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Stallman Worried About Chrome OS
dkd903 noted that Stallman is speaking out about the risks of Chrome OS and giving up all your local data into the cloud, pushing people into "Careless Computing." Which is a much more urgent concern than something like calling it GNU/Chrome OS.
Like most other expressions of concern that come from brother Stallman, the geeks hear him, and keep merrily on with technological progress. Not that his concerns are never valid, but he has become the Chicken Little of geekdom.
Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
Anyone who reads and understands the free software definition can see that web applications and "cloud computing" fail to meet the definition. The users are not free to modify or study the applications, and lacking access to the actual program files, they certainly cannot redistribute the applications to others...
So why would anyone be surprised the RMS takes issue with an OS that is designed to be cloud-centric?
Palm trees and 8
He previously called the cloud a joke. But here is the reality of the situation. I like having my email available on multiple devices. I like how easy it is to use web services rather than run my own cloud. I'm voluntarily allowing Google to serve ads to me in return for free services.
And for most non-technical users who can't figure out how to back-up their data, automatically saving their data in the cloud is better than having no back-ups at all.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I don't want my information in the cloud.
Neither do I want the inevitable yearly charge for constant upgrades to the latest Cloud software. I bought MS Office *once* for ~$80 and have been using it for thirteen years. (Likewise I bought Final Fantasy 10 for $20 and have been playing it for ten years. In contrast Final Fantasy 11 requires a ~$5 per month constant fee.) No thanks. I want to OWN my software not rent it.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Sometimes I am left wondering just how much "progress" cloud computing and web apps really represent. So you can edit your documents and photos using a web app instead of a desktop app...where is the progress? We were accessing files remotely years before cloud computing, so what exactly is it about the current methods that represents "progress?"
Just because you are using new methods to accomplish the same thing does not mean that you have made "progress."
Palm trees and 8
I started using personal computers back in 1981 because I wanted to be able to run my software whenever I wanted, and not be dependent on the (university's) mainframe system being up. Today, I can't imagine using the cloud for anything other than as a backup, and then only with strong encryption.
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
...the geeks hear him, and keep merrily on with technological progress. Not that his concerns are never valid, but he has become the Chicken Little of geekdom.
Perhaps the rest of us have the task of making sure it's not just 'the geeks' who hear him. Stallman has a valid and important point here, and I suspect most Slashdotters agree with him. But the non-geeks are the ones who most need to hear the message, and they'll only hear it above the din of Google's grand pronouncements if we all scream it out loud, long, and often.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
They are a corporation and have a self-interest governed by a hive-mind that has no sense of personal accountability other than demonstration of positive advancement of the corporate agenda.
Google has made it quite clear that they want to know every last thing about you and are working on finding ways to collect all your personal data, privacy be damned. This is why I only use GMail for public email and run my own mail server, why I refuse to use GoogleDocs, why I will never use ChromeOS.
These "free" apps and services come at a great hidden cost in terms of privacy, and that cost is too high IMO.
I'm not hating upon Google and do make limited use of their services.
But they are far from golden in my eyes and I am very wary of them.
Or, in what can only have been a black joke on Redmond's part, Microsoft's "Rights Management Services"... Somebody was stroking a white cat and laughing insanely when they hit upon that one...
There's a relevant XKCD comic:
http://xkcd.com/743/
> Stallman warns would-be hackers not to download the LOIC software being pushed as a method of expressing anger with sites that have acted against Wikileaks - not because he thinks the protest is wrong, but because the tool's code is not visible to the user. "It seems to me that running LOIC is the network equivalent of the protests against the tax-avoiders' stores in London. We must not allow that to constrict the right to protest," he notes. "[But] if users can't recompile it, users should not trust it."
LOIC's source code is available on SourceForge.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/loic/
It's a choice - that's market economics for you. The models exist, and thrive, because demand is there, or at least there are enough people who are willing to sacrifice conventional ownership to play the game or use the software.
Welcome to the modern world: you don't like the product, don't buy it! Buy something else, something which does suit your needs. Or, if that doesn't exist, build it yourself, or help start an OSS project to do it instead. And, if all of that is impractical or impossible to finance, then you've probably found the reason why no-one else is doing it that way.
Of course, there is market momentum, the incumbent's advantage, monopolistic misbehaving etc, but that's what regulators are for (when they're left to do their job properly). However, "the cloud", downloadable content and subscription-based RPGs exist because there's a gap in the market. Think you can do better? Fill it yourself!
