet makes people freak - especially when they can't sell anything.

It came to the point where most of our customers had modems they could use as backups if their net connection went offline and our bigger customers had frame relay connections directly to our customer network.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[perryizgr8]

Most small to medium businesses that I know of use consumer grade DSL or cable connections that are notorious for going out weekly for minutes or hours, and yearly for a day or more.

i don't know what you're talking about, my dsl connection has never gone down. ah, i remember now! It went out once at 11.30 pm and i called up the company. they told me it would be all right in two hours.
but i really doubt that those expensive fixed ip lines for businesses would go out.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[FictionPimp]

Of course with things like google gears (gasp more google RMS) you can use your webapp while offline and have it sync up later.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[mabhatter654]

that's because CONSUMER grade accounts don't pay for reliability. Upgrade to Business accounts and you get similar uptime guarantees to POTS.

Yes, it costs MORE. But your business is RELYING on it.. right?

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[SydShamino]

Perhaps you missed this story:
http://perens.com/blog/2009/04/22/108/

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[SydShamino]

Again, if it really matters you don't rely on those services. You have your own backup systems.

http://perens.com/blog/2009/04/22/108/

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[teh kurisu]

My company had a hiccup with our internet connection a month or two ago, and we lost connectivity for a couple of days. The fact that our systems were still within our own infrastructure was a major problem for us, because they were customer facing services. If they'd been in the cloud (as the are now), we wouldn't have had the headaches we had.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[noidentity]

Maybe we shouldn't rely on phone service or power service either then. Last time I checked phones were more critical to most companies than being able to access the internet.

You simply need to recognize the risk if you internet goes down and have back up plans to work around it.

The difference is that power, phone, and internet connections can't be done any more reliably currently, whereas software CAN, by allowing you to run it on whatever machine you want. You have a choice with software, which I think is RMS's point.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[sud_crow]

Well, that analogy is the same as the people who wont fasten a seatbelt. Why would they? They never had a crash! Until they do, and they die. Because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it wont. That's called "prevention". ps. If you could be without service "for a few days", then you are not the kind of person too worried about working, or its not critical for your business operations.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[EastCoastSurfer]

For most people and small business I bet running in the cloud is a lot more reliable than running on some single machine that is rarely if ever backed up.

People keep saying what happens if your internet connection is down, but what happens when your HD fails or you lose your computer or worse, get it stolen? For many people the cloud is the more reliable way to go even if it means the risk of sometimes not having access to the data because of a loss of internet event.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[saleenS281]

Nearly every major business I've worked with in the last 2 years has either moved to VOIP or is in the process of moving to VOIP. So it would seem internet is indeed just as critical as phone.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[FictionPimp]

Do you know the only reason i wear a seat belt? It's so my insurance will cover me if I get into an accident. That is the only reason.

I've been driving for over 20 years without a single accident. Not one. I'm not worried about it. Regardless if I care or not, why should anyone be trying to force me to wear a seat belt? How does it help them?

This is the same thing. It works, I'm happy with it, and I've had no unacceptable outages. My college uses google for our mail. It's performance has been just fine. Should we move to our own internal mail, increase our costs, increase our maintenance, increase our spam, just so that people can get their mail when the internet is down and we can have the source code sitting in /user/local/src ? Seems like a waste of effort.

Plus like I said above, projects like google gears are making these issues go away.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[FictionPimp]

Also, when it comes to things that can't fail. We don't screw around maintaining it ourselves and need open source. When we use open source for business, we pay companies to support it.

I have a 10 man IT department, we are not going to be responsible for when our mission critical applications fail. We want a 24/7 support contract much much more then we want source code.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Kjella]

Then again, even if you can perform your work, not being able to communicate with anyone may render it useless in many cases as well.

I think too many people here think in the geek mindset - we always have something to tinker with or that should have been fixed. A lot of people have essentially no IT access and their only job is really to work against some online system, if it's down they're down and that tends to drag the whole business down in a "free time" mode. Could people have taken a department meeting or some other productive yet offline activity? Sure, but they never do. Given a semi-legitimate excuse to slack while getting paid and people will take it.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[EastCoastSurfer]

Given that I used to write software for call centers, the phone is far from dead and still THE most important item for a majority of businesses. It's fun to think that everyone is like us and trolls slashdot all day, but most people still would rather pick up the phone and call someone than trying to find something on the internet.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[siddesu]

"why should anyone be trying to force me to wear a seat belt? How does it help them"

you're using an insurance program -- that is, you rely on someone else to pay for a part of your medical bills. lowering the risk of you suffering a serious injury in an accident (and requiring a serious amount of money to fix) helps all of them.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[EastCoastSurfer]

Hmm...I used to work in a place that had upwards of 100 T1s coming in the door and I don't remember anytime that the network went down. Power on the other hand was terrible. For months, at least once/day we would have everything go dark for a minute or so. Who knows if the power company was every able to find the problem. It did give us regular testing of our battery backup systems though lol.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Sancho]

I've been driving for over 20 years without a single accident. Not one. I'm not worried about it. Regardless if I care or not, why should anyone be trying to force me to wear a seat belt? How does it help them?

If someone t-bones you, your car will still have momentum, but you may well have ended up in the passenger's seat. You'll have a hard time hitting the brakes or being able to control your car in any way.

If you are wearing a seatbelt, you'll still be in the driver's seat, and you'll have the capacity to control the vehicle.

There are other reasons that not wearing safety belts can impact society, but they're more questionable. Seat belts measurably reduce the damage your body incurs in a crash, so if you choose not to wear one, you're more likely to be injured, require medical treatment, and take up a slot at the hospital that someone else could have used. The problem with this argument, of course, is that it could be applied to any number of unhealthy activities and severely restrict our freedoms.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Firethorn]

I've been driving for over 20 years without a single accident. Not one. I'm not worried about it. Regardless if I care or not, why should anyone be trying to force me to wear a seat belt? How does it help them?

Had a guy like that over when I was in Nebraska. Didn't believe in seatbelts...

Him, his wife, two daughters all died in a collision, except for the boyfriend of one of the daughters. He walked away from the accident. He was also the only one buckled up.

How does it help them? Well, it helps keep MY insurance rates down and insures that a bed is available if I'm hurt. On average you'll use less hospital resources if you DO get into an accident.

I keep a fire extinguisher in my kitchen, and a first responder kit in my truck. I've never had a kitchen fire, nor have I been first on scene at a car accident w/injuries. But I want to be prepared for it.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Sancho]

Supposedly, there are no implicit bandwidth caps in most business plans, either. But from a reliability standpoint, you're right. You aren't going to get five nines with any DSL provider.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Methuseus]

I have never had a problem using the computer during a blackout. Cable internet with battery backup and a laptop.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[JumpDrive]

Yeah, that's all well and good on your computer at home.
But almost a year back we switched to google mail from in house mail server. Based upon the recommendation of a company VP to the CEO.
Four months later the internet went down, we were without mail for 7 hours. The company VP went to Starbucks, so he could get some work done. The CEO was out of town and everybody else was SOL.

I'd say we lost about $20,000 alone in that one day in productivity cost.

But that's okay we had about a third of the work force stay late over the course of the week to cover the lost time. No skin off the shin of the CEO or VP, so their idea was still brilliant.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[JumpDrive]

Our phone lines can be down for hours and no one will notice.

If the internet goes down, I'll have someone in my office in less than 5 minutes.

Phone lines are easily replaced with cell phones.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[SuperKendall]

Unless you want to be (slashdot speak) "alone in the world", pretty much you'll write a local app that writes a document, a email, etc... with the fact that it is useless unless you have the internet (so why not make the app a SaaS).

Not at all useless, when the data can be entered offline and then sent out later. I have !@^&!&^ Comcast at home, which some days has the happy "feature" that it drops the internet connection a few times for ten minute periods. Although quite annoying, I can still compose emails, or write documents. I can ever do server related work since I have a local instance of a CMS server set up I can experiment on.

In a large company there's lots of internal things that can be entered in systems before a final result is outbound.

Using common sense, have services located on the side where the most users are. So I'd never host an external web site internally, or use a word processor served from outside the company (even using Gears you can have issues when connections are gone).

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Planesdragon]

Regardless if I care or not, why should anyone be trying to force me to wear a seat belt? How does it help them?

When you get hit head-on at 45 mph by a drunk driver, and get thrown through your windshield and splatter on the highway, you won't care at all. Your family might even not care either. (They might hate you, but more likely they're just not going to have to deal with more than the funeral)

But the police, EMT, fireman, tow truck operator, and passing motorists will all care, because instead of your corpse staying in the car where it belongs, it's plastered all over the street where it'll, at least, scar the mental images of everyone who passes by and leave quite an ugly stain.

So, please, wear a seat belt. Don't litter with your corpse.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[FictionPimp]

I"m not saying seatbelts don't save lives. I'm saying it should be my choice on IF I want to protect myself. It's not your choice. The fact that everything thinks that it is, AND then legislates it is simply wrong.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[CarpetShark]

Yes, but now you can get a VOIP phone, meaning the internet is a superset of phones, and therefore, more important.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[SectoidRandom]

What about the backup? Come on you do have a diversely routed backup connection using an alternate connection technology don't you?

Anyway in the case when all Internet connections to a company go down you can pretty much guarantee that work will at least slow down, depending on the company, heck for a typical technology company no Google access means NO WORK full stop. Take a typical office worker and take away his/her email and I bet regardless of the fact that most other systems are working fine he/she will assume 'the networks down' and proceed to go for one of those rather long coffee breaks until it sorts itself out.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Firethorn]

Only if you're willing to sign a waiver and/or specify on your insurance that you don't wear a belt.

That's my extent of caring. The family I mentioned? Terribly tragic, but the guy(and his family) died for their beliefs. Plenty have. It was their right to drive and ride without a seatbelt in the belief that they wouldn't get into an accident or would be safely ejected if they were.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[tsa]

But if the internet went down you would have been without mail regardless of how your email was organized, right? Google had nothing to do with it.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[FictionPimp]

My insurance says they will not cover me without a seatbelt. So, they won't have to pay a dime if I get hurt. Yet I'll get a ticket for not wearing it because someone has to look out for my safety.

I'm just sick of people telling me what I can do to myself.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[syousef]

Maybe we shouldn't rely on phone service or power service either then

Why not? RMS obviously goes without running water so he's practicing what he preaches.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[FictionPimp]

When it effects me I give a shit. I don't care how small.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[SnowZero]

This first time a water pipe breaks in your building and floods your server room[1], you'll wish you had your services running in well-managed datacenters rather than the 3rd floor of an 8+ floor building complex.

[1] Yes, this really happened at my university.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Anonymous Coward]

> I've been driving for over 20 years without a single accident. Not one. I'm not worried about it.

And of course, the fact that you haven't had an accident is precisely why you don't see the value of seat belts.

Just like people who've never had a system failure don't see the value of backups.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but you can run dial-up or ADSL over a phone line - so by your argument, the phone system is a superset of the internet!

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[WNight]

We want ... support ... much more then we want source code.

You realize why mission-critical systems rely only on second-sourceable parts, right? It's so that if any manufacturer jacks up the price or goes out of business (imagine that!) you aren't stuck unable to get replacement parts. Software, and support, is like that too. You want options when your main supplier starts playing licensing games, or goes under, or end-of-lifes your product just in time to help their yearly earnings. Sure, there are third-party consultants available for proprietary products, but they're unlikely to have access to the source code either and for that and other reasons be unable to diagnose and fix the product as effectively.

It's just like with physical products, you might not ever use the diagram of the housing screw you bought in thousand-lots (via your builder) but the fact that the specifications for that model were available to any manufacturer is precisely why it was so cheap and available in the first place.

The code doesn't have to be open in the traditional sense, just visible (perhaps only after the company's failure), for these benefits. But where are you going to get a pool of third-party support and developers unless it is.

If the support contract you refer to doesn't provide you with access to the source code in the event of the company's failure to provide support it's not much good. And unless that code's already in escrow waiting for that moment, good luck collecting on the promise. (Steam users, pay attention!)

If you need it as much as you insist, isn't that going to ruin you?

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[var-tec]

The first hiccup in your company's electric supply will have you scrambling to replace many of the computers ... with GNU Abacus and GNU Pencil & Paper.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[var-tec]

That must have been in the last century.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[JAlexoi]

The same result if the connection of the CC terminals go out. So really, if internet goes at a POS, the software is the least of your problems, getting payments off the CC is the biggest issue.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[FictionPimp]

I see the value of a seat belt.I know how it can save lives. I simply fail to see why laws need to be in place to force me to do something that may save my life and will most certainly not harm another human being.

Just like I can see making jumping of a building illegal. You can land on someone and hurt them. I can't see how going to a doctor and asking him to put you down or slitting your wrists in a bathtub could should be illegal.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Amadodd]

And which PHB idea was it to do POS over the internet?

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Lokitoth]

Not necessarily. Having access to internal mail and to old mail is already much better than not having access to mail at all.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[JumpDrive]

Internal email is very important also.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[Skuld-Chan]

A lot of POS stations you see at most stores you go to are connected to a central server via vpn over the internet (the cheaper solution) or frame relay (more expensive, but more reliable).

It made a lot of sense for a lot of shops because we did all the database maintenance, upgrades and hardware support on our end. Oh and you don't have to deal with the connection fun for credit card transactions or edi transactions.

Re:No need for him to lift a finger

[CarpetShark]

No, not at all. That's like saying you can feed water through pipes, so pipes are bigger than the ocean.

Ever get the feeling that....

[Idiot with a gun]

RMS is a bit insane?

On one hand, he's right, when someone else runs your program, they have your data. This has always been a concern with "cloud computing" and software as a service. What happens if the company holding my information goes down? What if they're attacked?

On the other hand, many businesses don't have the time, or the equipment to run this software on their own. It's great to say that they should run open source software, but that's an easy generalization. Sometimes there isn't an open source alternative (keep in mind, I am writing this on Firefox, running on Linux. I love open source as much as the next geek, I'm just realistic). Or even if there is, sometimes just renting 10% of some other server to run a service for you is cheaper than getting your own servers, and IT people to maintain it.

Overall, RMS has become the ideological leader of the free software movement. Like any good Libertarian (analogy, I'm not saying he's Libertarian. I'm not aware of his political affiliations), he doesn't allow for practicality to interfere with ideology. I mean, the idea of free software is great, just some compromises need to be made. One cannot jump straight to free software without any in-between.

Oh, and his complaints about people calling GNU/Linux just Linux are really starting to get old.

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[afabbro]

Overall, RMS has become the ideological leader of the free software movement.

Has become? When was he not?

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[Cheviot]

Exactly. I don't dry clean my own clothes. Theoretically, I could. The methods and chemicals aren't a secret. Instead I turn over control of my cleaning to a third party. Precisely how they do things I do not know... and if they use too much starch I have no way to debug the process.

But guess what, it's a lot better than wasting my time and money learning the process, buying the equipment and filling my basement with vats of noxious chemicals.

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[Seakip18]

The problem is when you crack open your daily life and look at computing services you can't crack open and look at.

Every minor, hidden process is suddenly game. Go to a grocery store and use your credit card? You are using the credit card company's servers to take care of the work of moving your money from account to account. Your data. Their software. Cut up your cards. Heck, stow your money in a mattress. You don't want the bank to be liable for doing account computing when you can't get to the software.

I mean, I'd like to see the underlying process and know how their software works, up-to-the-code-level, but realistically? I don't have the time or interest. I'll trust the bank to keep my money safe and they get to enjoy the benefits of that trust.

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[TheRaven64]

Exactly. I don't dry clean my own clothes. Theoretically, I could. The methods and chemicals aren't a secret. Instead I turn over control of my cleaning to a third party.

