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Clouded opinions on The Cloud
The following headline caught my attention a few days ago when I saw my Twitter client pop it up in the corner of my screen (see, microblogging is a good thing):
onsaas HEADLINE: Richard Stallman On Cloud Computing: Stupidity - http://onsaas.info/46jazx
It links to a blog post by Serdar Yegulalp on the Informationweek's Open Source Weblog. In this post Serdar reacts on Stallman's rather strong opinions on Cloud Computing recorded in an interview published in the guardian.co.uk.
The headline of this interview provokingly reads:
Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman
Web-based programs like Google's Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner
Richard Stallman is the founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GNU Operating System. He basically opposes all proprietary software technology. Another citation from the interview:
It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign.
With these words, Stallman means that cloud computing is a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost them more and more over time.
I am using Google's applications more and more, and I am feeling quite the opposite of trapped. I feel liberated. I am free in choosing when and where I access my documents and e-mail, free in the choice of device that I use, and free of worries about the safety of my documents (backups are a thing of the past).
Sure, I am putting much trust in The Cloud, but trust is a value I am choosing to rely on for anything I do on the web. Without trust, the web wouldn't have evolved into what it is today.
I would definitely and confidently move Carl Bate's slider a good way to the right.
Posted by Mark Nankman on October 2, 2008 in
Infrastructure Services / Security
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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Clouded opinions on The Cloud:
» Top 5 facts on cloud computing (and why it matters) from Capping IT Off
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Comments
# on October 3, 2008 1:01 AM, Christian DE NEEF said:
To some degree, trusting the cloud (and to a large degree, that means trusting Google) is like trusting financial institutions. As long as things run smoothly it is probably ok. You know that the bank is making more money from your money, to its benefit and not to yours, but in the mean time your money is relatively safe. Similarly, we know that the corporations that host our documents have commercial interest in doing so, to their benefit and not to ours, but we feel that's a reasonable trade off for those backups we can now avoid! Unfortunately, banks fail (these days, but it happened before and will happen again). Similarly, and certainly, today's internet giants will fail one day. It's a question of balancing risk vs. confidence. Some of my stuff is in the cloud... All of my stuff is on my laptop (including a copy of this post in Evernote), and that gets backed up regularly (in the cloud!?).
# on October 3, 2008 1:52 PM, Mark Nankman said:
@Christian: thanks for your comment. I like your analogy with banking. It is indeed basically the same thing. I agree with you that even giants can fall, and if enough people doubt (and doubt is very infectious) their long term stability, they will fall quicker and harder.