Rant over...
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
Of course, RMS has a point here. And this is not the first time he is arguing against cloud computing. As can be seen in his recorded talks he has been doing this for quite some time now. The problem is that cloud computing has a couple of advantages which makes it attractive. You don't need to have backups of your data and you can access your data everywhere given that you have an internet connection. So this is very convenient for the user. But then you are giving up some of your freedoms for convenience which is not really a good thing.
I mean, with a piece of software that bloated, it could be decrypting your stuff and uploading it to anyone.
You can say that about any software at all; frankly, you can say that about your computer's hardware.
On the other hand, Stallman brings up worthwhile points. You may lose certain legal rights -- in the USA, for example, you may lose your 4th amendment rights. You do not have control over web applications -- the provider can change things, yank out features or add new features you do not want, and you have no recourse (how many times has Facebook done this?). You may even lose your access entirely.
There are different levels of problems. Yes, large programs like Emacs may have malfeatures that have been snuck in, as could a complex CPU or even the cloud programs themselves. Interestingly, if Emacs were trying to communicate your data to others, you could at least detect it; it would be substantially harder to detect if Google was leaking your data to others.
Palm trees and 8
Richard Stallman is also concerned about the ubiquity of showers and electric razors, and deeply worried that either may be nearby.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I still view the Browser as a "work in progress" there are certainly a lot of things which need finishing in it or it performs badly.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I guess you're probably joking but just in case...
RMS
I see the comments filling up with RMS is irrelevant, chicken little!, etc.. If you really don't know who he is give the site a read; I learned a lot about the software industry reading articles by Richard. Give this a try as well. Better yet, buy a copy!
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Root Mean Square...or Richard M. Stallman?
How original! We've never heard that one on slashdot before.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Software and information licensing is a trade-off, too, and cloud users are clearly happy with that trade-off.
I don't think that this is at all clearly established at this point. In fact, I don't believe you can even describe the bulk of 'cloud users' as being AWARE of the trade-off.
As an example: My wife went through a phase of buying a lot of wma's from Walmart, all while I was explaining how evil DRM was and that she'd eventually regret it. She understood the technical aspects of it, and believed that it was possible that she'd eventually get screwed over - she just didn't imagine a company ever actually doing anything like that. She 'bought' the song, so it was 'hers', right?
Fast-forward to the day they shut down their DRM servers. None of those songs work now. She still keeps all the files on her hard drive, hoping that one day I'll hear about a crack for them. But only NOW does she really GET what the risks are. Now one could call her 'aware' of the trade-offs of DRM. Today she buys mp3's from Amazon, and would never buy another DRM'ed song from anywhere.
Until the cloud burns enough users to make them imagine how the negatives of the trade-off might impact them on a personal level, human nature would dictate that people really are not measuring the decision with much care. Ergo 'careless computing' really is valid.
which exists with its own life, totally independent. imagine that, this cloud is created by millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people running p2p based clients on their devices. imagine that this cloud uses the collective computing power of these hundreds of millions of people, and with top encryption.
it cant be controlled. it cant be killed. it cant be censored. it cant be outdone. its everywhere.
that is the kind of cloud i would be willing to move into, without hesitation.
something after the format that bitcoin project uses http://www.bitcoin.org/ ( i know this is the second time i linked this, but im enthusiastic )
Read radical news here
and who care the least.
We are geeks.. we think and care about technological issues around privacy and freedom and security. They are a big deal to most of us. This seems to blind us to the fact that most people don't really care.
This is hardly as universal as you imply. I am as geeky as the next Slashdotter and could not care less about privacy or security, and my definition of "freedom" is likely as idiosyncratic as yours. Geeks are fascinated by technology and I suspect that the vast majority of them would gladly part with privacy or security in exchange for something flashier, faster, and/or cooler, especially if it's programmable.
Advice: on VPS providers
I think RMS arguments, all of them, can be summed up concisely as:
STOP LIKING THINGS I DON'T LIKE
Similes are like metaphors
The trouble with "the cloud" is that it's ended up like this:
"But it's free." That's how it starts. Look at the pricing history of cable TV. Watch what's happening to TV on the Internet. For a while, you could watch reruns broadcast shows on the Internet for free. Now, shows are becoming less available, more ads are inserted, and shows are disappearing behind the iTunes, Hulu, and Amazon paywalls. That's for reruns of content previously broadcast free to air.