And RMS has no problem with this. Would you, however, buy a new suit which could only be cleaned by the manufacturer, with an undocumented chemical formula? Would you encourage your organisation to adopt a policy that only people who wear these suits are allowed to attend important meetings?

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you that Richard Stallman is no libertarian. His constant re-definition of the word "free" is positively Orwellian. He would replace an ownership/contract based model (which libertarians are happy with) with something more akin to a Trotskyite/Leninite central ownership with added viral gaming of existing copyright law.

Basically, Stallman owns everything produced by anyone who has ever distributed any GPL software in any form connected with copyright. He can and will exact any degree of control he wishes by merely circulating a newly confabulated definition for the word "free".

To libertarians, "free" means "free from controlist/agendaist crypto-bolshevikite pied-piper types who would become the neo-aristocracy at the very instant they see an opening"

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[Hijacked Public]

ESR was giving him a run for it for a while, until he openly supported GWB.

Slashdot, after VA bought Andover, tried to generate some geek style hero worship around him and had some short lived success.

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[Seakip18]

The problem is when you crack open your daily life and look at computing services you can't crack open and look at.

I really need to proofread, but instead, I rely on Firefox's little red lines. Maybe Stallman has something right....

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[afabbro]

ESR was giving him a run for it for a while, until he openly supported GWB.

One has zero to do with the other.

I can't think of anyone else in the last ~40 years (the timeline of Unix) that compares with RMS as "ideological leader of the free software movement".

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[dirvine]

I mean, I'd like to see the underlying process and know how their software works, up-to-the-code-level, but realistically? I don't have the time or interest. I'll trust the bank to keep my money safe and they get to enjoy the benefits of that trust.

Man bank, safe! Where you been living recently.

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[Seakip18]

Well, I can't remember the last time I got a call from the bank, telling me, "Yeah...your checking account was robbed and we lost all of your money. Sorry." No money comes in or out that I haven't spent. So....it's safe compared to walking around with all of my money in a bag.

On an unrelated note, you appear to be using the same firefox software I use.

You should have said this...

Man, you must be joking about a bank being safe. Where have you been living recently?

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[russotto]

Basically, Stallman owns everything produced by anyone who has ever distributed any GPL software in any form connected with copyright. He can and will exact any degree of control he wishes by merely circulating a newly confabulated definition for the word "free".

1) Only if you used "GPL version X or later". I usually don't, for the reason you state; I believe that wording makes sense only for the FSF itself.

2) Even if Stallman makes GPL 4 "All Your Bases Belong To Me" version, if you've used the 'or later' verbiage anyone can still use your software according to the earlier license. So Stallman cannot control all GPL software, not even that with the 'or later' wording.

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[bentcd]

Basically, Stallman owns everything produced by anyone who has ever distributed any GPL software in any form connected with copyright.

How on Earth do you conclude this?

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[dwye]

> He *IS* saying that you shouldn't use a dry cleaner; that you should dry clean at home.

More like, if you cannot dry clean at home, or somewhere that will let you in the back to check out the process, then you should not use a dry cleaner, because then there is no way to escape from Smalley's Dry Cleaners (or whichever your local dry cleaner is).

My guess is that he would be against laws restricting the right to grow one's own fruits and vegetables, and probably against anything (like purchased hybrid seeds) that a farmer could not grow another crop from, after the first.

Re:Ever get the feeling that....

[petermgreen]

Man bank, safe! Where you been living recently.
It's probablly safer than holding cash. If the government devalues the currency both cash and bank balances will lose thier value and there are governemnt "insurance" schemes that protect most of a normal savers money.

He's showing his myopia.

[Lemmy Caution]

Software-as-service is only free if you own or have consistent access to a given computer. For the millions of people throughout the world who have been given the ability to use online applications for free (at cybercafes, etc) even though they could never afford a computer, RMS' line is almost insulting.

And what does this mean for mobile computing?

Re:He's showing his myopia.

[derGoldstein]

I don't think he was insinuating that no one should use any computer they don't personally own. You could make the argument that software isn't free at all since you need a computer which can never fail or become obsolete. You're always going to be dependent on *some* type of infrastructure, including electricity (which would mean that software that runs on a computer which doesn't have its own generator/crankshaft attached to it isn't free either).

He's pointing out (something that is somewhat obvious, IMO), that it's even easier for the software provider to disconnect you from functionality whenever he or she chooses, if this software isn't on your machine.

It may be a bit "well duh", but it's not wrong.

Re:He's showing his myopia.

[vux984]

Software-as-service is only free if you own or have consistent access to a given computer. For the millions of people throughout the world who have been given the ability to use online applications for free (at cybercafes, etc) even though they could never afford a computer, RMS' line is almost insulting.

Hey slaves! You aren't free. You need to throw off the yoke of slavery and be free.

For the millions of slaves who couldn't afford food and shelter, who were provided for by their masters, such a sentiment is almost insulting.

Freedom isn't free. It has a price. And if you "can't afford to be free", you are on the fast track to "slavery", and it should be your first objective to get off that train.

Becoming too reliant on 'aid' and 'free stuff' is worse than not having it at all.

And what does this mean for mobile computing?

Run your own server? Problem solved.

Re:He's showing his myopia.

[slim]

I think there's an element of myopia, yes. Remember the incident that set RMS on his course: he was flabbergasted when he discovered he wasn't allowed to modify the source code for a printer driver. This was tremendously inconvenient, and his ideological fight is against the inconvenience of non-free software.

But software as a service, when it works, and especially when it's gratis, is just so convenient. It's pretty explicit that you don't own it and you can't modify it (whereas non-free sofware vendors can fool you into thinking you "own" something you've licensed). Lots of people seem perfectly happy to sacrifice certain abilities in exchange for that convenience.

Re:He's showing his myopia.

[ClosedSource]

If we finally get him the source for that printer driver will SFU?

Re:He's showing his myopia.

[Explodicle]

Software doesn't become free just because it offends people to claim otherwise. People who rely on software-as-a-service at cybercafes don't have full control over their data and are vulnerable to the whims of their software providers.

Re:He's showing his myopia.

[vux984]

Software freedom is useless. Scott McNally was right years ago: "Privacy is a myth" and it's about time that we stop giving attention-starved sociopaths like RMS any air.

Privacy is just one issue.

For example, the ability to access your data in the way you've become accustomed after your vendor decides they don't feel like being in business anymore is another.

Re:He's showing his myopia.

[Lemmy Caution]

Unless you not only control your own mail server, but also your upstream, all the relays in between, etc, you are "vulnerable to the whims" etc.

What I think is ridiculous is that he's lost sight of just what people who use cloud services want: services. They aren't looking for an "ownership" at all. I agree with him on the absurdity of software licenses that aren't free - but the users of these services haven't been duped into thinking they've "bought" software. Generally, they see this all as a communication medium, not as a collection of things to be owned.

C'mon . . . Just a taste?

[MarkvW]

I've got some really neat cloud for you. I'll set you up real cheap, free even . . .. You're gonna like this stuff. C'mon, give it a try. You won't get hooked . . ..

You can always quit later . . .

Re:C'mon . . . Just a taste?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Are you still talking about software as a service, or did you jump to professional developers working with GPL'd code?

Re:C'mon . . . Just a taste?

[A.K.A_Magnet]

That's the difference between psychological and physical addiction :). Developers taste the GPL and get hooked because enjoy it. People use cloud apps and can't leave because they have spent time and effort to upload some data/create their virtual life.

Thus GPL is marijuana and cloud-computing/SaaS is crack.

Re:C'mon . . . Just a taste?

[MarkvW]

Very interesting point.

Some people don't care

[grasshoppa]

I have a business problem which a properly programmed computer can solve. I can either;

a) Hire a programmer, or a team of programmers, to create this application for me.
b) Utilize a proprietary application, with a contract to protect my rights.

Is the proprietary application free? No, but it does increase my efficiency 10x over. Would I get that kind of increase by hiring the programmers? Not after you take it to account all of the overhead I have with that plan. It just doesn't make business sense to go with option A, regardless of my personal belief on the topic.

As for my client? Ya, they simply do not care.

Re:Some people don't care

[nicolas.kassis]

That's not what he's crying about. What happens when you business depends on an online service that goes under? That's the type of concern he's describing. While it make monetary sense to use it, it has drawbacks that can have severe effects on your bottom line.

Re:Some people don't care

[Rakshasa Taisab]

You are a community of one.

Re:Some people don't care

[nine-times]

Well it depends on whether you can afford the possibility of being held hostage by the proprietary vendor. It's a sort of risk/cost/benefit analysis. And then part of what needs to be figured into the equation is, if you release your program under a free license, you may get free development from other developers. Or it's possible that someone else has already done that, so at least your programmers won't be starting from scratch.

And yes, there are trade-offs. Sometimes a proprietary application is cheap and high-quality, there's no open source alternative, and it would be expensive to match that quality by hiring programmers and developing from scratch. You have to be practical about these things, but going the open source route is often a practical choice.

Re:Some people don't care

[RobBebop]

Is the proprietary application free? No, but it does increase my efficiency 10x over. Would I get that kind of increase by hiring the programmers? Not after you take it to account all of the overhead I have with that plan.

I think RMS's point is that you've got to compete with competitors who CAN hire developers who have the capability of increasing efficiency 100x over at 10% of the cost of buying proprietary software. This might not be the reality today... but unless I'm mistaken RMS is looking 20-30 years down the line.

With respect to cloud computing... there are certainly opportunities to stop individual corporations from controlling Terabytes of information and that's the point of this article.

Re:Some people don't care

[tkinnun0]

What happens when your business depends on servers that happened to be located in a building that burns down? Should we not keep servers in buildings?

More purity trollism from RMS

[monoqlith]

Seriously, I respect a lot of what Stallman does, but what he doesn't seem to understand is the economics of software. All that matters when it comes to productivity applications, for me and for most people, is convenience. I'm much more willing to have my work on a cloud if it's easier to access that work from anywhere and I also don't have to shell out $300 for my own copy of MS Office or waste my own computing power running a bloated copy of OO.org/AbiWord/insert your favorite open source word processor here rather than simply opening a browser and gaining access to the limited set of WP features I actually use and all of my files. The benefits of being able to access my data, very easily, anywhere and being able to spend my cycles on processes I care more about while saving money clearly outweigh the risk of having Google (a company which, wrongly or rightly, I trust more than I fear) in possession of my data. For me, at least, and I suspect also for most people. It strikes me that Stallman may just be a bit paranoid.

It also strikes me that someone who, I thought, believes information should be free should be so guarded about private - proprietary - information. Does he mean free for everyone or free for everyone but businesses?

Trust

[FrostDust]

'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.

While there is helpful advice in his statement, such absolutes are indicitive of paranoia. You wouldn't let just anyone take care of your kid, but most people are okay with sending their children to school several hours a day.

Re:Trust

[rumith]

RMS also needs to realize that we all depend on each other some way; that's what is called civilization.

Re:Trust

[Cro Magnon]

Civilization works best when the people you depend on are civilized. That's not always the case.

He has a history

[Anonymous Coward]

A bit of MIT/LCS lore here.

RMS used to live on the 7th floor of LCS. That's where he used to have his office before he resigned in protest over the commercialization of something or another. But they let him keep his office, and he lives there, because he refuses to have an apartment. (Given the rent rates in Cambridge, the assholeness of most landlords, I don't blame him. Rather than live in my office, I chose to move to Texas, and the change in rent rates and lack of state income tax resulted in an immediate %25 pay raise. RMS doesn't have that option because we have the death penalty for people like him down here.)

Anyway, RMS has or had a number or geek chick groupies. I wouldn't call any of the ones I've seen "hot", really -- well except for this one little psycho jewish undergrad from NYC. He would sleep with them on the sofa in his office. That's why he got kicked out off floor 7, and down to the 3 floor, is that the cleaning staff complained about pulling used condoms out from behind the sofas. No joke. You can use this information for trolling if you wish, but it's all true.

RMS has a phobia of water that prevents him from showering. This is part of this post I know from first hand experience, because I myself have observed him taking a sponge bath in the 3d floor mens room in LCS. Apparently once he had a girlfriend who he was totally in love with, and she convinced him to take one shower a week. It was a traumatic experience for him each time.

RMS also has a phobia of spider plants. When RMS starts bothering a grad student and going to his office and talking to him constantly and getting him to spend all his time writing free software, the grad student will complain to someone on the floor, and they'll let them in on the secrete -- get a spider plant in your office. The next time RMS drops by, his eyes will bulge a little and he'll say " Umm. . . I wanted to talk to you about hacking some elisp code . . . why don't you stop by my office sometime ?" and make a hasty exit.

One of his more nasty habits is picking huge flakes of dandruff out of his hair while talking to you. At least he doesn't eat them, like some people I know.

Now, I know everyone loves to make fun of RMS, and I'm feeding that a bit here, so I'd just like to say that I think he really is a genius, on the order of Socrates (another filthy slob who couldn't keep a normal living arrangement, and lived in a barrel) or Ghandi or Ezekiel. Everything he has ever said to me, while sounding naive and idealistic and stupid at the time, turned out to later be correct.

The only thing I fear in his philosophy is his interest in reducing population growth. Everyone else I know of who was obsessed with that "problem" turned out to have facist or totolitarian tendencies, and I think that the problem will solve itself as more and more of the world moves into a middle class type existence.

But on everything else, bitter experiences have taught me he is right. I will not use any non-GPLd or lGPLd software, and I look forward to being able to buy only "open" hardware. I would like to see software patents completely eliminated, and with the development of digitial communication, I see no reason why shouldn't simply repeal all of Title 17 and do away with all copyrights. They just aren't needed. I expect to spend much of my life being paid to write software, and I just don't see copyrights has helping me in anyway.

Re:He has a history

[tepples]

I will not use any non-GPLd or lGPLd software, and I look forward to being able to buy only "open" hardware.

Is your "software" limited to operating systems and productivity applications, or also video games? Music? Scripted video series? Feature films?

Re:He has a history

[jgtg32a]

So he's like a street preacher?

Re:He has a history

[radicle]

"I expect to spend much of my life being paid to write software, and I just don't see copyrights has helping me in anyway." you are going to let people take your software for free. Could you tell us who's going to pay you? Debian guys are fed up by Ubuntu's hardworking people who's selling services to companies. Fedora is not continued. RMS is probably good in programming, but to say the understanding to human nature and society, he's just naive and pathetic.

Re:He has a history

[heffrey]

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Richard_Stallman

Re:He has a history

[FictionPimp]

I need a super soaker and some spider plants stat!

Re:He has a history

[slashdotmsiriv]

Loved your post, but a minor correction here:
"Socrates (another filthy slob who couldn't keep a normal living arrangement, and lived in a barrel) "

You must be referring to Diogenes the cynic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope.

Socrates was not as filthy and he actually had a wife and a normal house.

Re:He has a history

[Snocone]

The only thing I fear in his philosophy is his interest in reducing population growth ... and I think that the problem will solve itself as more and more of the world moves into a middle class type existence.

Oh, that problem's solved. Matter of fact, in 100 years the world will probably wish it had that problem again.

I believe the current midrange UN prediction is for a world population peak just barely breaking 9 billion in the 2055 time frame.

But if you curve fit the last ten years, and special case China for the impact of the one child policy kicking in which is in clear sight, there's a distinct possibility that the peak will be reached before 2040 and we'll never break eight billion.

Stories are already beginning to pop up here and there about the impact of aging and depopulation in places like Germany and Japan that are leading the rush to senility, and you're going to be seeing a *lot* more of them in the coming decades.

