Open Source Guru Richard Stallman: Cloud Computing "Worse Than Stupidity"
"It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign,"
"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."
Stallman's comments follow those of Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison a few days ago, who called cloud computing hype "complete gibberish" and "insane."
The back-to-back criticisms of cloud computing both target the hype, but the two figures have very different visions of the future. Oracle's Ellison is selling cloud computing products and poking fun at his own marketing. Stallman is opposed to the cloud because he thinks it locks users into proprietary, non-open source software. Guess which one is a billionaire?
See also:
Larry Ellison: Someone Explain To Me This "Cloud Computing" Thing My Company Is Committing To
Both Richard and Larry would prefer to have cloud computing go away. Richard for the reasons you outlined above, and Larry because his company is heavily invested in and associated with the term "Grid". If people start to see cloud computing as the next generation of grid then that is a threat to Oracle.
This is orthogonal to Ellison's critique of the term becoming a buzzword. It is an overused buzzword but it is also something very real and important when the term is used with a nice, narrow definition.
The irony is that in some ways, Ellison is the inventor of (user-side) cloud computing: with the network computer concept he pushed years ago. That is really what gmail and google docs is.
There is nothing 'buzzword' about it, except when people misuse the word.
Stallman is a "free software" guru fanatic and a leading figure of the free software movement.
See, Stallman knows that he can never adequately answer these questions, so he'd rather pretend that cloud computing is a bad idea from the start. Which tells me that he's really nothing more than a charlatan. Why does he want to shut it down so vehemently? Why can't we even have the discussion about cloud computing without Stallman injecting his wrongheaded opinion? Simple: Because his GNU sandbox becomes a lot less important in such a world, and it diminishes his vision. Quite frankly, Stallman can go pound sand. Cloud computing is happening right now, with or without his approval.
So, who's calling what marketing hype?
In the end, as long as everyone knows what "it" is, who cares what it's called?
Richard Stallman said anyone who goes off the gold standard is a complete idiot.
@Tom
RMS isnt in favor of OpenSource too. We'd be happy if he did.
Though I wouldn't go so far as to attack Stallman personally , I do agree that his reasons are a bit myopic concerning the landscape of user use cases that exist and the fact that different architectures are better for different use cases. Stand alone software is ideal for a word processor tied to your printer, but horrible for a collaborative processing program that links you and your coworkers across the web. The first can be done well with open source software (OpenOffice) the latter is done better with a web application that provides collaborative document sharing. I think Stallman let his immediate and visceral reaction to the question or concept of "cloud computing" blind him to the nuances of the issue. One size does not fit all.
Which tells us what exactly?
Stallman on the other hand is just.. well, Stallman.
Nuff said.
Moreover, get a clue and understand that Stallman defends and promotes FREE SOFTWARE, which isn't exactly the same that opensource (to be clearer: free software is a subset of opensource).
Anyway, Stallman position is completely normal, given his position. He is against proprietary and "closed" software, and the so called "cloud computing" (ala Web 2.0) is something completely closed, you don't have access to the software and even you don't have access to the system or hardware.
I guess all billionaires are right. Fucking retard writer.
"According to a 2008 paper published by IEEE Internet Computing 'Cloud Computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc.'"
Hey I'm Microsoft I will be able to store all your personal information and files for you, so the government can sequester it.... It's the dumbest idea ever!!!!!!!
The whole point of a PC as Bill Gates saw it was exactly that, Personal. I can tailor it for myself, and it can be totally independent. Customer independence is refreshing, I would much prefer to pay my X amount of $ for MS office so I could use it at my disgression, install it on any computer I wished, any number of times; instead of paying a subscription for cloud services.
It seems cloud computing is industry driven, and not as a result of consumer demand. Industries would only do such a thing if it gave them greater control over the market, or greater profits.