So don't expect the "cloud" to stay free.
First, to be clear, "cloud computing" is basically a term derived from "the cloud" which is the nebulous internet when you didn't want or need to specify what servers or path your data was taking to get to you. You aren't really sure who's hosting your stuff, unless it's written in the ULA somewhere.
Sure, "cloud computing" MAY make your data accessible anywhere there's internet availability, but what's to stop the host from data mining all your stuff or forcing you to watch commercials while you're on the brink of discovering Unified Field Theory, because you agreed to it in some sort of user agreement.
Stallman should be more concerned about the trend that caused this one: the drastically decreasing numbers of people who actually create stuff on a computer. Twenty years ago there were lots of geeks out there and Stallman's desire to modify and study other people's work was understandable. It is even understandable that he thought everyone should have these freedoms he so enjoyed. Today such an attitude is unthinkable; computer users no longer create stuff, they merely consume it. The current trend toward the extinction of the desktop and its replacement by mobile devices or cloud computing is the natural consequence of this change. You can't create anything on your smartphone except raw pictures and video. You can, however, consume content that somebody used a desktop to create. And so, each year, there are more and more consumers, and less and less content worth consuming. What will be the point of having the freedom to modify and study code when nobody wants to DO anything?
As the bias in those sample questions may have implied.. I don't really care either. Not saying I'd want to live in a glass house.. but what I purchase and other mundane details.. I could care less about who sees that. Most of the scenarios where that data would hurt me require paranoia on a level that is beyond me.
And yes, I was generalizing on a massive level. I do think geeks are at least generally more aware of privacy and security concerns, because technology is becoming the new battleground for this stuff, and geeks naturally tend to understand technology better than non-geeks.
I definitely wouldn't say most geeks are obsessed with their data or privacy, but I would say that most geeks have at least thought about it and formed an opinion, which is more than can be said by a large portion of "meh" crowd.
People store personal information on Facebook, whose privacy policies are a constant subject of debate and, it seems, in constant flux
People store information on facebook with the purpose of sharing it. Anyone using facebook for private storage does not understand the purpose of facebook.
I put information on Facebook in order to share that information with my friends and family...
I mean, I know Facebook does other things with that information, and for the time being I have accepted that. But that's not the reason I put things on Facebook.
In general I agree with RMS's position here. Entrusting our information to other parties is rather careless. But still, when he reacts to the industry's method of framing a discussion by careful choice of terminology by doing the same thing himself (i.e. "it's not trusted computing, it's treacherous computing!" or "it's not cloud computing, it's careless computing!") I can't help but think of a whiny kid in a schoolyard name-calling match.
And then, another fun twist: isn't this almost exactly the "client-server ideal" from years back? A thin client connecting to a server somewhere, offering convenient and reliable storage of your data from various terminals or devices? The only difference is that the server is owned by Google.
Bow-ties are cool.
I work for a company that, amongst other things, recovers thousands of stolen laptops each year. Many many of our consumer customers have no backups whatsoever and frequently call is repeatedly and desperately, hoping we've recovered their laptop so they can get back their baby pictures or term papers or music collection... The consumer market alone is ripe for a pure-cloud solution if for no other reason than the fact that Joe Average can not or will not back up their data.
Normally, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to Mr. Stallman, but in this case, I think he's spot on. First, it is nice to have access to your data anywhere you might be, on the other hand, the first rule in securing data is to limit access to it. If I'm at the local coffee shop, using an internet cafe computer, how do I know what has been cached or not locally. I don't, which means I should assume that everything is (from a security perspective) and not do anything that might disclose sensitive information like bank accounts and passwords. Oh, wait, to use the cloud services, I have to enter my password, so right there is a potential security problem.
In arguing against Mr. Stallman's position, many point out how the use of computers has changed since the internet and how everything is now in the cloud. That might be fine if you are updating FB or tweeting, etc. But if you are a business, do you really want your employees transmitting sensitive corporate information over unsecure and unencrypted lines? Plus, in the past, if the salesperson lost their laptop, their data was exposed. Now, if they lose it, the data of everything they might have access to on the corporate site is exposed.
Also, for cloud computing to really be effective, people need broadband. Didn't they just report, yesterday, that 68% of the country (US) does not have access to broadband (3mbit or greater speed)?
