Posts Tagged ‘software as a service’

Stallman Rips Cloud Computing

GNU and Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman last week was quoted in an interview saying that cloud computing was “beyond stupidity”. Stallman has cited potential price increases, loss of control, loss of privacy, and vendor lock-in as concerns. Stallman is a free software purist and a huge privacy advocate so naturally he has problem with giving up control. ‘Cloud computing’ in whatever form it takes removes control of data from the user and places it in the hands of the vendor. However, does it really restrict our freedom?

I think Stallman was partly right, but he’s missing a key component that I think could turn his idealism around. Given the lack of a definition for ‘cloud computing’, let’s start with a little context to get a feel for what Stallman meant:

The concept of using web-based programs like Google’s Gmail is “worse than stupidity”, according to a leading advocate of free software … Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.

“It’s stupidity. It’s worse than stupidity: it’s a marketing hype campaign … whenever you hear somebody saying … this is inevitable … it’s very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true.”

Using his example of Gmail, we can see that Stallman is really talking about SaaS, not the utility computing service type of products such as the Amazon EC2 service. Also, given his example of Gmail and the nature of the discussion, it’s important to point out what Stallman sees as “free”. Yes, Gmail is free for a personal account, but they also offer a pay-for service for a business, but that’s not even what he’s talking about. His view (at least the foundation that he started surrounding free software) is that software should be free.. as in it’s your software and your data so you should be free to do with it what you want. This is not to say that the software is free in price, though this is often the case. At the end of the day, Stallman and everyone else knows that software companies have to make money to survive so they can’t offer everything with no fees involved.

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Since Stallman is a huge privacy advocate, he also takes a shot at privacy and recommends that we keep our data only on our systems. This is true to a point, but most everyone puts money in a bank, so where’s the line? I’m going to ignore this part, but wanted to bring up this other concern that Stallman talks about as well.

Stallman’s comments bring out a very important matter in choosing a cloud provider, but if you make a wise choice, a cloud (SaaS) provider can save you time and also provide a way for you to live more freely. There are those vendors who lock-in your data and have no API’s, thus no way of export except through the vendor themselves. However, following standards (in his example, in email) we can use our data much more effectively for a lower cost.

We have all read about and know the benefits of using a SaaS provider — no up-front investment, no staff training (to manage systems), and of course having the privilege of being able to just call your provider when something break. I’m over-simplifying, but we could go on for days about the benefits and drawbacks. Gmail (or whoever you want your provider to be) is going to manage all the headaches that come along with managing those servers for you. This emables SMB’s especially to launch themselves into their market with high tech systems whether or not they have the time, resources, or money (is there a difference?) to provide those services on their own. These services can allow businesses to have their email on their phones and laptops. They can have their contacts from their CRM system on their phones and accessible 24/7 without worrying about losing a contact because the phone breaks or their laptop loses its hard drive. Except for having control over the source code, that’s what the Free Software Foundation is all about.

The second piece of the puzzle is over freely distributed code. Since SaaS and open source software have been leaning on each other, finding an open source hosting company is easy. (In fact, I’ll recommend one.) To borrow the line from Captain Planet, by their power combined, we now have ‘free’ software.

Since big-name nerds like to make dramatic statements about things they don’t like, it’s no surprise to hear something like this from Stallman. However, given a little practicality and by avoiding a little bit of extremism, we can find the best of both worlds. Using an open source hosting provider, we have software that we can modify and data that’s portable and still be able to leverage those shared resources that come from a ‘cloud’ provider.

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Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Oct 1st, 2008