[GRLUG] Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Sun, 2008-10-12 at 22:26 -0400, Erik Southworth wrote:
> In general I respect Stallman's opinions but this opinion seems
> out-of-touch.
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman
> He seems to target large web platforms like that of Google and Yahoo.
> I see cloud computing as targeting developers and developers as
> targeting consumers.
> Stallman may rightly suspect third-party data warehousing but web
> programmers don't write desktop apps. 

That seems obvious.

> It seems his view is demonizing any webapp like
> Facebook or MySpace but if nobody builds a desktop equivalent, 

I don't really have a problem with that;  these services all basically
equate to "here, take all my data".   If users want to do so, they will,
it doesn't make it not a "bad idea".

> what then is the point of marginalizing them. I don't like webapps
> much either but their linking, hypertexting and open API's seems
> fundamental to the idea of the web as a community platform.

I don't think webapps / web development = cloud computing.  It is
entirely possible, and even normal, to develop web applications to
present and manipulate *your* information.  Cloud computing is shipping
everything you have to someone else.

> Amazon sells cloud computing but it's just a scalable platform.

Sort of.  But then Microsoft is "just a platform" and people have no
problem objecting to that.  The real world fact is that once you put
sufficient resources into developing on a platform you are wedded to
that platform,  and if you have no control over the future or direction
of that platform - then they have you by the short hairs (and license
terms essentially mean nothing).

I don't have a problem with "cloud computing" if it means leasing me X
amount of resources as a virtual machine and I can go to vendor B and
lease the same amount of resources and transfer my app / data.  If it
means I'm just buying into vendor Z's platform... forget it, no way,
been there, will never do it again - call it whatever you want.

> The developers build the apps, not Amazon. 

Just like building a building on leased ground.  Lease expires and I can
bulldoze it, and the contents.

> If Stallman is correct then web developers are wrong and desktop
> developers are right. He's making a confusing argument.

No,  cloud computing, unless handled *VERY* carefully is a bad idea.  It
isn't about "web development" or "desktop development" at all.

> If a desktop app wants to uset the web paradigm then it would have to
> provide all the integrated srvices of the web itself which seems
> unnecessary. What would he have done? Replace the web itself?