
The Cloud is Just Another Sun [video] - tosh
https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/cloud_is_another_sun/
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confounded
I think Rankin has a great point. When you use AWS, your OS is no longer
really Linux, it’s the suite of AWS services. The assumption that you need to
tear up and tear down EC2 means that it makes sense for S3 to become your
file-system, Batch to be your CPU, use a managed database etc. etc.

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simonebrunozzi
Sorry to be pedantic, but S3 is designed to be an Object store, not a
filesystem - the semantics are very different, and the performance too.

Furthermore, S3's replication is "eventually consistent", something that you
wouldn't accept in a filesystem-like use.

Source: the internets, and I was at AWS for 6 years (2008-2014).

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subjoriented
This does seem to be the way that Open Source has gone: The operating system
and some other critical components (compilers, runtimes, etc) are open source
- but applications, services, desktops, marketplaces, firmware, etc are
closed.

I'd still call this a huge win for both open source and free software. But
obviously its a much bigger win for open source than for free software.

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api
The development is going to go where the money is.

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ptribble
I was at the talk, and thought at the time that Rankin missed the main point.

Linux didn't beat Sun because it was better, cheaper, or had more
ideologically pure licensing.

Linux dominated because it was accessible. Anybody could download it, try it,
it ran on most things. Barrier to entry was essentially zero. Licensing helps,
but it's being trivial to access that is the killer outcome.

And the reason behind the rise of cloud isn't because it's cheaper or better,
it's that it's more accessible. Anybody can get out their credit card and try
it, use it. Barrier to entry is essentially zero, and that's how to suck
people in.

~~~
zerogvt
I don't think so. You need a non-maxed out mainstream credit card (gift cards
or prepaids won't work) and still you're locked out of a lot of functionality
(e.g. k8s in AWS) unless you are willing to actually pay. Also any trial
period comes with an expiration date. That might be a low barrier but it is
not a zero one. I know a lot of people that are still out of cloud due to all
that.

~~~
pdelgallego
That is one of the reasons AWS is giving a generous free tier for Lambda (1
million request per month). It is extremely easy to setup, and basically free
for toy projects

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zekrioca
Video seems to be broken on mobile. YouTube link: [https://youtu.be/goQ-
yjN7WAc](https://youtu.be/goQ-yjN7WAc)

~~~
pjmlp
mp4 and webm downloads work fine.

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closeparen
Isn’t he talking about Kubernetes? It seems like Google’s play (which has
other components, i.e. go-cloud) is to try and get the community to target an
open-source, vendor-agnostic platform, so that they have a chance of taking
workloads from Amazon.

It’s easy to see this turning in a more proprietary direction later in the
game, with GKE leaving Kube itself behind, but for now it seems like a strong
contender in the fight against “everyone just codes against their preferred
cloud’s API.” Commoditize your complement, etc.

~~~
tylerl
You kinda have the right idea with the commoditization behind k8s, but I don't
think you seen just how deep it goes.

Every cloud platform needs its own management layer to make the hardware
infrastructure useful, and it's at this management layer where lock-in
happens. Google made this layer a commodity with k8s, but took it a step
further by making the trend toward open infectious and one-way.

Google's gamble was that if providers have to compete directly on a level
playing field, Google will win because they're better at it. It's a bold move,
and we'll eventually see if they were right. In the mean time k8s is still at
work leveling the field.

Here's the key that makes k8s a one-way de-proprietarization mechanism: it's
not just infrastructure for building systems, it's infrastructure for building
infrastructure, and it's better than anything you could come up with
otherwise, and the infrastructure it builds is natively open and extensible.
K8s is trivial to extend, but it's REALLY HARD to extend it to become a
proprietary system, while still keeping it useful.

This is true for gke as much as anything else. The value-add for gke is that
someone is managing it who knows wtf they're doing. The value add isn't (and
can't be) any Google-specific magic sauce they add to k8s, because k8s is only
really useful if the customer themselves can extend it using known interfaces.
And you can't make gke meaningfully proprietary without breaking that
extensibility. Sure they can have gke-specific components, just like how
Amazon can have aws-specific controllers if they need to. But those have to be
extensions to an open base. If such things could result in lock-in, then they
would also result in a lock-out of common tools and extensions, which would
kill the platform dead.

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StavrosK
So the incentive Google has with K8s to make it just good enough that you
trust them to take care of it. If they make it too easy, you have no reason to
pay them to manage it any more.

~~~
closeparen
It needs to be good enough outside GCloud that AWS/Azure/on-prem customers
choose it, and can then migrate to GCloud later.

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thinkingkong
Past the primitives of file, disk, vm, and database storage there are only a
handful of systems that would lock you in that would take an investment to
back out of.

The luxury of having that problem is pretty nice too. The benefits of working
off or with these tools is you can get something up and running way faster
than owning the whole stack yourself. If the services are priced as a utility
then theres no reason not to use them. If your business is running on margins
that require better or different systems then thats predictable and you can
just design for that.

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est31
> If the services are priced as a utility then theres no reason not to use
> them.

A company offering great prices _now_ might chose to increase them later on
when they have achieved market leader position and everyone is locked into
their proprietary APIs. Don't assume that their offers will always remain as
sweet as the bait candy that you taste right now.

~~~
thinkingkong
Obviously thats an option but that option exists no matter the providers layer
of abstraction. If you sell colo they can increase your prices. If they sell
hardware you have to replace it. Im not arguing against it, just pointing out
that there really arent situations where you eliminate that possibility; just
reduce the chances of it.

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z3t4
What are the bullet points for Dotcom boom 3 ? Where are we now and where are
we heading ?

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jbverschoor
Sun as in sun for JEE? JEE was so ahead of its time.