Re:He has a history

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

just so its clear

Re:He has a history

[asg1]

Please for the love of God... if your links are NSFW, please mark them as such.

Thanks,
A Slashdotter Slacking At Work

Re:He has a history

[heffrey]

It's my fault that you are slacking at work is it? ;-)

Re:He has a history

[harlows_monkeys]

and with the development of digitial communication, I see no reason why shouldn't simply repeal all of Title 17 and do away with all copyrights. They just aren't needed

What does digital communication have to do with the need for copyright?

Re:He has a history

[heffrey]

Well, nobody apart from me - see my earlier post

Heeeeere we go again.

[TrebleJunkie]

"I can no longer sit back and allow Capitalist infiltration, Capitalist indoctrination, Capitalist subversion and the international Communist Capitalist to sap and impurify all of our precious computer software."

- Richard "And Yet Somehow Not A Commie" Stallman.

[Don't worry, Richard, this is fair-use satire.]

Re:Heeeeere we go again.

[TrebleJunkie]

[oopsie. misposted.]

"I can no longer sit back and allow Capitalist infiltration, Capitalist indoctrination, Capitalist subversion and the international Capitalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious computer software."

- Richard "And Yet Somehow Not A Commie" Stallman.

[Don't worry, Richard, this is fair-use satire.]

Yes But.......

[segedunum]

This is nothing new and it's how companies like Google get around not releasing their code under the GPL, but at least with software as a service I have a choice whether I want to use it or not. If I'm truly locked into it even when I want to leave then it will usually be as a result of the usual proprietary formats held in place with proprietary software.

If you go out into the world and use things then there is a certain amount of lock-in involved as you come to rely on those things, and yes, you have to ask yourself whether it is better if you do certain things yourself. Indeed, in the long run it can work out cheaper. However, you can go too far with this approach. Do I go with Google Apps or do I set up a Zimbra server? If I set up a Zimbra server then do I go to a hosting company, in which case I might give up some control, or do I sit in front of a terminal for a few days installing Zimbra and then wondering why clamd has stopped working because there is another bloody binary update? Should we all run our own data centres? I'm afraid those are real-world concerns that people dwell over every day and they're not going to listen to ideology from somone in an organisation that has produced a decent straightforward license I grant you, but has produced nothing as an alternative for anyone to date to back up that ideology. All the GNU software in use today has gained traction off the back of one thing - Linux.

Re:Umm. Yeah. We know this.

[nicolas.kassis]

Or somewhere you do control. How many laptops are stolen every year? How many computer have keyloggers? ... No safe place.

Sigh. Every time I see Stallman quoted.....

[jcochran]

the more I see him as an extremist.

If the world does not conform to his ideals, then the world itself must be in error.

And he's still using the incorrect name "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux". It must really gnaw at him that Hurd has never progressed past the stage of vaporware. Yes, there's a LOT of extremely useful software in FSF and yes the GNU compilers, tools, etc are absolutely wonderful.

Re:Sigh. Every time I see Stallman quoted.....

[TheRaven64]

And he's still using the incorrect name "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux".

Every time someone complains about this, all they do is express their own ignorance. Here's a little test for you:

Take a typical GNU/Linux application and try running it on FreeBSD or Solaris without Linux. Then try running it on Linux without any GNU code. The former is trivial, the latter is pretty much impossible (no GNU libc, no GNU binutils, unless it's statically linked to something like uclibc it simply won't run). For the vast majority of software on a typical GNU/Linux system, the Linux portion is less important than the GNU portion. Calling it Linux is misleading. A GNU/Linux system and a Linux system with a different libc and userland are incredibly different systems both to use and to develop for. A GNU system on top of a Linux, FreeBSD, or OpenSolaris kernel is a GNU system, and it is trivial to port code between them (sometimes even without so much as a recompile, for example moving from GNU/Linux to GNU/kFreeBSD or GNU/OpenSolaris).

It must really gnaw at him that Hurd has never progressed past the stage of vaporware

Hurd boots and can run an environment like GNOME, and has been able to for a few years. I don't know many people who do because, if you want a GNU system, there are other kernels that support more hardware and perform better.

Re:Sigh. Every time I see Stallman quoted.....

[plasticsquirrel]

He is an extremist in some ways, but stick around and watch... His advice seems so impractical and difficult to reconcile, and people here bash him for being difficult, but he's usually right. He has strong principles that usually clash with the current reality, but they're very logical and consistent. He's a little crazy, but he's really the lone prophet of the open source community who doesn't compromise or sacrifice his values. Even if you don't agree with his outlook, it's extremely beneficial to have him advocating a consistent position that has been so important for open source and free software.

Re:Sigh. Every time I see Stallman quoted.....

[evol262]

If you think it's trivial, you haven't tried recently. I mean, sure, the Solaris linker is pretty spartan, but bootstrapping gcc on OpenSolaris is a nightmare. Autotools can't figure out proper ABIs on Solaris (you have to pass it to configure an awful lot), set -R and -L, etc. Compiling ghc (Haskell) is a bigger adventure, as the GNU autotools are pathetic on systems other than Linux.

Frankly, the GNU-isms running rampant make it really goddamn difficult to compile software that's supposed to be portable without building the entire GNU toolchain (and even then, autotools often doesn't work properly). The sooner LLVM blows away GCC, the better. This is not at all reasonable, and that's assuming you're not trying to use some dirty compiler like Sun Studio.

Until the developers bother with some basic portability which doesn't involve setting environment variables which shouldn't need to be set, you can keep your "GNU/" off the front of my OpenSolaris/BSD.

Re:Sigh. Every time I see Stallman quoted.....

[TheRaven64]

I said GNU/OpenSolaris, not Solaris Express. Try doing it on Nexenta (GNU/OpenSolaris), and you'll find everything is trivial. If you have the Linux ABI module loaded then you can run Linux binaries without recompiling, but you will still need a Linux build of GNU libc, and various other bits of GNU code installed. You can even set up a branded zone on Solaris 10, which runs a complete GNU userland and runs all of the binaries in Linux emulation mode so that even assembly-language programmers don't need to know that they're not on Linux, and all of those ugly GNUisms will keep working for everyone else.

Re:Sigh. Every time I see Stallman quoted.....

[jcochran]

Odd. Looking at http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html (which I assume is the definitive site for Hurd), I see:

The GNU Hurd is under active development. Because of that, there is no stable version. We distribute the Hurd sources only through CVS at present.

Although it is possible to bootstrap the GNU/Hurd system from the sources by cross-compiling and installing the system software and the basic applications, this is a difficult process. It is not recommended that you do this. Instead, you should get a binary distribution of the GNU/Hurd, which comes with all the GNU software precompiled and an installation routine which is easy to use.

The Debian project has commited to provide such a binary distribution. Debian GNU/Hurd is currently under development and available in the unstable branch of the Debian archive.

Given the above disclaimer on the Hurd parent site, I have to continue to believe and state that Hurd is still vaporware.

Re:Sigh. Every time I see Stallman quoted.....

[evol262]

I don't think you use Nexenta or Solaris with any kind of regularity. Solaris Express (both SXCE and Indiana) have the GNU toolchain and GNU libc present. Even on "GNU/OpenSolaris" (Nexenta), mutt, fetchmail, puppet, and other basic utilities fail to compile without tweaking the Makefile even when the necessary libraries are in the path. I also don't think you use kFreeBSD. Look at this and tell me how it's "trivial."

People in branded zones won't be able to tell they're not on Linux as long as they don't try to load a kernel module, or check the uname, or do anything even remotely complicated with the network (branded zones don't have a real network interface, as far as the zone can tell, and Crossbow/ip-type=exclusive doesn't work for lx brands yet -- it may never, but to differences in the network driver code). The Linux ABI module on FreeBSD/kFreeBSD, Nexenta, and branded zones on Solaris all fail to create the /proc filesystem the way some Linux utilities expect it (htop being one of those).

The complaint about ugly GNU-isms is about lazy developers (which includes the FSF, see: gcc) who can't be arsed to even try ./configure on another system because running on Linux is "good enough." Also you, apparently, because you're talking out of your ass.

Re:Sigh. Every time I see Stallman quoted.....

[TheRaven64]

Then, as well as not understanding what Linux is, you also don't understand what vapourware means. Vapourware means that the code does not exist, just the publicity. It does not mean that installing it is difficult, or not for first-time computer users.

You can download the HURD code from CVS and compile it, or you can grab the debs from the Debian project. As the last paragraph you posted indicates, you can download and install Debian/HURD today (it's in Debian Unstable, but so are most things). It isn't packaged in as friendly a way as something like Ubuntu, but it installs, it runs, and it can be used to launch complex userspace apps, including X11 and a modern desktop - we accepted some patches a few months ago for better HURD support.

taxicab analogy

[Cmdr-Absurd]

You can take a taxicab instead of owning a car that you can work on in your back yard.
You don't get to do mechanical work on the cab. You don't care.
You are paying for the service -- which includes not having to worry about maintaining the thing.

The whole point of SAaS is turning over control and headaches to someone else.

Re:taxicab analogy

[Cmdr-Absurd]

Cabs have to meet a plethora of standards for training, service, pricing, and the vehicle - before it was sold - had to meet engineering standards, and has regular maintenance performed on it to remain insurable.

Standards are dependent on local rules. As to vehicle pre-sale standards -- Servers sold to you are the same ones sold to service providers.
There are good cab drivers and bad ones. There are good service providers and bad ones.
There are good auto mechanics and bad ones.
I would argue that it is easier to get reviews on software service providers than on an individual cabbie before "taking your ride."

All of those things are tantamount to having someone you trust inspect the source you are running on and verify the security of the server for you.

Wait. This is /. Are you saying you trust the government? Oh. that must be why you posted as AC.

Re:taxicab analogy

[Pandare]

Then it's closer to a gypsy cab. And in the second case, most of the time it's a vendor who you can talk to directly and get a feel for before you ride, since they're smaller and have to rely on direct communication to survive.

Re:taxicab analogy

[Renraku]

When the fleet of taxicabs die and you can't get a friend or neighbor to give you a ride to work, do you think your boss is going to care? Remember the question on the application that asks you if you have reliable transportation? You lied.

What about your thesis? If your thesis is stuck on (online program) which just went down for the weekend for upgrades..will your school stand around and wait for you to get it off the server?

The point is that by handing your control over, you retain the responsibility. Its your responsibility to make it to work whether or not the taxi service is running. Its also your responsibility to have your thesis done on time and turned in.

Software as a service might not be so bad for some things. Like gaming. Where downtime wouldn't seriously affect your life, barring some mental disorders. But don't tell the game companies. I really don't want to have to subscribe to every fucking game I want to play for $20 a month.

Just because something is not free does not mean..

[brunes69]

... that it should "not be used, EVAR!!!!"

Going to a museum is not free, in any sense of the word. I have to pay to get in, I can not modify the works, I can not borrow them to take them home, I can't modify them, heck I can't even look at them too closely usually. I guess that means museums should never be visited and in an ideal world there would be no museums, because they run contrary to one's absolute freedom?

RMS needs to get his head on straight. Software as a service has it's own upsides and pitfalls, just like everything else.

3G data service

[tepples]

...you can't use it when you don't have an internet connection. Why doesn't anyone think about this?

Apparently, the web application providers think everybody who really needs mobile access to web applications can afford to buy 2 years of 3G data service from AT&T, Sprint, etc. for $720 per year. I was in RadioShack on Saturday and saw a deal for $250 off an Acer Aspire One subnotebook PC with such a contract.

Isn't Savannah SaaS?

[tepples]

The world is not black and white. And software as a service is here to stay. When would RMS realize that ?

Even RMS's organization offers software as a service: Savannah, a hosted free software development tool suite based on a fork of SourceForge.net's software.

Re:Isn't Savannah SaaS?

[PhilHibbs]

If you can export your data from the Savannah service, download the Savannah source, and run it yourself, then I think that's good enough for RMS. The software is free (as in freedom), and you can free yourself, that's the important thing.

Re:Isn't Savannah SaaS?

[The Cisco Kid]

Yes 'software as a service' is _usually_ not free, but that doesn't mean it can't be free.

If the service being offered is provided entirely with Free software (including the OS, daemons, and the application itself), which you can obtain under a Free software license, *and* you have access to all the data that software stores on your behalf, then that particular instance of SaS is free.

Go to http://nongnu.org/ and read the very first 3 lines on that page.
Go to

Re:Isn't Savannah SaaS?

[nedlohs]

http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/savane-cleanup

is the key difference between it and the average SaS.

Re:Isn't Savannah SaaS?

[Jack9]

If you can export your data from the Savannah service, download the Savannah source, and run it yourself, then I think that's good enough for RMS.

I can also attempt to climb Kilimanjaro and probably die. Practically I cannot do either of those things. How is this making me more free to have options that I (and the majority of humanity) cannot utilize right now? Does he seriously not recognize that people, in general, are not capable of this at all? How many have a passion or even capability to learn about (and learn what not to learn about) FOSS/Computer Science to exercise this "freedom". It's akin to a lawyer telling everyone to learn the law so that they can be free from ignorance of the law. Well duh and don't count on it and you're obviously insane RMS.

Re:Isn't Savannah SaaS?

[PhilHibbs]

If the Savannah service goes off-line due to the FSF all being locked up for Un-American Activities, then someone in the free world with the technical knowledge can do the hard work and set up a new version that you can import your backup of your project into. If Amazon go down the river, you're totally screwed if you used a proprietary Amazon service.

Re:Isn't Savannah SaaS?

[JD-1027]

This is exactly the point that everyone seems to be missing. Thank you for putting it so well.

Do much online banking

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Hey RMS, ever do any online banking? How about use an ATM?

Guess what? they aren't going to give you the source!

So go get your beard deloused and chill.

A benefit of SaaS is that you aren't the one who needs to patch it. If it needs patching, and they won't do it; ditch them. And if you fail to negotiate that into your contract, that's your mistake.

Re:Do much online banking

[nysus]

Actually, I doubt he has done online banking or used an ATM.

Re:Do much online banking

[Rik Sweeney]

Hey RMS, ever do any online banking? How about use an ATM?

Nope

Re:Do much online banking

[monoqlith]

'Hey RMS, ever do any online banking? How about use an ATM?'

I have criticized him, but I suspect that he never has used online banking and it's quite possible that he's never used an ATM.

There's a lot of things to criticize about Stallman, as I have on this very thread, but not living up to his own principles is not one of them.

If only it was possible for anyone else to live up to his principles...

It's interesting how a technological pioneer has loudly obligated himself to being a contagious technophobe...

Sure, it's not free

[Kuciwalker]

But it's goddamn useful. It's a business model that suits plenty of software providers and fills a need of many users. Which goes to show that demanding all software be Free is counterproductive.

I just discover I'm giving away my liberty

[Permutation Citizen]

I am using a software I have no control at all, on someone else server.

I'm still using it right now, so I have completely surrendered my liberty to this company called "SourceForge, Inc" running "Slashdot.org".

And all my little IP packets are going through routers running software I don't even know how they are licensed. Terrific.

Re:I just discover I'm giving away my liberty

[maxume]

Apparently thinking of it as communication makes it different.

Anywhere, even on a laptop?

[tepples]

The benefits of being able to access my data, very easily, anywhere and being able to spend my cycles on processes I care more about while saving money clearly outweigh the risk of having Google (a company which, wrongly or rightly, I trust more than I fear) in possession of my data.

Anywhere, even on a laptop? A 3G data plan costs $60 per month for 24 months, at least in the United States. A lot of people like myself aren't willing to pay $1,440 for the convenience of Internet access anywhere, which is why they carry a working copy of their data on a USB memory card.

