Was just reading this article...
The Guardian

In which he condemns cloud computing condemning it as a trap - In my view cloud computing is really productive, and one of the most awesome things to come out of the internet - it represents a common goal and community in which people can join; kinda like the collaboration on open source software...


Discuss.

I think that stallman made some very good points.
Also, homemade, don't confuse the end users of a particular software as a community.

I was in my school's foreign language center, and a French class came in. The teacher said that the only acceptable method for turning in assignments is using Google Docs and then posting the assignment to the blog he specified. I don't know about you guys, but I think that's ridiculous. It's a french class, for learning french, not a technology class, for learning blogging.

I also despise turnitin.com. I would rather hand in a hard copy to the teacher.

cloud computing IS awesome.... it also IS a trap. that is why it is awesome that one of the best companies (google) currently has the best stuff. if it was a less trustworthy company than i would take alot more issue with it. not even trustworthy but also security. i wouldn't trust my important stuff to the hands of ms, and i don't trust it entirely in the hands of google, but more so.

anyways, how is this in the lounge .

I'm with Stallman on this. "Cloud computing", in the sense of things like Google Docs, is the antithesis of free software. The entire idea of free software is to liberate the user from the software provider - to give him the freedom to use an modify software to suit his needs. It's about decentralizing control over software.

"Cloud computing," on the other hand, is all about putting all your data in the control of the provider. So with Google Docs, for example, not only does Google control of the software you use to create your documents, it also has control over the actual documents you create. In that sense, it's a step backwards in freedom from plain-old proprietary software, because now you're dependent upon the good will of a third-party for both your software and your data.

Incidentally, I also agree with the article on the meaninglessness of the term "cloud computing". It seems like it's turned into the same sort of thing as "Web 2.0" - a marketing term that's become so vague it can apply to practically anything. Heck, these days it seems like "cloud computing" just means storing your data on a web server - hardly a revolutionary development.

I agree with Stallman, but Google Docs is just so damned convenient that I'll still use it. I just won't store anything important there.