Richard Stallman is warning *us* about cloud computing?!?

I read Richard Stallman's commentary on cloud computing in the UK's Guardian. Stallman is full of warnings about cloud computing:

One reason you should not use Web applications to do your computing is that you lose control. It's just as bad as using a proprietary program.

But he completely neglects to mention that he had a chance to seed the cloud, which is largely built using open-source software, with an upgraded GNU General Public License (Version 3), and he demurred. Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation failed to protect the cloud when they had the chance, finally capitulating to industry pressure with the Affero GPL, an inelegant but workable sop.

Ars Technica is right to suggest that Stallman's doom-and-gloom about cloud computing is "myopic" and utters a final judgment well before even a provisional judgment is warranted.

But Stallman's biggest fault here is that he criticizes a problem that his own inaction created.

[odubtaig]

Two points:

1) The decision was made because it was believed that keeping the clause in would harm uptake of the GPLv3 to the point that they might as well have set fire to it then sat on their arses drinking coffee all day for all the time they spent thrashing it out.

2) A license is an individual decision about what someone wants to do with their own code, not a mandatory proclamation. Not only that but AGPLv3 is entirely compatible with GPLv3 so there's nothing to stop me using existing GPLv3 in an AGPLv3 project.

So, when someone who is aware of AGPLv3 and what it means releases code under GPLv3 that gets used in SaaS software, who's to blame again? On balance, it's better at these people might at least use GPLv3 with all the other important changes in it than reject it altogether and stay with GPLv2.

As it is, using AGPLv3 is down to the people writing the software, not Stallman.

[ghaff]

Fair enough comment with respect to the GPLv3 and DRM. He (and Eben) did agree to many changes in language and, generally, an overall tightening of the scope of the DRM clause. I'd still argue that he didn't compromise basic principles around DRM but, of course, there are degrees of everything.

[ghaff]

odubtaig:

I don't disagree with anything you say, but I also agree with Matt's basic point. If Stallman thought that Cloud Computing was so darned bad, why didn't he try to draw a line in the sand with the GPLv3? After all, he also nearly sunk that license's passage by his refusal to budge (much) on DRM provisions. I'm not saying I would have agreed with his stance or that the license might not have gone down in flames as a result. But if he felt that Cloud Computing was a bad thing on the order of DRM, it does seem odd that the GPLv3 was written in a way that accommodates it.

[odubtaig]

Reporting is a funny thing, he moved loads on the DRM provisions. I don't think many people know that GPLv3 now only requires that you cannot make any claim that DRM code provides any real protection against copying. Quite a difference from the total ban that was originally envisioned and something he made clear he wasn't happy with.

[Beenthinking]

Cloud computing isn't a market....its hardly a thing anyone does, it may be a verb someday but I doubt it will be a noun. Its in its infancy and will materialize based upon good technology and people's needs. Contrary to popular belief, very few people care about licensing. I know its important and around it, many business models are built but in the end, the user doesn't care and violates licenses at will to get done what they need to get done. The cloud is a great storage mechanism that allows for even better mobile computing (I'm no longer tied to a computer, I can use ANY computer to access my environment, application, data and services). I'd be much more worried if that because of the cloud, my data itself becomes hindered. By that I mean, access to my data or an argument as to who owns my data. Applications are tools and there are many for the same job so given time the market forces will identify the top tools for any particular job and that will include licensing schema as well as functionality.

I guess I simply do not understand why there is a concern about being trapped in the cloud. There are ample ways to license software and in any good design process a review of which license(s) to support is part of the process. Let the cloud play out and I suspect that in a couple of years we won't be talking about it, not for lack of success, but rather because it just "is" how things are done.

[wybowiersma]

Stallman didn't act because he believed the cloud to be evil, even if it would be free as in it's code and data being available under a free license, and it being ran by it's community of users. I had an e-mail correspondence about this with him last year.

I think he underestimates the importance of social software, and the web. This could be because of many factors, including the time he grew up in and his preference for individualistic freedom over the freedom of communities.

Also see http://foundation.logilogi.org, a foundation for free Web Software.