Re:Anywhere, even on a laptop?

[monoqlith]

There's a lot of places I can (and do) access my data and I don't have 3G Access. Work, home, the library, school, etc etc. They all have workstations for me, and I tend to use them. As a matter of convenience.

Re:Anywhere, even on a laptop?

[multipartmixed]

> A lot of people like myself aren't willing to pay $1,440
> for the convenience of Internet access anywhere

And some of us are. What's your point?

Re:Anywhere, even on a laptop?

[tepples]

Work, home, the library, school, etc etc. They all have workstations for me, and I tend to use them.

But other than home, do you have permission to install software on the workstations? Or are the home directory and removable drives mounted noexec? (On Windows, noexec is called Software Restriction Policy.)

Re:Anywhere, even on a laptop?

[tepples]

And some of us are [3G subscribers]. What's your point?

My point is only that storing the working copy of your data in the cloud isn't the most cost-effective solution for everyone.

Re:Anywhere, even on a laptop?

[monoqlith]

'But other than home, do you have permission to install software on the workstations? '

Yes. But since I just want to focus on typing, I tend not to waste time downloading my preferred software.

This is not true for everything. When it comes to development I like to be able to work everywhere. Since my work at one job, for example, is in Java, and I switch workstations a lot, I have a USB key with a full installation of Eclipse and all of my code. This may be because there's no real good cloud alternative for Java development. This way, I can just plug in the key and start working. When it comes to things I view as more mundane, such as word processing, I tend to want to spend as little time and money as possible fussing around with software. Going to docs.google.com allows me that.

The article is mugglebaiting... RMS gets it...

[Art Popp]

The message if you Read The Lengthy Article, is that if they don't have and open license to the server code, don't use them. He seems OK with the idea that you use a server based application if they are covered by the GNU Affero GPL.

If you are reading this, you have a perfect example of software as a service, in an open fashion. If you want to make your own /. go download the slashcode and set it up.

The correct direction to charge with pitchforks and torches would seem to be pressuring the Gmail team for a G-Code release, or making SquirrelMail (or your favorite server-based e-mail) as robust and reliable and Gmail.

That won't be easy. Does anyone here have a good suggestion for a starting point? What's the best FOSS ServerSide E-mail server?

So...

[Culture20]

I should be running my own instance of /. at http://localhost/ ? Then I could patch /. to not have "idle" and editors I don't like. RMS, you're a lifesaver!

Re:So...

[roman_mir]

He would probably wouldn't call himself a lifesaver, but a filesaver ;)

Anyway, dawg, I heard you'd like to run your own instance of /. on your localhost, so we put localhost into your localhost so you can slashdog while you slashdot.

RMS goes to the Zoo

[Fanboy Fantasies]

With a twinkle in his eye and a skip in his step, RMS slammed his sky-blue Chevette's rusted-out car door and turned on heel toward the MIT Zoo entrance. Today was a Sunday, and RMS had decided the daily stresses of Free Software, the GPL, and his crazy drug-smoking habits could go away for just one afternoon while he enjoyed the zoo.

"That'll be twenty-five dollars, sir," the lady at the admission booth said glumly. She looked at RMS expectantly.

"I was expecting this zoo to be Free," RMS stated loudly, eyes darting around to gauge onlookers' reactions. There were none: RMS's capital F had went unnoticed. "Can you ensure me that this money will not help fund -"

The admissions lady cut him off. "Twenty-five dollars, or twenty bucks with a Bawls can," the lady cut in.

With a grumble and shake of his beard, RMS handed over twenty five of his hard-earned dollars. Considering that the GPL works to unemploy programmers, one must wonder where this money came from.

By evening, RMS found himself in front of the penguin exhibit. He felt himself start to sweat, which would have been no surprise -- his thick, full, grizzly beard was worth a thousand down comforters -- except that he was wearing only a pair of nylon biking shorts and a travel pack around his waist. He stared at his hands. What was wrong?

"Awk" a nearby bird squawked. RMS wheeled in the direction the screech had come from. He was met with the steely, unfeeling stares of a penguin. "Awk! Ooooh God, the penguin said awk... Lord, lord lord, it's GNU/Linux. The penguin is Tux!!!" RMS blurted out. He felt dizzy, and cold sweat now washed over his brittle, hairy chest. He looked this way and that. From nearby a bird again squawked.

"Awk! Awk! Awwwwk!!!"

RMS ran as fast as his atrophied hippie-programmer legs could carry him, right through a gate and into an exhibit. He realized what he had done, and before he could turn around, he heard a low, ominous sound. Like the Devil's riding mower.

"Moooooooooooooooo!"

RMS gasped and darted his eyes around him as he stood deathly still.

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

RMS was standing in the Gnu section, and it seemed these bull yaks were in rut and ready to mate with the first hairy thing with a hole in its center they found. Bad luck for RMS and his beard. Just then he felt cloven hooves push him down, and the world became fuzzy. RMS blacked out and remembered no more.

Re:RMS goes to the Zoo

[Verdatum]

Why does this sound like a really bad Infocom game?

Re:RMS goes to the Zoo

[twidarkling]

I think you mean "Really good one" sir.

Re:RMS goes to the Zoo

[perryizgr8]

lol hilarious!!

Re:RMS goes to the Zoo

[Hogwash McFly]

It is pitch black. You are likely to be raped by a Gnu.

Re:RMS goes to the Zoo

[eugene ts wong]

I totally agree. I think that it was actually very well written & funny.

A short history of RMS

[Rik Sweeney]

RMS: Hey! I've got this great idea
RMS: [Proceeds to describe idea]
World: Wow, that's really good. Let's do that!

RMS: Great, if you think that one was good, how about this one
RMS: [Proceeds to describe idea]
World: Hmmm, that one wasn't quite a good

RMS: Oh, well how about this one
RMS: [Proceeds to describe idea]
World: Erm... that's even worse than the last one

RMS: OK, hang on, what about this
RMS: [Proceeds to describe idea]
World: Yeah, you know what? You only had one good idea

RMS: That's not true! Listen to this
RMS: [Proceeds to describe idea]
World: Riiight... We've gotta go, could you switch off the light on your way out?

Re:A short history of RMS

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

World: Yeah, you know what? You only had one good idea

It's true. RMS has only had one good idea. That the end user should have the freedom to completely control their computing experience.

That's it.

Everytime someone like you gets all pissy about RMS's "latest idea" it just means you failed to understand the full ramifications of his one and only idea the first time around.

Re:A short history of RMS

[rockmuelle]

""World: Yeah, you know what? You only had one good idea"

It's true. RMS has only had one good idea. That the end user should have the freedom to completely control their computing experience."

It's true that RMS had only one good idea. It's called Emacs. :)

-Chris

Re:A short history of RMS

[Brandybuck]

RMS has only had one good idea. That the end user should have the freedom to completely control their computing experience.

And Software as Service in no way removes that freedom. If you don't want to use a service, then don't use the service. Duh.

You keep your freedom by exercising your freedom, not by wringing your hands and whining about how horrible it is that you have a choice.

Re:A short history of RMS

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You keep your freedom by exercising your freedom... If you don't want to use a service, then don't use the service. Duh.

Wow! You said exactly what RMS has said. Apparently you are in 100% agreement with him.

Re:A short history of RMS

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

For most people a source tarbal doesn't enable them to control anything.

Its called necessary but not sufficient.
You would prefer that RMS advocate that all software also come with a free as in beer programmer too?

I really don't see what Stallmans problem here is. If some SaaS provider tries to screw me I can just stop using it.

Can you now? And if they don't provide a way to export your data whatchgonnado?

Re:A short history of RMS

[Brandybuck]

Freedom is about choice. As such, SaaS cannot be "non-Free". Thus I am not saying what RMS has said, I am saying something very different.

Re:A short history of RMS

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Freedom is about choice.

It isn't only about choice.
YOu've now got three definitions

Free as in beer
Free as in speech
and Free to choose

What you are doing is picking your own specific definition of freedom and then using that to argue that all the other kinds of freedom don't count.
Its old and tired and lame, get over yourself.

Not only is it not free, it's not safe!

[You Don't Know Me]

In the cloud computing means you're not only putting all your eggs in one basket, you don't own or control the basket!

Worry disclosure risk (if the data in the cloud gets loose how bad is it for you/your company?) and be prepared to do your work elsewhere (locally, another cloud, whatever) when your primary cloud isn't available.

It's all the same problems we have today, just with someone else's hardware and a network connection required for everything.

Re:Not only is it not free, it's not safe!

[bem]

And not only are you trusting your business data to a third party, I see numerous companies trusting their entire web presence based on some flaky business models of third parties.

Perhaps Gmail won't vanish in the next month, but do you really want to trust some brand X hosting site that says they can make enough money to maintain and run your website based on a couple google ads running on your site? How long before they ad more and more ads... how long before they just give up can close their doors with no notice.

Not only are you opening yourself up to the cost of making changes to your site ("oh, sure we can rescale images on upload, but that will cost an extra $2000 to write the handful of lines of code to invoke ImageMagick, and we'll have to bill you more each month to handle the immense CPU overhead! That will of course mean some CSS changes to move stuff around on the page to fit the smaller images, so that will be another $2000..."

Outsourcing some "services" may be fine: companies trust ADP with their payroll... but they are also aware of the risks. "Do we want to give ADP our payroll? What happens if they go out of business? (again, not likely with ADP, but with a smaller payroll company? It could be a real risk.)

This is all very obvious, though, and RMS is spot on. In cases where you have an alternative: Do It Yourself or hire someone local to provide as much as possible and insist on Open Source and ownership of data so if he sucks he can be replaced with someone else that knows the platform. In cases like Payroll, bite the bullet, grumble a lot, and hope that some day you won't be trapped into a contract because "well, we have no choice... if they raise their rates 20%, well, we will just have to eat that loss."

I once saw a website that was not only stupidly expensive for what it did, the code was encrypted, the data formats undocumented, and even better: the contract allowed the software company sole authority to place ads in the web page and collect all the revenue.

They went under a year later, leaving the site owner with... nothing.

Re:Not only is it not free, it's not safe!

[DragonWriter]

In the cloud computing means you're not only putting all your eggs in one basket, you don't own or control the basket!

Actually, it doesn't even mean you are putting all your eggs in one basket, much less that all your eggs are in one basket you don't control. There's no reason I can't have my own servers and, say, on demand EC2 instances running the same software, and have them all storing data using a replicated storage arrangement where there are all the non-transient data is updated on my servers, not stored exclusively in the cloud.

No, actually... not.

[fyngyrz]

Has become? When was he not?

He's the leader of an allegedly free (but not very) software movement. I write free software, and I neither follow him or agree with much of anything he says, writes, or promotes. I think public domain is the only truly free software philosophy, and have long used the presence of the GPL to motivate me to run the other way, far and fast before even looking at the code. Because I'm not interested in lawyers, and I'm not interested in telling anyone they can't use my code. Because it is my intent that it actually be free.

Re:No, actually... not.

[bentcd]

I think public domain is the only truly free software philosophy, and have long used the presence of the GPL to motivate me to run the other way, far and fast before even looking at the code. Because I'm not interested in lawyers, and I'm not interested in telling anyone they can't use my code. Because it is my intent that it actually be free.

How do you use the public domain though, except by attaching some GPL-ish software license to your work?

Re:No, actually... not.

[fotbr]

You attach a "This code is hereby placed in the public domain." line in the code or accompanying documentation.

Quit making things harder than they need to be.

Re:No, actually... not.

[fyngyrz]

Public domain is literally in the public domain. It doesn't need a license of any kind. Once it's there, anyone can use it for any purpose at all. They can change it, add a license to the new thang, sell it, whatever they want. That's the point. As it stands when released to PD, it belongs to the public. Yours (and everyone else's) to use any way you like. You can't copyright it or limit the use of the public domain item itself, because it belongs to the public, but you can certainly pop it into your code, change it (or not) and then not tell anyone, or sell it, or give it away, or pretty much whatever.

For instance, here is a database I wrote. It's PD. Take it and do anything you'd like with it. You'll never hear from a lawyer, or be told that whatever you're using it for is somehow unacceptable, or be charged a fee by the author, or be dinged because you didn't credit the author. I wrote it from scratch, using no one else's libraries or code, and I now give it to you. And everyone else. See how easy that is? See how free that is?

Re:No, actually... not.

[bentcd]

You attach a "This code is hereby placed in the public domain." line in the code or accompanying documentation.

What reason do you have to believe that this actually works? Of course, your country may be different from mine but having perused our copyright laws, not only did I not find any clause that would permit an author to place a work in the public domain rather than have it covered by automatic copyright but there are rights granted to me that I /cannot/ renounce even if I wanted to. This indicates to me that just writing "this is in the public domain" is at least in part a legally flawed license.

Re:No, actually... not.

[bentcd]

Public domain is literally in the public domain. It doesn't need a license of any kind.

In most countries in the world, copyright is automatic and as far as I can tell mandatory. Whatever you create that is copyrightable is /automatically/ copyrighted by yourself. You do not need to do anything to make this happen and it is not clear that there is anything you can do to /keep it from/ happening. If you know otherwise, I would welcome a pointer to national laws or international treaties that allow authors to opt out of automatic copyright.

Re:No, actually... not.

[fyngyrz]

For US law, decent answers and pointers are here.

For other countries, you'd have to dig around.

Actually, pretty funny

[huckamania]

Can't you imagine all of the web based applications converted to work on a single computer...

Twitter - A single text entry box with a 126 character limit that appends to the text already displayed.
Facebook - An html file on your desktop that links to your media folder.
Google - Grep from a bash shell.
WoW - A virtual landscape with no other players, just lots of rats (this already applies to 2nd life).
StumbleUpon - A file browser.
Wikipedia - Man pages.

Where do I sign up?

Re:Actually, pretty funny

[Bake]

No no, this is RMS we're talking about here.

man pages are old'n'busted.

info pages that only an elite few know how to browse are all the rage!

Re:Actually, pretty funny

[derGoldstein]

You don't need a computer:

Twitter - post-it notes
Facebook - postcards
Google - binoculars
WoW - LARPing
StumbleUpon - a banana peal
Wikipedia - encyclopedia
Slashdot - psyche ward?...

Re:Actually, pretty funny

[emanem]

You see, you don't need SaS!!!!
Lol!

Re:Actually, pretty funny

[Hurricane78]

Wrong. You have to think of it as decentralized replication

Twitter - Jabber multicasting
Facebook - Everyone has their own tiny profile server running.
Google - Google, but as an application, that anyone can install where he wants.
WoW - WoW, but without a central server. Rather people opening their own servers, and the syncing running like in IRC.
StumbleUpon - Don't know why anyone would need that thing, so I can't comment on it.
Wikipedia - Also running on that server, that the profile is served with. Maybe also synced like IRC.

You see, this is actually pretty straightforward, and one can see the benefits.
Additionally, except maybe with WoW, there's nothing stopping you from implementing it right now.

Re:Actually, pretty funny

[Hurricane78]

In fact, you need one. Your brain. But only that one. It can all be in your head. :)

Re:Actually, pretty funny

[martin_dk]

I agree!

Software as a service is a choise you make when its the most profitable or the only one.

Re:Actually, pretty funny

[huckamania]

"Facebook - Everyone has their own tiny profile server running."

Which brings up the $50,000 question, how do you determine what source is running on a remote server? Even if source is available, there is no reliable method for determining that a remote server is running unaltered source. Things like checksums and version numbers can be spoofed by the server.

"Wikipedia - Also running on that server, that the profile is served with. Maybe also synced like IRC."