Cloud computing sounds like a great idea, but, how do you secure the data? Is everyone going to have a FOB, like a lot of banks use for online banking? What about when the cloud is unavailable (anybody hear about the DOS attacks by anonymous)? The current notion of storing everything on the internet on somebody else's server doesn't seem like the most logical thing in the world (other than from a marketing perspective).
I wonder if Wikileaks had been using chromeOS and was accused of violated google's acceptable use policy, what would have happened to their data. We've already seen what happened to their funds with paypal and the major credit cards. Why would we think google would be any different?
Lame way to try to discredit a valid point.
I don't understand since when is it obligatory to trash on Stallman every time he's mentioned?
If we take a broad definition of system software (where system utilities are included), it is, in fact GNU/Linux. Even the narrow definition does not make it invalid, but it does make a lesser point (standard C library, one of crucial parts of the OS is GNU, and perhaps some would say GRUB fits here too).
In any case, if you want to trash Stallman do it on its own time, and for a good reason. For example his ethical views that do not concern software: Abortion, sterilization, etc.
SaaS, on the other hand is a threat. And not a small one. ChromeOS' point is to be a cloud client. Where the cloud is proprietary software.
Also, I think it's a useless OS, but that's another issue.
Is it just me or does any of this sound familiar. It seems ever since the data center lost control of the data by the introduction of those toys (called the personal computer, back in the day), they've been trying to get it back. We've had citrix servers, remote access, thin clients, etc. Everything with the notion that all you need is a dumb terminal or a scaled down pc not much more than a dumb terminal and everything you need will be taken care of on the back end.
We've seen that model fail over and over, why would cloud computing, using the internet instead of coax or leased lines be any different? If you like the idea of somebody else having the ultimate control of your data and how you can access it, great, go for it. However, if you are concerned with who at google, or wherever has access to your data, what will they do with it, etc., then why would you ever want this. Wasn't it the slashdot crowd that was upset not too long ago because google was scanning emails for marketing purposes? What will happen when they do it to your corporate documents and corporate emails?
Thin clients were supposed to hold down costs, eliminate upgrade headaches and make everyone more productive. That didn't happen. Now we are told that cloud computing is the answer, and yet, all it is is repackaging of the old thin client model, but run on a public network with a third party corporation serving up your data. And this is supposed to be good, how?
Hell must be freezing over. I'm in agreement with RMS about something. :)
Cloud computing is IMHO a bad idea if relied on by itself. It can be a piece of a computing environment, but relying only on centralized servers to store data and serve apps has many downsides. (Remember the SideKick phone fiasco?)
A laptop running a version of Linux from CD with local storage for data, and automatic synchronization of data with a central server over the net is far more effective.
It lets you work on your data when you have no connection, but still lets you have the advantage of being able to reach it from most anywhere or any machine when you do have the connection.
It's secure. When it reboots, the OS is the original version. Your data may have been diddled with, but this would happen even if it had been stored on Google's central servers.
Further, it's much more flexible as you don't have to wait for Google to vet apps before you use them.
As to people saying "If you don't like it, don't use it.", that's fine, but if this succeeds in the market, it sets what is available in the future. People learn to not be in control of their data or computing environment.
I don't want that level of control being outsourced to someone other than me, or my organization.
ChromeOS will have a standards-based browser, right? Otherwise it will make iOS look positively open...
So all you need to do is get yourself a server (anything from a $200 NAS device hanging off your home broadband to a rack full of hardware in a datacentre somewhere) add some open-source equivalents of Google Docs, adjust your SSL certificates to taste and, voila, your own little private cloud for you, your colleagues, your friends and anybody else of your choosing.
All we need is that open-source server-side cloud software. However, I see there are AJAX-based SSH clients that ought to let you use your iPad or ChromeBook to run EMACS on your server, so what else do you need?
More serious example of open-source cloud software is Cloud 9 - a Javascript IDE that you can download and run on your own server.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I know it's customary to bag Stallman on Slashdot, and indeed there have been instances where his zealotry becomes a bit wearisome.
However, in this case, he is 100% right. It seems obvious to me that giving control of your data to someone else is not a very intelligent thing to do if it has any value, but Google et al. have no particular reason to take your best interests into consideration.
I don't pay Google for anything, it's the advertisers' interests they have to take care of, not mine.