In a recent interview with the Guardian Richard Stallman GNU founder and Free Software campaigner said that Cloud Computing is a trap http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman
"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."
At the root of this is his fear that once they have got you hooked they can make you pay through the nose but is this realistic? Even if you put your software on your software on your own web server you would be at the mercy of a proprietary chip maker and if you want to implement a high volume internet application you need to have access to an internet backbone which is again another dependency even if you could access it directly.
The fact is we are all dependent on proprietary computer infrastructure of some kind and we have to rely to some extent on the vendors not extorting us too much really out of self interest. They understand that in order to grow their business they need to sell us more and that its better to have willing customers than a blackmail victims.
That is not deny the contribution that the Free Software foundation and the Open Source movement has made, but I would argue that its main benefit has been in fostering innovation. Allowing via the LAMP stack for example a host of Internet based businesses to be created. Its difficult to believe that a proprietary vendor like Microsoft would have facilitated that development because its focus would have been on meeting the needs of its target corporate IT customers.
Currently there is no doubt in my mind that the Salesforce.com .Force platform offers the best cloud computing infrastructure and that more and more people will start to take advantage of the benefits of moving to the cloud. These are largely connected with not worrying about building infrastructure but on concentrating on the added value of the application. The best response from the Free Software adherents is not to stand on the sidelines wringing their hands or taking the occasional pot-shots about privacy but take it head on and develop an open source multi-tenant database with a Java like Data Manipulation Language (DML) that could provide a real alternative. There's your challenge Richard. Good Luck!
"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."
At the root of this is his fear that once they have got you hooked they can make you pay through the nose but is this realistic? Even if you put your software on your software on your own web server you would be at the mercy of a proprietary chip maker and if you want to implement a high volume internet application you need to have access to an internet backbone which is again another dependency even if you could access it directly.
The fact is we are all dependent on proprietary computer infrastructure of some kind and we have to rely to some extent on the vendors not extorting us too much really out of self interest. They understand that in order to grow their business they need to sell us more and that its better to have willing customers than a blackmail victims.
That is not deny the contribution that the Free Software foundation and the Open Source movement has made, but I would argue that its main benefit has been in fostering innovation. Allowing via the LAMP stack for example a host of Internet based businesses to be created. Its difficult to believe that a proprietary vendor like Microsoft would have facilitated that development because its focus would have been on meeting the needs of its target corporate IT customers.
Currently there is no doubt in my mind that the Salesforce.com .Force platform offers the best cloud computing infrastructure and that more and more people will start to take advantage of the benefits of moving to the cloud. These are largely connected with not worrying about building infrastructure but on concentrating on the added value of the application. The best response from the Free Software adherents is not to stand on the sidelines wringing their hands or taking the occasional pot-shots about privacy but take it head on and develop an open source multi-tenant database with a Java like Data Manipulation Language (DML) that could provide a real alternative. There's your challenge Richard. Good Luck!