And who is going to decide which server gets to own a profile? And how do you leverage the Web to fill in and fact check profiles? Seems pretty dicey. Would probably end up like bit torrents. Might be worth it just to hear someone complain "I wanted the War of 1812 page and I got 2 girls and a cup."

Re:Actually, pretty funny

[recharged95]

Twitter - needs a networked database/store.

Facebook - needs a networked database/store.

Google - needs a networked database/store.

WoW - needs a networked database/store.

StumbleUpon - needs a networked database/store.

Wikipedia - needs a networked database/store.

So if your computer was not connected and all you had were fat-clients. All you have for a database is what's on your computer, a la file system. That's it, and not the terabytes of data available in SaaS apps out there today.

Unless you're sneaker netting, you'll pretty much have no data for these applications. RMS should know better: that content is king, hence why SaaS-es were created in the 1st place.

Re:Actually, pretty funny

[oiron]

WoW - A virtual landscape with no other players, just lots of rats (this already applies to 2nd life).

So, the same as it is now, eh?

Gee...

[lymond01]

Is that how he really sounds? It had the same tempo as if AOL and Microsoft had just warned me about a new virus that will delete all my accounts and clean out the deli drawer in my fridge and even Yahoo agrees.

Re:Just because something is not free does not mea

[jrothwell97]

I concur: The argument 'it's not Free' is rather rubbish, because the public doesn't give a shit.

A far better argument is this one: you have no control over your data if the company goes under and you aren't paying them. I refer you to these excellent two web posts by Jason Scott: Fuck the Cloud and Dancing on Magnolia's Grave: Fuck the Cloud II.

Seriously, if you don't use Flickr Pro, don't keep anything on there where you don't have a backup. Et cetera.

Re:Just because something is not free does not mea

[nysus]

One key underpinning of his arguments is that digital "property" is a much different animal the physical property.

Re:Umm. Yeah. We know this.

[Bigjeff5]

My company outsourced their digital security department to India.

I was shocked.

And there are ways to ensure your data is secure, but they generally require having enough clout to have one of your own guys inspect their methods of storing and securing your data on a regular basis.

That rules out 95% of all companies, let alone individuals.

Does anyone still listen to RMS?

[Anonymous Coward]

to be brutally honest, I'm sick of hearing RMS constantly claim that anything not entirely open source is evil.

While it mightn't be *HIS* ideal solution, there is a reason things like gmail are so successful. Not everyone can afford to setup and maintain the servers and software required to store the vast amounts of emails they and their companies get.

Be on guard and read the terms of use before you sign up, but don't just start labelling an entire (and valid) industry based on wholesale, outdated rubbish.

Re:The article is mugglebaiting... RMS gets it...

[monoqlith]

The message seems to be you can't trust anyone but yourself. I don't see how computing, or really anything, is possible under this philosophy. Computing from the very second you start your computer up requires trust. Trust that your OS isn't intercepting your keystrokes and sending them away, trust that the manufacturer of your hard drives are competent and the drives won't crash and lose all your data, trust that you don't have a worm on your computer, trust when you send payment info that there's nobody in the middle intercepting the data. I certainly don't examine every line of every application I use, and so even using open source software requires very much trust - trust that the patch reviewers and committers are honest, that nobody inserted a line(and I'm not saying this isn't the case for prop. software to an even greater degree). In a lot of cases it is comforting to that I could review the code, but in 99% of cases I will not have reviewed the source of the software I am using. So I have to trust. And most of that trust comes from reputation, not whether or not I can empirically verify what is going on. In short, there's a limit to the precautions I can take, and it's practically impossible to go around believing the whole world will take advantage of my trust if they can.

So I don't see what a major difference between using the cloud computing services for proprietary software and using open source cloud computing services on a private host. I still have to trust the people who wrote the software or who host the servers or who made the servers, etc etc etc.

SaaS can mean free and open too

[Zarf]

SaaS can mean free and open if the SaaS company publishes their source code as Open Source. The company can still make money because they provide the hosting, troubleshooting, administration, and support services to clients that choose to host their install with the parent company.

SaaS does not have to mean proprietary or even vendor lock-in. It can mean the software is libre free and what you are paying for is electrons (powering the machines) and not the bits (composing the software). It's a good model when run that way.

Pay for electrons, not bits!

At the mercy of the provider

[Animats]

The trouble with "software as a service" is that you're at the mercy of the service provider. Slowly, the service quality declines and the price goes up. Think of the history of cable TV, cell phone service, and post-deregulation air travel.

For those, at least, you're getting the use of an infrastructure you couldn't afford yourself. But for applications where you could have your own infrastructure for a modest cost, software as a service means unnecessarily buying into a relationship where the other side has all the power.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever. -- Orwell.

Unless...

[McPierce]

...the remote service is using free, open source code that you can then patch and run on your own server. Then when there's a bug, you can fix it and run your own patched copy *and* submit the patch back to the service provider to use.

SaaS in and of itself is not inherently non-free as he seems to be say (or explicitly said).

Stallman discusses Free Software and GPLv3

[viralMeme]

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

That was in direct response to a question regarding Affero GPL. One single question of about twenty five regarding 'software as a service'. Your article title and selective quote does tend to give an erroneous impression as to what the article was about.

-- begin quote -

Stallman discusses Free Software and GPLv3

First of all, could you remind us of what free software means?

Richard Stallman: Free software means software that respects the user's freedom. (Think of "free speech", not "free beer".) Specifically, it means you have the four essential freedoms: (1) to run the program as you wish, (2) to study the source code, and change it to make the program do what you wish, (3) to redistribute exact copies, and (4) to distribute copies of your modified versions.

-- end quote --

Re:Stallman discusses Free Software and GPLv3

[bennomatic]

One single question of about twenty five regarding 'software as a service'. Your article title and selective quote does tend to give an erroneous impression as to what the article was about.

Maybe so, but you're also guilty of some selective quoting. Shortly after what you've chosen to include is...

Thus, proprietary software is something worse than an inconvenience. Proprietary software is a social problem, and our aim is to put an end to it.

Having an aim to actually remove consumers' choice as to whether they are allowed to choose proprietary software is indeed a little on the fringe-y side, you have to admit. I think that, based on this quote, the summary is fairly fair...

Re:Stallman discusses Free Software and GPLv3

[itsdapead]

Your article title and selective quote does tend to give an erroneous impression as to what the article was about.

Probably because RMS's views on free software and his love/hate affair with Linux are well known to most /.ers, whereas the poster thought that his latest proclamation on "software as a service" was newsworthy.

Its not as if the article misquotes the interview or takes the comment out of context - RMS does say, categorically, that you should not use "software as a service" even if it is "free" software.

...although I'm not quite sure how you make a distinction between "any sort of program for which use on servers is expected to be an important source of improvements" and "software as a service".

An obsessive take on "freedom"

[mea37]

I don't think it's exactly news that RMS has an extreme view of what "freedom" means in the context of software. If at any moment you don't control exactly what every computer does on your behalf, your freedom has been taken away? Well, ok, let's put this in perspective.

What's more important -- freedom in computing, or freedom in what you eat? What would it take to have RMS-style "freedom" with respect to your food? Do you know that when you buy agriculture-as-a-service, you don't control the growing practices, the chemicals used along the way (sure, they may label it as pesticide-free, but how do you know?), the method of harvesting, shipping, the treatment of the workers, the sanitation of the food along the way, etc. ad nausium?

You could go self-sufficient, if you have the skills and the up-front money to make that happen. Thoreau would advocate that. But the thing is, that's not the life most people would choose (and isn't that what freedom is about -- choice?). And interestingly enough, if everyone today decided to live that way, the population would be unsustainable.

So, yes, you're handing some control over to someone else. Yes, it's something you have to weigh as you exercise your freedom to choose when and how to use these services. And yes, that issue has been enough to keep me from using some services. But there's a world of difference between knowing that a service isn't the same product as traditional software, and saying that you "must never use" the former.

The problem with RMS is, he divides the world into products that give you complete freedom, and products that have zero value.

Re:An obsessive take on "freedom"

[mea37]

If a person confines himself to writing philosophical works, maybe. When you look at the practical impact of someone taking this approach, I disagree that it helps form a middle-ground. I consider the rift over GPLv3 a perfect example of what I mean.

Re:An obsessive take on "freedom"

[Aphoxema]

So far the effects of GPLv3 seem far from cataclysmic.

Re:An obsessive take on "freedom"

[JD-1027]

sure, they may label it as pesticide-free, but how do you know?

Openness

Which is RMS's whole point. In the farming case, would they let a 3rd party view their farming methods to confirm their claim? That is the physical world analogy to "is their source code open?"

Re:An obsessive take on "freedom"

[mea37]

Your analogy is incorrect. If it were that simple, then a read-only code license would qualify as "free / open source"; it does not. RMS argues that you must not only be able to see what process is taking place, but also be able to modify that process.

Allowing inspections, even if we could get past all of the trust and deception issues that the real world imposes on such schemes, is not an analogue for FOSS.

This goes for other services too

[davidwr]

Telephony as a service is not free. If you use a telephone carrier which manages your advance custom calling features like voicemail or call waiting you are at their mercy if they change software.

To be truly free you must manage your own PBX and voicemail system and it must be open source.

--
Payroll outsourcing is not free. If you use a payroll outsourcing company to manage your payroll you are not free. You must use an in-house payroll system and it must be open source.

--
Outsourcing your banking needs is not free. If you want to be free, you must own your own in-house bank and use only open-source software to manage it.

--
Outsourcing electricity is not free. If you want to be free, you need your own generators with fuel created or captured under your control. Of course, if you use computers to manage your in-house electrical grid, the software must be open source.

--
The list goes on. The point is: Duh. The whole point of contracting things out as a service is so we don't have to worry about is as much. With that comes the risk of vendor failure. Using closed-source software or for that matter open-source software that you yourself don't maintain is somewhere between the extremes of "doing everything in house, under our control" and "complete outsourcing, where we have no worries other than 'it better just work.'"

I bet most die-hard open-source advocates outsource their power and banking and most outsource at least some of their non-plain-old-telephone-service telephony needs. Even an open-source PBX or cell phone isn't truly open if it depends on a carrier whose failure would deny you phone service. In summary: To some extent, we are all p0wned by someone, and most of us like it that way.

shouldn't you be off pissing all over Usenet

[rs232]

Shouldn't you be off pissing all over Usenet. Slashdot moderators, see what garbage you've encouraged to crawl out of the sewer !!!

95% of people don't want to make software

[presidenteloco]

and are not suited to doing it well.

If that sounds elitist, so be it. Reality is that people have all kinds of different skills, and a small percentage are good programmers. I can't run a marathon or play a cello, and I don't mind anyone saying so.

While I agree with RMS that software should be free, I don't believe that means that people should not simply use information services that are provided for them on managed information infrastructure.

In the 70s if you wanted information, you hired a programmer to write a program for you.

In the 80s and 90s if you wanted information, you used a program that was already written.

In this decade, if you want information, you use an service on the web.

Unless you are that most rare breed; an open source software geek, in which case you may still be in the business of gluing together or even modifying programs and web services.

I would believe more that free software was intended for the masses if it had in general any kind of document quality or code simplicity. But expecting Joe Six-pack to deal with maven builds, hierarchical make files, and package dependency graphs. Hah!

Re:95% of people don't want to make software

[dkf]

But expecting Joe Six-pack to deal with maven builds, hierarchical make files, and package dependency graphs

I write software, but maven builds, hierarchic make and dependency graphs still make me uneasy. (Yes, I use them. I reckon that makes me qualified to say that they're scarily complex...)

The flip side: If it already isn't free...

[unfortunateson]

... then you've got some benefits in having someone else maintain it:
1) No need to maintain the hardware yourself -- including backup, redundancy, connectivity
2) Less cost to validate for each new release: it's amortized across the group of customers using that software

A silly analogy but ...

[ClosedSource]

If the undocumented formula produced much better results, I might adopt such a policy.

Re:A silly analogy but ...

[TheRaven64]

And when you've made everyone in your company buy a suit, and they put the cleaning fee up to $100 per time, would you still be happy with that policy? Or would you then expect everyone to go and buy a new suit for even more money?

Re:A silly analogy but ...

[Bigjeff5]

What's wrong with finding a new suit if the original manufacturer raises his prices?

That is actually a big motivator for the manufacturer of these super special suits to -not- raise their prices. If they go too far they could very well lose all of their business, and generate ill will which would prevent the customers from coming back even if they dropped their prices later.

It's called "freedom to choose", and it creates market pressures that create a level of stability.

RMS's definition of freedom is not choice, it's choice but only as long as your options fall under such and such strict criteria. FOSS is great, and useful, but it is not the be-all end-all and never will be. There are a LOT of software applications that barely have a commercial solution; you can forget about a FOSS solution. People don't even know the software exists, they won't be writing an alternative for it any time soon. What does Stallman suggest? Finding a different industry? Somebody has to do it anyway, why not me?

Re:A silly analogy but ...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What's wrong with finding a new suit if the original manufacturer raises his prices?

Because then you wasted your money on the original suit.

RMS's definition of freedom is not choice,

Correct RMS's definition of freedom is the ability to do whatever you want with what you purchase.
He believes that freedom ought to be a fundamental characteristic of ALL choices.

Re:Umm. Yeah. We know this.

[cyber-vandal]

You're right - take all your money out of your bank account(s) right now.

Sewer as a Service

[tarsi210]

"'Sewer as a service' means that you think of a particular sewer as doing your poop disposal for you. If that's what the sewer does, you must not use it! If you do your pooping on someone else's sewer, you hand over control of your poop to whoever controls the sewer. It is like using truck-stop toilet paper, only worse: it's even harder for you to wipe an ass that's sitting on someone else's toilet than it is to wipe an ass sitting on your own bog. Just like dye-free Charmin, 'sewer as a service' is incompatible with your bowel freedom."

Re:Sewer as a Service

[jabelli]

Once it leaves my ass, I no longer *want* control of my poop.

Re:Sewer as a Service

[tarsi210]

I imagine so. :) And I've done without a sewer for 48 hours once because ours backed up. It sucked like no other suck. Yes, of course I'm joking, because RMS takes everything to the extreme and beyond the intention instead of lodging a legitimate concern. Fact is, some things I care about if I can patch the system or modify the code, and some things -- I don't. I really don't give a rat's ass about some things because I just really want to get work or life done and out of the way. Hence, sewers. By letting the city dictate my sewage handling prices, how my house hooks up to it, and what I'm allowed to put into it, I'm giving up control but, really? I don't want control of that, and I'm happy enough not to have to handle it.

Re:Sewer as a Service

[againjj]

Get a septic tank!

"Non-Free"

[bugeaterr]

Non-Free, kind of like "Free Healthcare".
And "Free Lunch" just to hear our seminar on investing in gold.

hand over control of your computing

[nurb432]

If you get the service you want, this is bad why?

As long as you get the choice of discontinuing service and move to another provider at will, who really cares? Until you are *forced* to use provider A, there really isn't an issue that they 'control your computing'. ( they really don't )

Re:hand over control of your computing

[Todd Knarr]

Because, when the provider controls the software completely, you may not be in a position to be able to cleanly move to a new provider. You may not be able to extract your data from the provider's system, and if you can it may be in a format that can't be used by any other provider. You're likewise at the mercy of your provider when it comes to upgrades. Since they control the systems, you may not know an upgrade's in the works until after you've been upgraded. If that upgrade doesn't mesh with your own business plan and objectives, you end up having to clean up the mess after the fact (which can be expensive and disruptive, think a provider upgrading in a way that involves generating documents in a new MSOffice format that's not supported by the version of Office you run, leaving you with the prospect of doing a complete Office upgrade on short notice with no time to test it for compatibility with your other software).

