Stallman on Cloud Computing and web apps

[greggh]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... d.stallman

But 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," he told The Guardian.

"Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true."

The 55-year-old New Yorker said that computer users should be keen to keep their information in their own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party.

Stallman, who is a staunch privacy advocate, advised users to stay local and stick with their own computers.

"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."

He's right. I've got to kick my gmail habit soon.

[eddie]

I think that Dann should give a talk on how he has his system setup for external use.
.

[dann]

sure, how I let people hop on my system and use my services. Aren't I not stealing your information too?

[eddie]

trusted computing s/b untrusted computing.
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eddie