Lost In the Cloud

Colonel Korn writes "Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain suggests in an Op-Ed piece that the seemingly inevitable move toward the often locked-down cloud is stifling innovation and threatening our privacy: '... many software developers who once would have been writing whatever they wanted for PCs are simply developing less adventurous, less subversive, less game-changing code under the watchful eyes of Facebook and Apple. If the market settles into a handful of gated cloud communities whose proprietors control the availability of new code, the time may come to ensure that their platforms do not discriminate. Such a demand could take many forms, from an outright regulatory requirement to a more subtle set of incentives — tax breaks or liability relief — that nudge companies to maintain the kind of openness that earlier allowed them a level playing field on which they could lure users from competing, mighty incumbents. We've only just begun to measure this problem, even as we fly directly into the cloud. That's not a reason to turn around. But we must make sure the cloud does not hinder the creation of revolutionary software that, like the Web itself, can seem esoteric at first but utterly necessary later.'"

Comments

Re:It's actually kind of scary

[morgan_greywolf]

I'm actually surprised at how quickly some of these platforms like the iPhone have developed completely closed programming environments with barely a peep of protest from the normally pretty libertarian tech crowd.

You must be...actually, some of us have been protesting, but our voices keep getting drowned out by some people black turtlenecks and artsy looking glasses. I think they may be a cult.

Re:So lets see here...

[poetmatt]

Yes, it is that trivial.

Most have a search feature to find people by email/account/etc. Also if you have your albums hosted somewhere sites like picasa can upload them directly to whatever account you have.

FYI

[Petey_Alchemist]

If this is your first exposure to Zittrain's central idea, you should check out his book: http://futureoftheinternet.org/static/ZittrainTheFutureoftheInternet.pdf

Or, if you don't like reading, you can watch his thoroughly engaging book talk here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2008/04/zittrain

Zittrain knows his stuff. He was friends with Postel. He's got an AI background from Yale in addition to his Harvard Law degree.