Re:hand over control of your computing

[nurb432]

Because, when the provider controls the software completely, you may not be in a position to be able to cleanly move to a new provider. You may not be able to extract your data from the provider's system, and if you can it may be in a format that can't be used by any other provider. .

That is why i stipulated that "you get the choice" for it to be 'ok'.

If they grab you with proprietary formats, then i agree you aren't free to change and it should be avoided. If they use open formats and guarantee you can get to your data to move it, then I still think its ok to use the service.

Re:hand over control of your computing

[Prof.Phreak]

Consider having Gmail shut down (or become too expensive for non-enterprise customers), and having to move to say... YahooMail, yet maintaining all contact lists, past emails, settings, etc., as they are. It's ridiculous until it happens... And yes, it's -possible- to back your email, somehow. But having it easily search-able within your email ``client'' is no longer an option (how do you import old emails into some random 3rd party webmail app?)

Re:hand over control of your computing

[Todd Knarr]

Remember what I said about upgrades, though. If they control the system, they can remove the ability to get your data out any time they want. Like, say, just before your contract is up and they know you're planning on jumping ship. And even if your contract says they can't do that, you still have to take them to court to enforce it and all the while you don't have access to your data. The only way to protect against this is to be constantly pulling your data over to your own system so you have it even if they cut access at any point, and for that to be useful you have to have the system set up under your control with all the software ready so you can turn it on and start using it.

Re:Most people do not value freedom as highly as R

[ClosedSource]

Many people have a much broader view of "freedom" than RMS does. That doesn't mean that they value it any less than he does.

Neither is 'Dinner As A Service'

[ScentCone]

I completely trust a restaurant's food suppliers, chef, wait staff, sanitation, and even their "non-free" recipes, when I outsource meal preparation because I'm feeling lazy that night. So? That's the whole point of it. Let someone else worry about it, and understand that you're making some compromises. I'm not sure which is worse, The Prophet's loopy, hippy-dippy hyperbole, or his condescension and patronizing nonsense.

Re:Neither is 'Dinner As A Service'

[rhinokitty]

Funny you should choose recipes as an example, since they can't be copyrighted and are by definition, free.

OK this is just stupid

[seeker_1us]

"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.--RMS

So if I remotely log into a linux server running 100% GPL software, and use that software to crunch data, it's non-free and I must not use it, because the server is owned and controlled by someone else.

So now software isn't free by it's license, it's free only if it's got a free license and it's on your personal box.

Ironic, because I was introduced to free software on my universities mainframe (e.g. emacs, LaTeX) and now I find out that wasn't free at all because I didn't have the money to buy a computer that could run it locally.

Re:OK this is just stupid

[A.K.A_Magnet]

I'll reply to you but I could as well have replied to the other hundreds of similarly ignorant posts. The difference I guess is in your uneducated (dare I say moronic) title.. When you ssh a GNU/Linux server, it *is* free because you have access to the DATA (and to the free software using it). When you are doing "local computing", data access is guaranteed so the focus so far was on software freedom. When you do "remote computing" (ie cloud computing, SaaS, etc), the notion of *usage* Freedom needs to be extended not only the software, but also to control over the data as well as the guarantee that the software running (or at least the data managing parts) is the software you can obtain.

Reading the article and past RMS interviews, this interpretation seemed obvious but you are so many calling him stupid for stating that simple fact yet not even understanding how obvious it is that it ends up being a pathetic flame-fest. In fact, the most important aspect of remote computing is the control over your data (at least the ability to get it back) in a standardized way so that even if you don't have the software that's running on the other end, you can have a free software of your own do it.

Next time maybe you can read, and if you did, try understanding. Sorry for the rude tone but so much ignorance or ease to go flame gets on my nerves.

Now you may disagree and think that it's OK if you spent 2 years uploading data on facebook that is totally yours (your inputs, your personal life, your photos, etc) and can't even get it to process it yourself or upload it to a (better) competitor, that's your problem. RMS is only saying one thing: Free Software is about control over the data, and if you do remote computing, then you need more than just Free Software to ensure the very freedoms that the FSF is trying to defend. Sorry, but he makes sense.

It IS possible to do SaaS in a way that guarantees control over data and software freedom, that's just not what is being done.

Re:OK this is just stupid

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

I just read those paragraphs a couple times and it does sound like that's what he's saying. You don't have feedom in the software if it's on someone else's server.

If you have a web site hosted by a company you pay $3 a month to and they use Apache or whatever to serve your pages, you don't have some freedom that you could have if you hosted it yourself. You can't patch it yourself or modify it etc.

"If all the software running on the server is released free software, that would enable you to set up a your own similar server if you wanted to; but you still have no control when you use the server that isn't yours.
The only solution to this problem is not to use someone else's server to do your own computing on your own data. Do it on your own computer, using your own copy of a free program."

Is this bad? Realistically there are plenty of situations where people get more benefit out of something running from someone else's server than if they had full freedom and the benefit (burden) of running it on their own server.

Best of both worlds would be having something hosted on someone else's server, yet they allow you to modify the software that is run. This is just plain infeasible and if something like that did exist then I'm sure it would cost way more than normally.

RMS is 100% correct

[cdn-programmer]

I read some of the posts and saw the negative reactions. People just do not understand. Most, I'm sure, do not run a business.

The thing is if you run a business then you may need to add a wrinkle in order to exploit an opportunity. Being able to do this can make the difference between success and failure of the business. So even if it costs more, rolling your own can make sense.

This is not so true of services which are more standardized. An example is an accounting service. I see no issue with farming that sort of thing out.

Let me give an example.

Years ago my business handled high end data storage and data capture devices. Many of these had warranties that ran 5 years. So we needed an accounting package that would track individual items by serial number and tie it to the customer and the invoicing from our suppliers. There was no closed source software that I could find which could do this. There were no services either which could do this. With a roll your own solution the problem was solved.

I can offer many other examples. The point is that in some cases it makes sense to use closed source and sometimes it makes sense to use a service. However RMS makes the point that you lose your freedom when you do this and I say he is correct.

Which makes more sense? Hand your mail services for instance over to hotmaile or gmail or set up a server and and your own IP address and roll your own?

I suppose if you are a retail user then using a service makes sense. If you need to switch to someone else you only have a few friends to advise. But what if you are a business with 100's or 1000's of customers?

How would it look if Sears for instance had an email addresses like this:

Sears-sales@gamil.com
Sears-ar@gmail.com

 

Re:RMS is 100% correct

[DaveV1.0]

Your example fails because "software as a service" is geared towards solving problems that can be solved with "off the shelf" software. The fact that there was no "off the shelf" solution to your problem does not invalidate the usefulness of "software as a service. It certainly doesn't support RMS's statement that one should not use software as a service, at all, ever.

Your anecdote says "These tools didn't work for us, so we got a different tool." That does not mean that the tools you rejected are not suitable for many/most other people.

In fact, your post really sounds childishly self-centered, assuming that because it didn't do exactly what you wanted, it should not be used by anyone, ever.

Re:RMS is 100% correct

[itsdapead]

Which makes more sense? Hand your mail services for instance over to hotmaile or gmail or set up a server and and your own IP address and roll your own?

It rather depends whether you already have staff who know how to set up and maintain an email server. As you were dealing in IT equipment then that might have been the case for you (but good luck if the guy who set it up leaves and nobody else can figure out his lovingly hand-crafted sendmail.cf file). However, not all businesses deal in IT...

But what if you are a business with 100's or 1000's of customers?

Well, the first thing is you don't use a consumer service like regular gmail! You find a business-oriented service which, as well as trivia like a proper, transferable domain name, offers service level agreements, access to data, backups etc. I'm sure Google would be delighted to quote you for this.

How would it look if Sears for instance had an email addresses like this: Sears-sales@gamil.com

It would look as if they were too stupid/tight to phone Google and ask how much it would cost to get a proper domain name... or even find an ISP with mail forwarding facilities. That has nothing to do with software-as-a-service.

In the name of freedom...

[Wolfger]

We must only do what RMS tells us we may do. Then we shall be truly free.

Bad, really BAD analogy

[SmallFurryCreature]

You can still WALK if the taxicab grinds to a halt. You can hail one from another company, beg a ride from someone else who owns a car.

A better anology would be to have ONLY privatly owned cars and no public transport of any sorts, no bicycles, no footpads. How much power do you think big oil would have then?

The problem with having your data in the cloud is NOT just that your data is out there, but the way you use it is as well. If gmail fails I only not only use my emails themselves, but all my settings. What settings? Oh okay, but imagine a spreadsheet, you can copy out the data, but for complex spreadsheets the setup/layout/whatever is often more valuable then the data. If I loose that because I can't run the computations myself, then I am in deep shit. That is what he is warning about.

In fact, there is one sector we have seen this very clearly. MMORPG's. Kill the server, kill the client. Star Wars Galaxies New Game Experiency upgrade was widely resented by its users but because they don't control the server or the software on the server they had no choice but to swallow the bitter pill or loose all the value they had put into it.

When I take a cab, I am not committed, when I use cloud services, I shouldn't be either.

Re:Bad, really BAD analogy

[Cmdr-Absurd]

Sure. One always needs a plan B.
If you rely on cabs and the cabbies go on strike, you need a backup plan.
If your SaaS provider has downtime or goes belly up, you need a backup plan.
If you run your own shop, and equipment or wetware fails, you need a backup plan
Pick your poison. And have a backup plan.

Re:Bad, really BAD analogy

[Registered Coward v2]

The problem with having your data in the cloud is NOT just that your data is out there, but the way you use it is as well. If gmail fails I only not only use my emails themselves, but all my settings. What settings? Oh okay, but imagine a spreadsheet, you can copy out the data, but for complex spreadsheets the setup/layout/whatever is often more valuable then the data. If I loose that because I can't run the computations myself, then I am in deep shit. That is what he is warning about.

If you aren't backing up what you have on gmail and other remote services the problem is not with the remote service provider model but with your risk management process. Gmail lets you use POP to get mail; so why not periodically d/l your gmail and archive it?

Car analogy

[mangu]

Your rant is just an update on something that was written in Greek 2500 years ago.

Face the facts. Linux runs, it's a practical reality. Linux *is* the Operating System. GNU is a set of auxiliary libraries and utilities.

Perhaps, this being Slashdot, a car analogy will explain things better. A car needs a set of wheels and tyres to run, but no one will say his car is a "Bridgestone/Chevrolet".

Re:Uh, why?

[Gerafix]

Because the software required to make the hardware or make it work is non-free.

small better than big ... local better than remote

[akuma624]

RMS is correct - and that is why smaller self supported "clouds" will be better than the monolithic Google or Amazon clouds ... and you can ensure they are as "open" as you need them to be.

You don't have to like him - but them man is right.

this guy has issues

[pele]

definitely. been following his rants and moaning for 15-20 years now and heÂs been at it all along. IÂm not saying heÂs a commie, I have nothing against commies, IÂm saying heÂs sick, definitely, certifiably sick.

please stop posting stories about RMS. there are whole hospital wards designed to care for people like that.

Bill Gates would agree

[daem0n1x]

Finally, RMS and Bill Gates agree on something!

RMS' point

[Cytlid]

I think his point was that, you probably couldn't convince Lincoln that "slavery as a service" would be ok.

Re:RMS' point

[east coast]

What do you think subcontracting is?

Which is the server? Which is the client?

[Alzheimers]

If server-side processing is a bad thing, shouldn't he also be against X, SSH, VNC, and HTTP?

And if you consider the CPU as the "Client" then server microcode not on-die must also be remote, such as coprocessors, daughter boards, and peripherals.

Not to mention Beowulf clusters of anything.

Re:Which is the server? Which is the client?

[fuzzlost]

Um... no. RMS is talking about computing on machines you don't control

He must, must he?

[mkcmkc]

Really? He should read RFC 2119.

Maybe you should read it. That was an essay, not an RFC. Furthermore, even RFC "MUST"s apply only within the context of the RFC (e.g., "If you wish to be considered an Internet troll, you MUST do X, Y, and Z.")

Re:He must, must he?

[geminidomino]

In general english, which is, ostensibly, the language that essay was written in, there is still a marked difference between the words "must" and "should."

Re:He must, must he?

[mkcmkc]

I agree. You must agree, however, that usage of the word 'must' does not necessarily imply much other than that the writer is arguing for a certain position.

There are lots of people in the world bringing waterboards, but RMS is hardly one of them.

Re:He must, must he?

[geminidomino]

I agree. You must agree, however, that usage of the word 'must' does not necessarily imply much other than that the writer is arguing for a certain position.

There are lots of people in the world bringing waterboards, but RMS is hardly one of them.

Meh. He likes to pretend/delude himself into thinking that he's speaking from a position of authority. That shift's the measuring stick a bit, but I'll give it to you.

I still think someone needs to tell the FSF that cartoon characters are supposed to be mascots instead of spokesmen.

Re:He must, must he?

[mkcmkc]

He likes to pretend/delude himself into thinking that he's speaking from a position of authority.

If RMS is not authoritative on this subject, I truly cannot imagine what a person could possibly do to achieve that status.

Re:He must, must he?

[geminidomino]

If RMS is not authoritative on this subject, I truly cannot imagine what a person could possibly do to achieve that status.

On the subject of "What he defines as freedom?" Absolutely, he's an authority, and even has his own cult of...uhh... zealotry[0]. But outside of said group, I can't imagine anyone taking him seriously.

[0]The term "Cult of Personality" just seems so misapplied when RMS is involved.

Re:He must, must he?

[kramulous]

Hey, sorry mate but I forgot to get you some info you requested ages ago regarding Vectorization.

Check out:
http://www.intel.com/intelpress/sum_vmmx.htm

It's a little dated but the concepts and programming techniques are still relevant. It does a pretty thorough job.

Apologies for hijacking.

Re:He must, must he?

[mkcmkc]

Thanks!!

" you must not use it! "

[DaveV1.0]

I will use what I want to use, which will be the tool I think is the best for the job. I am free to choose what I want to do and don't need RMS or anyone else telling my what I should and should not use based on some bullshit ideology.

Fuck you very much.

This Just In

[rssrss]

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Mr. Stallman, and the ever shrinking group of people who care what he thinks, need to grow up. Nothing is free. Absolutely nothing. Everything has a cost. And everybody is subject to constraints on their knowledge, wisdom, and actions.

If we are lucky, the costs are well within our ability to pay, and the constraints are not heavier than those that rational civilized men place on themselves for the sake of good order and pleasant society.

Re:This Just In

[McDutchie]

Oh, come on. You cannot credibly feign ignorance of the fact that "free" in this context refers to freedom and not cost; it is far too well known. Please try a better troll.

Re:This Just In

[OldHawk777]

Dumbo (the circus/disney owned) and BillG didn't get it either.

RHS is aware of imposed limits by proxy (Business/Government) ownership/control.

Freedom is about self-ownership/control. Freedom always has a cost factor. RHS "Software as a service' is incompatible with your freedom."

The ownership/control TrojanWorm godma of cloud/virtualized infrastructure will posses and transform you all into ethereal zombies%~o of destruction. Now that I put it in game-speak...

Shit, few ever understand reality prior to being bitch-slapped by the godma bitch. Beware politicians/C*Os bearing new toys... they're perverts looking for a customer/citizen to sodomize.

HAVEANICEDAY - RHS is right, but I know BillG and politicians care about freedom as much as Dick and George. So, %~P

Re:This Just In

[colinrichardday]

The GP in no way implied that he speaks about money.

Neither did McDutchie.

Also, the GP confuses metaphysical freedom (freedom for physical/psychological constraints) with political freedom (freedom from tyranny). The fact that we are subject to gravity does not mean that the government should pile on with the PATRIOT act, or that we should meekly buy software with restrictive EULAs.

Re:This Just In

[colinrichardday]

If we are lucky, the costs are well within our ability to pay, and the constraints are not heavier than those that rational civilized men place on themselves for the sake of good order and pleasant society.

Heavy constraints, such as restrictive EULAs?

Re:This Just In

[JD-1027]

Any story with RMS and the word free always means free as in freedom, not free as in no cost.

Re:This Just In

[skeeto]

You are talking about something completely different than the article. The article is talking about libre free, not gratis free.

Oh no, not again...

[RegularFry]

The last time he made this sort of noise, we ended up with GPLv3, and look how well *that* has turned out.

Re:Oh no, not again...

[david_thornley]

I haven't noticed the world ending since GPLv3 came out, unless you really think it caused the market collapse or the new swine flu. Instead, I see many projects adopting it, and everything else pretty much going on as before.

What have you seen differently?

Re:Oh no, not again...

[RegularFry]

I've seen it cause friction and waste time for a thoroughly mixed benefit, partially on a basis that personally I find morally dubious. It's not immediately clear to me that the anti-tivoisation changes are in the right.

I've also definitely seen people get pissed off by the "that wasn't what we meant when we said 'freedom' - mind if we put the goalposts over here instead?" attitude of the rewrite.

Re:Oh no, not again...

[david_thornley]

Does anybody take the HURD seriously? Has anybody taken it seriously for years now? I haven't.

Nor was GPLv3 deliberately written to be incompatible with GPLv2. GPLv2 is hard to change and retain compatibility, which is why the FSF suggested GPLv2+ licenses. The GPLv3 couldn't be compatible with GPLv2 and the Apache 2 license both, for example, and the FSF really did want more compatibility with other free licenses. The major changes between GPLv2 and v3 that look to me like they could have been done compatibly were the provisions allowing torrenting of GPLv3 software, and allowing for distributing source soley electronically.

Copies of data

[Jay L]

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.

Why just their data, though? If your Service aggregates a user's data with third-party data, don't you now have to include that third-party data too to be truly Free(RMS)?

I would like to see RMS demand that Google provide a non-network-reliant copy of their database (including page caches and DNS caches) to anyone who requests it in writing.

Re:At the mercy of the provider

[maxume]

Have those things actually gotten worse? Cable probably has (mostly by adding crap), but then, it is a lot more universal than it was 15 or 20 years ago, and there are stupid things like on demand available (stupid being sarcastic here). Cell phones, I don't think that prices have even kept up with inflation, even in the U.S. (this was worse 5 years ago, but these days, unlimited long distance with nationwide service is $50 from Boost mobile). AMPS coverage was probably better (though the digital networks are pretty complete at this point), but I doubt that an unlimited nationwide plan was anywhere near $50, if it was even available.

Airlines, I don't have any basis for commenting.

Really?

[ClosedSource]

"Correct RMS's definition of freedom is the ability to do whatever you want with what you purchase."

What if what I want to do is take a GPL'd product I've purchased, modify it, and sell it as a closed source application?

Re:Really?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What if what I want to do is take a GPL'd product I've purchased, modify it, and sell it as a closed source application?

Go ahead.

But as soon as someone purchases it and is unable to do whatever they want with it you are no longer in line with RMS's philosophy.

Maybe I just want to use the software

[alatheia]

Don't care about owning it. I write a message and click send to send an email. I really don't want to own, patch that emailing software as long as I can write a message and click send to send that email.

Not "free"? What does "free" mean here?

[DragonWriter]

I'm very curious in what sense of "free" RMS's statement that SaaS is not "free" is intended to be categorically true. Clearly, most SaaS is not "free as in beer", because you pay for it, but that's usually not what "free" means when its used in the sense of something being, or not being, "compatible with your freedom".

Most SaaS relies to some degree on proprietary, as opposed to FOSS, software, and so is likely not "free" in the "free software" sense, but it is of course completely possible to build SaaS systems completely on free software, so while that may be usually true, its certainly not categorically true.

SaaS inherently comes with a risk of data loss or exposure from failures of the service itself (a technical risk), the service operator (a business risk), or your relationship with the service operator (a social risk). But none of those make SaaS "incompatible with your freedom" in any meaningful sense I can see of the word "freedom". They certainly are all risks that should be considered in the context of what one is using SaaS, but they are also all risks that can be mitigated, and are largely risks that exist, assuming you aren't a one-man operation, in any normal business as well (the business risk associated with the outside vendor is really the only thing added to the normal set of risks; the social risks exists in businesses already, presuming they aren't operations where only one person has access to the computing system and data storage media.)

The key thing RMS points to as indicating the anti-"freedom" nature of SaaS seems to be that you can't apply binary patches to the software running on someone else's server. In real SaaS systems, you may have quite a bit of freedom to do this, what you can't do (usually; its of course theoretically possible to allow this, though it would likely lead to disaster in any system without a very well-coordinated group of users) is alter the software that provides the fundamental infrastructure for the SaaS system (e.g., providing and managing the virtual machines on which the software you supply runs.) This certainly limits your practical control of the server, but I'm not sure why it should be considered incompatible with your freedom such that you "must not use" such services, any more than the fact that a server you buy and operate yourself comes with core components that you cannot, as a practical matter, reconfigure (like the internals of the CPU or memory controller) should be considered to make such servers "incompatible with your freedom".

RMS Made This Demon

[tjstork]

The irony, not that word would be overrused, is that RMS's midwifing of the FOSS movement is what ultimately drove the creation of the internet. Without FOSS, there is no SaaS. Instead of proprietary desktops, FOSS has birthed us into proprietary services... but, at least everyone is building them with the same tools.

RMS on crack

[Junior J. Junior III]

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.

If someone else tells you you must not do something, and you allow yourself to be constrained by that command, are you free?

Is this for real? Come on. Just because the software you're using isn't under *YOUR* direct control, down to the source, doesn't mean that it's not free. It just means it's not under your control.

You can ask someone to do something for you, or pay them to do it, and if they do it their way, what do you care as long as it's done to your satisfaction? How are you less free for having entered into such an agreement?

Now, it's certainly true that, through such an arrangement, you could develop a dependency on the work done by the service that you are paying for, and become tied into it so intricately that you become trapped, locked in to that particular vendor, because no one else does what they do.

But there's no reason I should have to allow that to happen. If I am a shrewd negotiator, I can negotiate that they provide the service AND the source, and that the input and output of their process is defined in open formats and open protocols that can be replicated in an unencumbered fashion by any other contractor who wishes to compete for the service, or I could even do it myself if I decided to.

On the other hand, if I am the author of the service, and I'm providing something unique that no one else can do, I may not want to make things open, in order to lock my customers in to my services. But there's no reason competitors couldn't start up their own services providing very similar work. Turn it back around to the market, and those who do the shopping who know better will choose the competitor who provides their services in a free, open, and unencumbered fashion.

Freedom? For what?

[cdrguru]

Take a business that has a very simple requirement. For some reason they need some minor change made to how gawk works that will make it possible for them to perform some business function with it. They have been using gawk for years and years and can't move away from it.

I suppose you could find some consultant to perform this. It really wouldn't take that much.

But nobody ever runs their business using gawk. Sorry, but something like that is very unlikely to be a part of a critical business infrastructure. So let's take something more reasonable. A bug is discovered in OpenOffice that prevents them from formatting invoices the way they want and how they are integrated with a database to automatically produce them. They moved to OpenOffice because Word wasn't working for them either.

They have gone through all the bug-fixing channels they could think of and no fix is coming. It is something obscure enough that maybe it isn't even considered a bug but something that would impact everyone else's use of OpenOffice negatively.

So they want to pay someone to fix the bug. Good luck, I'd say. I would say the first several hundred hours spent on such a project would be learning the code base. Maybe more. Now I know that good open-source consultants that speak English and shower only charge $35 a hour and would never consider charging for time spent learning a new code base, right? So this project should only cost around $140 because it is just a tiny bug and shouldn't take an experienced programmer more than about four hours. Right?

Ha. I would put the cost of some little fix like this more like around $10,000. And there is no assurance that if you were paying hourly that the project couldn't grow to be $20,000 or $80,000. Unless someone is willing to write off their time learning the system, which nobody in their right mind could afford to do.

No matter how "open" you might think OpenOffice is, if the developers working on it aren't going to fix your bug or make your change your chances of getting it done are nearly zero. Unless you want to spend lots and lots of money. Same thing goes for just about anything else of any size in the Open Source world. Apache. MySQL. Perl. PHP. If you need the code changed and you can't do it yourself then it is the same as a closed-source product. Because while Microsoft might not modify Word for you, lots of people will make custom changes to propietary products on a contract basis. And they don't have to first learn the code base.

Open source is freedom for programmers. If you aren't a programmer it is next to meaningless to nearly everyone. Even to a programmer, the fact that OpenOffice is open source is pretty meaningless - your ability to make meaningful changes without spending literally months learning the code base is zero. Your ability to make meaningful changes to the cat command don't count in any real way - things are much bigger now than that. More complex. So complex that the difference between open and close source to an outsider, especially a non-programmer outsider is just about zero.

Yeah Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever been unable to connect to Google? Did you stop using google?
Ever noticed that Amazon suddenly messed up (e.g. thousands of items no longer catalogued)? Did you stop using Amazon?
Ever had a black-out? Did you stop using electricity?

Bet you didn't. Bet you didn't even change the power company after the black out.

Re:Yeah Right

[SuperKendall]

Ever been unable to connect to Google? Did you stop using google?

No, I use them to host my email and the few times the mail server has been down have not been critical (at least for the time they were down for)

Ever noticed that Amazon suddenly messed up (e.g. thousands of items no longer catalogued)? Did you stop using Amazon?

Actually yes, EC3 outages scared me off hosting on that service.

Ever had a black-out? Did you stop using electricity?

Yes, kind of - bought a backup generator long ago exactly because of unreliability where I was.

Bet you didn't.

Pay up smartass.

Do you own or rent?

[OldHawk777]

Ownership to rent is a business model.
Rent to own is always a foolish proposition.

DOD is way ahead for once (I think), I am not sure of the specifics....
DOD DISA RACE http://www.disa.mil/race/ owns their enterprise infrastructure.

If you rent service to sustain your core business/products..., then good for the business owners.

If you pay for your core business/products/content... to be available 24/7/365, then your core business/products... are not critical to business profit/survival.

For personal/home your core data/content may not be critical, but when someone has your personal information... who will still carry the liability/trouble for loses.

For some cloud/virtualization infrastructure may be a solution....

For an oldhawk like me, I will always maintain my personal/home/private infrastructure (computers, routers, FW-appliance...), and pay for connect/access.

IOW-IMHO: CoreGiveItUpGetFucked2dCore%~P

Stallman's worried about the wrong aspect....

[macraig]

While I agree in principle with Stallman's concerns, there is in my mind a bigger economic concern that doesn't seem to bother him:

• Adoption of software-as-a-service will inevitably lead to subscription charges for use of software.

When that happens, we will have lost even the anemic facade of "ownership" of the software we use. Big Software salivates over the arrival of that day.

The further economic abuses and concentration of wealth that software-as-a-service will bring is, to me, a far bigger loss of freedom than what worries Stallman.

Re:Stallman's worried about the wrong aspect....

[DaveV1.0]

You don't own proprietary software, you license it.

Re:Stallman's worried about the wrong aspect....

[macraig]

I did say "anemic facade of ownership", didn't I? Wasn't I thinking that out loud?

AGPL and free/paid-for maintenance

[Khopesh]

Right, but there is more detail than what RMS was quoted as having said.

Specifically, it's okay to have SaaS when the AGPL is involved, e.g. at http://autonomo.us/ (a AGPL'd twitter app), and sometimes even when the GPL is involved, e.g. http://savannah.gnu.org/

However, there's one more big point to mention: We pay money (directly and/or with our data and ad-watching) for SaaS because they maintain this all for us. We don't need patches for bugs or security issues because they do it for us, arguably better than we can. As to new features, well that's where RMS's points hit home.

Out of touch

[Brandybuck]

What a maroon! RMS has become so mired in his extremely narrow definition of "free" that he has lost touch with the real world. I have not lost freedom if someone else mows my lawn, or if someone else cooks my dinner, or if someone else reads a book to me. Likewise, I have not lost freedom if someone else executes software for me.

As long as my data has not been "locked-in" without my consent, then it doesn't matter what license the software is under that's running on a distant server. "Software freedom" is about the software that I possess, not the software that other people run. Now of course I can boycott services that use software that I don't like, but what they use still does not affect my freedom, only my sensibilities.

RMS might have a point if he were warning us about the very real possibility of data lock-in. But he's not. He's bitching about the licensing of software running on distant third party servers. Nobody cares if a mail server is running proprietary IMAP software, because there is no data lock-in. If I don't like that particular mail service, I can download all of that data and move it elsewhere. Likewise, no one should care of another service is running proprietary software, so long as I can get my data out and move it to another service provider.

Google does not like RMS

[12357bd]

Google exists thanks to free software.

Linux should use the Affero license and end that 'the monster takes-it all' attitude.

Right Once Again

[Moe1975]

Stallman is - once more - right about this!

I believe that his only flaw is his failure to articulate his points in a more elaborate manner, something which - regardless of many who seize upon that weakness to counter his initiative with their false dichotomies and caveman logic - does not invalidate the gist of his conclusions and arguments.

Yes, his personality can be abrasive at times, yet - as I have said in relation to ESR - let the first hacker/geek/techie/nerd/propellerhead/[INSERT FAVORITE TERM FOR US] with the all around pleasant personality cast the first stone.

Stallman continues to produce value, decade after decade.

MOE

What?

[h-xman]

>>>you must not use it!

What? And this man is talking about freedom? Please... you are not in a position to tell me what I must not do. Part of my freedom is an option to trust someone and give them control over my computing. I know what RMS has done, he used to be a great man but... I have grown up in a communist totalitarian country and watching RMS getting older is like watching some old commies - turning something that started like an idealistic fight for freedom into rigid dogma where there is the only truth and we "must not" do anything else then the dogma says... really sad.

He hasn't quite resolved the economics yet.

[xtrafe]

I attended his talk at UT Austin last week. He opened by talking about the ethics of only using free (open source, free to copy and modify) software, went on to spend most of his time railing against copyright, and finished with a seemingly reasonable, though half-assed compromise solution on copyright.

It was interesting, but also clear that he hasn't quite unraveled a few key issues in his own mind, or felt like it would be too difficult to explain things in the time allotted. Mainly, his choice to immediately make a moral argument left him on weaker ground than he ought to be, especially because he seems to have put himself at odds with fairly basic economics.

Of course, most products we buy don't come shrink-wrapped with their engineering schematics. Nor should they, as this would be inefficient. However, in an unfettered economy, free of monopolies and government interference, cheap, reliable, open-source, freely modifyable, interoperable products produced by transparent companies should dominate, because these qualities are those favored by consumers. There should be no need for a moral stance.

All the trouble arises from the government doing the opposite of what it should be doing: 1. Providing copyright as an aid to specific industries. This is mucking with a complex adaptive system (the economy) and as such is a recipe for failure. 2. Not busting monopolies, which do stifle innovation and profit at the expense of society.

Both of these problems are an extension of having a government that has obviously been captured by special interests. Traditionally, societies have waited until their children are starving before making an issue of that particular problem. And with today's technology, that day may not come for a long, long time.

software blobs

[scharkalvin]

I don't agree with Stallmans' objection to Linux drivers with binary blobs and calling
Linux not free as a result. In most cases the binary driver blobs are for
devices that require their firmware to be downloaded into ram, these devices
(mostly PCI cards) have on board processors that run their firmware out of
ram. The PC must first download the ram image to start the controller.
What is the difference between a PCI card that has its' embedded firmware in
rom or ram if the source isn't included? Stallman would not object to the
former, but screams bloody murder about the later.

If the binary blob had actual kernel code that ran on the PC itself, that would
be a reasonable thing to object to. But not if the blob is downloaded as
data to the controller, even if it is machine code.

Not always

[Touvan]

Wordpress.com is software as a service. WordPress.org contains the source code - and anyone can setup a service to compete with Wordpress.com (or even host one in a machine locally, if their ISP allows that) - and they even let you integrate with their network.

I don't see what Wordpress is doing to be all that different from any company selling Linux programs.

Of course, there are other examples that demonstrate what RMS is concerned about with his statements - and I think it's important for business owners to be aware of the issues, and make wise decisions. That kind of wishful thinking didn't stop hordes of companies from helping build MS's empire though.

Nice try

[ClosedSource]

But the fact is that you didn't correctly state RMS's definition of freedom. His definition of freedom is the ability to do whatever he allows you to do with what you purchase"

Re:Nice try

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Nice try.But the fact is that you didn't correctly state RMS's definition of freedom.

Back up your facts.

Just because you lost at your own game of silly semantics doesn't make you right about anything.

Freedom for the end user -- that's all its about, nothing more and nothing less.

Re:Nice try

[ClosedSource]

"Freedom for the end user -- that's all its about, nothing more and nothing less."

Are you sure? After all this is your second definition of "freedom".

Actually the main problem with RMS and his followers is not they want to use the GPL, but rather their spin machine where they try to promote the GPL by labeling everything else as non-free and evil.

Re:Nice try

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Are you sure? After all this is your second definition of "freedom".

Yes.

Actually the main problem with RMS and his followers is not they want to use the GPL, but rather their spin machine where they try to promote the GPL by labeling everything else as non-free and evil.

So, now the pot is calling the kettle black, eh?

You miss the point: free as in freedom vs. money

[jonaskoelker]

Mr. Stallman, and the ever shrinking group of people who care what he thinks, need to grow up. [...] Everything has a cost.

You're making two unrelated points. When RMS says "free", about 90% of the time it refers to freedom, not price.

He's not opposed (I would assume) to pay for his computers or Internet connectivity. He's also not opposed to paying for software, but I assume he gets all his needs met by zero-cost (and free-as-in-freedom) software. I seem to recall him saying the FSF (presumably under his leadership) spent money, paying coders to write GNU userspace tools (grep, tar, that stuff).

What he is opposed to is other people having (undue) control over your (choices in) software and your data. That's what this is all about.

See for instance http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html for some views on freedom and money.

I find this a bit silly.

[KharmaWidow]

But is you really want control, you should get some thing like Concentric.com's scalable Managed Server. It allows you to control OS updates, customize the environment and put your own software on the server. Then at least you dont have to buy the hardware and bandwidth.

You make a point, but not the one you think

[Sycraft-fu]

The real point I'd say you are making is that freedom for its own sake is stupid.

Let's return to your dog for a moment. You are correct, house hold pets are very oppressed, in that they are subject to the rules of their owners. However in trade for that there are some major benefits:

1) A safe, reliable food source. One major problem for wild animals is obtaining food. Starvation is not an uncommon way to go. Not a problem for a house pet. You ensure that they have a steady supply of food. Not only that, the food is provided with no risk. They don't have to kill it (and risk it fighting back), it is there for the taking.

2) Shelter. Again a big problem for wild animals is protection from the elements. Your dog has a house that is superior to any natural shelter it could find, and that house is kept up for it.

3) Protection from predators. Nothing dies of old age in the wild. If you don't starve, well then you get older and slower until something is now fast and strong enough to eat you. Your dog needn't worry about that, your house is free from any predators that might want to eat it.

4) Love and comfort. Dogs are social creatures that like to feel loved, and you do that for it.

Basically, a house pet has no care in the world other than when its owner will next be around to shower with attention. It is an extremely good life. I imagine if a pet were capable of understanding the choice between being a house pet and a wild animal that they would gladly chose the house pet option. Yes they are giving up freedom, but what good is freedom just for its own sake?

In fact, those of us that choose to live in a stable Republic like the US make the same choice. By necessity, you give up some freedom in a society. People have to get along with one another thus your freedoms must be limited such that you don't infringe on their freedoms. Also, government being what it is, the limits will expand beyond that to some extent.

Well, you don't HAVE to put up with that. You can pack your shit up and move to Somalia, or the Congo, or the like. You can go to a country that doesn't have a functional government, a real anarchy. There you are free to do whatever you can get away with. Whatever you have the power or skill or cunning to do, you can do. Grab a gun and go act as you please..... However the same is true for everyone else there, so don't be surprised if your life is rather short, or if someone who is more powerful than you imposes their will on you.

If that doesn't sound like fun, well I don't blame you. However don't fool yourself in to thinking that you aren't choosing to give up some freedom. What you probably realize is that it is freedom not worth having. The freedom to rape and murder isn't worth the fact that someone could rape and murder you. While you might technically be "more free" it isn't a freedom worth having.

curious

[madkow]

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 Then I wonder which is less evil -- a proprietary binary running on your computer or SAAS based on open source running on someone else's computer.

it's unlikely that "most people"

[alizard]

have ever heard of RMS, who addresses his remarks to a technologically competent crowd that does its own regular backups. As I do and hope you do.

The fun part about depending on external services is that they can go down for business reasons. Running a business-critical service on a cloud service that may go down without notice or warning simply because the VCs pulled the plug or the Board of Directors decided since a service isn't making money, they need no longer support it doesn't impress me as being the smartest possible business practice, either.

It suddenly makes sense.

[kuzb]

Stallman.

Stall, man.

Stall, until I can come up with another angle that people might agree with, man.

Re:Some people don't care (and they are prey).

[MarkvW]

I think that you suggest far, far too much reliance upon a contract to protect your rights in the cloud. A contract is all well and good and groovy until the cloud company goes insolvent and your service freezes. Maybe you'll be able to extract your data later, maybe not. Bankruptcy, anyone.

Great in theory, lousy in practice

[Sentry21]

RMS argues against having anything that is not under your direct control (or cannot be brought under your direct control). I wonder how he computes?

Does he have the source code to his BIOS? And to that of his video card, DSL modem, and cellphone? Does he host his own website, routing his packets using open-source routers that run only Linux?

Sure, all of this is likely possible to some extent, but not entirely. Should we avoid software as a service and do everything ourselves? I want a good issue tracking system. Lighthouse is pretty good. Github's new system is pretty good. All the open-source systems out there are pretty awful. Trac is awful. RT is awful. It's all junk.

I use a Mac. I'd use Linux, but it doesn't do what I want. It's not up to snuff. At the last job I worked at, we all used Linux on the desktop (we were essentially a team of sysadmins), and you know what? Not a week went by when someone had to spend an entire day 'fixing' their broke Fedora machine because some minor Xorg point update had broken, or their yum database was corrupt and they couldn't upgrade their systems. I had a button in my taskbar that ran 'killall -9 soffice.bin' because OpenOffice kept locking up on my machine (but not on anyone else's).

Open-source is great, and I use it whenever the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, but all I see lately is RMS talking about how everything should be free, but not helping to make good things free or free things good. Until he finally grounds himself in reality, I'm not interested anymore.

Open API

[enjahova]

If you have a solid API that's all you need to be "ethical." It should let you put in the data you want processed, and access the data you want to access.

To me this whole thing is ridiculous, SaaS is not about software, its about service. Am i not supposed to go to a restaurant because I can't keep the plates? I could stay home and cook my own food and use my own plates but I would rather pay for the service.

Sheesh

[planetfinder]

The free software movement needs more balanced, constructive, and visionary leadership. If Linus hadn't come along we'd all be eating this kinda poo for breakfast.

RMS The Communist.....

[IHC Navistar]

Seriously. Will Stallman PLEASE shut up?! His rants where he tries to link any form of property belonging to someone as an infringement on everybody's freedom is just plain stupid. I understand the concept of 'free software', and if somebody wants to make something freely available, then they can, but his arguments regarding personal property just contradict themselves. Owning something is a part of the concept of freedom. People have the freedom to make something theirs. People also have the freedom to make something freely available. It's a double-edged sword and clearly RMS doesn't like that.

He fails to realize that this is in fact infringing on our rights to personal property.

Richard Stallman: The screaming poster child of the 'Have Nots'.

A different viewpoint

[einhverfr]

This is a case of RMS barking up the wrong tree. It is true you get more freedom to handle things when you control the servers. However, if that were the only consideration, we would all be running our web sites from our business locations on our own servers and the shared hosting guys would be out of business.

Software as a service can be good or bad depending on specifics. It is entirely unfair to paint the entire industry as evil just because there is some loss of freedom involved (by that measure the GPL v3, the GFDL, and the AGPL are evil). In reality many companies may prefer to let the software sit somewhere else and be managed by someone else rather than have to pay for inhouse IT folks. This is especially true for smaller businesses.

Certainly some forms of software as a service are entirely unfree. Other forms are quite a bit more free than the EMACS Manual. So it depends.

Disagree

[einhverfr]

let me give you an example of SaaS that I think is Free under RMS's standards.

So I have customers who run LedgerSMB (prerelease versions, if you can believe that) in production with a fair bit of handholding as required, and we provide a fair bit of expertise. The software is hosted. The customer gets access to all patches, backups, etc. And the entire software stack is under GPL v2, BSD, and similar licenses. We release as much back to the projects as possible for solid business reasons.

Do the customers have the expertise to do all this themselves? If they did, they wouldn't be hiring me. Certainly hiring consultants doesn't suddenly make free software non-free, so why would not having the experience to set things up yourself make it unfree?

If they don't pay their bills, sure access to the software would eventually go away. But what they are paying for is expertise, hosting, and management. Certainly if I set up Drupal on a shared hosting site, that doesn't make Drupal un-free does it?

Re:Disagree

[HeronBlademaster]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but RMS seems to have claimed that letting your own computations be run on someone else's machines is a bad idea:

"If you do your computing on someone else's server, you hand over control of your computing to whoever controls the server."

I interpret that to mean that if I don't have physical control of the machine, then it's someone else's machine, and it's a bad idea to put personal information on it. It's all well and good to have access to the patches and such, but if you don't own the machine then someone else can take away control at any point, and then you're hosed. That seems to be what RMS is warning about.

Or have I grossly misinterpreted this sentence from TFA?

Re:Disagree

[einhverfr]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but RMS seems to have claimed that letting your own computations be run on someone else's machines is a bad idea:

This comes from a section of Stallman's interview about the benefits and limitations of the AGPL.

However, if you get full access to your data (in the form of a postgresql dump, no less), and full access to the source code (as a matter of contract), why is it a software freedom issue?

Re:Disagree

[einhverfr]

Also there are certain cases where having someone else control your data (as long as you can have backups!) can be a good thing. For example, it greatly simplifies the question of accounting controls, etc. Sometimes a lack of the freedom to shoot yourself in the foot is a good thing and in this case, it doesn't impact any essential freedom.

What about food?

[PipingSnail]

Why doesn't stallman take this view when it comes to food production? If you don't grow the food you don't control what goes in to the food (nutrients, pesticide residues, fertiliser residues, etc). Even if you go organic, you are still ceding control to the grower over how, when, where the food is grown, harvested and delivered to you.

Sometimes, allowing someone else to do some or all of the work for you is, wait for it, beneficial to both parties. In those cases you can park you ideological bigotry at the door. Sadly, despite his intellect he does not seem to get that.

Let alone the environmental issues. Pooling resources into centralised services can (and should) be beneficial if done correctly. His solution is definitely sub-optimal on this axis by a very large measure.

For these reasons other people provide web hosting for me, and I don't own a nuclear, coal or gas power station, I just use the services of one. Likewise, water, sewerage etc. Its all the same thing. I don't need to have the blueprints and physical access to the premises to use the service.

Which of course if you take Stallman's views on software and extend them to these things, you'd pretty much have to demand access to these. I can see it now, "Here you are Piping Snail, these keys will let you into the main reactor, be sure not to hit any of the controls with your bagpipe..."

Does stallman own a credit card or have a bank account? I hope not, because he'll be implicitly using other people's computers whenever he makes a transaction.

What about when he drives his car, unless its really old, he'll be using software written by people to control the engine, the air con, the windows etc. None of which he will have seen.

What about the roads he drives upon? All the traffic light systems are embedded systems, which he is implicitly using.

Likewise if he ever has need of surgery or emergency medical equipment.

and when he uses telephones, faxes, modems, etc...

...and so on...

Frankly, his whole position is untenable and thus hypocritical.

Re:The article is mugglebaiting... RMS gets it...

[KDR_11k]

However the code is only half the work, you'll also need your data and if the only copy of that is stored on a system you lose access to... Well, game over. I don't think the AGPL requires handing out the data.

Re:The article is mugglebaiting... RMS gets it...

[againjj]

The message if you Read The Lengthy Article, is that if they don't have and open license to the server code, don't use them. He seems OK with the idea that you use a server based application if they are covered by the GNU Affero GPL.

No, actually.

"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.

We did not try to address this with the GNU Affero GPL because this cannot be solved by a software license. If all the software running on the server is released free software, that would enable you to set up a your own similar server if you wanted to; but you still have no control when you use the server that isn't yours.

The only solution to this problem is not to use someone else's server to do your own computing on your own data. Do it on your own computer, using your own copy of a free program.

Emphasis mine.

He says that the Affero GPL helps deal with software running on a server, but that it can not help SaaS, since the problem with SaaS is inherent in its model of operation.

Wikipedia

[CarpetShark]

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

The same way wikipedia does: provide the source from a foundation, or an entirely independent FOSS code-hosting site, and allow people to download your database. That means ALL of the database that isn't private, not just your own contributions (though sometimes the non-private stuff IS only your own contributions).

Just don't have it moderated by dicks, the way Wikipedia is.

ESR Agrees, It Must Be True

[adavies42]

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=932

oops, sorry about that continueing ....

[pseudonomous]

(hit submit on accident)

I have no problem with someone re-implementing software because they don't like with the architecture of the original implementation, or just for fun, for that matter. I know there's a downside to having too many choices, but hey, if you want to code whatever and offer it up as free software, who am I to tell you what to do.

I'm just saying, I think pure politics is a stupid reason to write code, and that going through and REMOVING code and re-releasing the linux kernel is stupid as well.

Let it be...

[sitarlo]

Having worked for a SAAS provider all I can say is that people who sign up for these services are taking a huge chance with their data. I really don't care what Stallman has to say about anything. My hat is off to him for championing FREE software, but I don't think all software and services should be free. He is wrong, in my opinion, if this is what he preaches.

The data in a usable format seems most important

[jesterzog]

Assuming you're using the SAAS for some kind of data manipulation, I personally think the critical thing is to be able to conveniently pull down any or all of your data any any time you choose for backup purposes, and have it in a form that you're satisfied with so you can keep using it without the online service. Perhaps this is a very rich form which will let you re-import the data into some other application, or it may just be a simple text file.

The main advantage I can see of having source code for a SAAS application is if you want to completely re-create the service and point it at your data, or if you want to examine the specs of whatever format the data was stored on the server so you can access it again. Neither is very useful if you could never get your data in that format in the first place.

I don't get it

[ClosedSource]

You're knowledge of cliches is impressive, but it's customary to use them appropriately.

Re:I don't get it

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

There is a reason you don't get it, and the fault is all your own.