
Stallman on SaaS [video] - jolie
http://mashable.com/2010/06/09/stallman-on-saas/
======
mukyu
I remember rms having a strongly different view from the one he expressed in
this video. Google mostly turns up mentions of him speaking against cloud
computing and such in the past few years; however, I did managed to find at
least one instance in Tim O'Reilly quoting him from 1999[1]: "...a proprietary
program on a web server that somebody else is running limits his freedom
perhaps, but it doesn't limit your freedom or my freedom. We don't have that
program on our computers at all, and in fact the issue of free software versus
proprietary [only] arises for software that we're going to have on our
computers and run on our computers. We're gonna have copies and the question
is, what are we allowed to do with those copies? Are we just allowed to run
them or are we allowed to do the other useful things that you can do with a
program? If the program is running on somebody else's computer, the issue
doesn't arise. Am I allowed to copy the program that Amazon has on it's
computer? Well, I can't, I don't have that program at all, so it doesn't put
me in a morally compromised position."

At some point the FSF started pushing for the Affero GPL, which does not seem
to be sufficient as now he says it should be avoided even in the case where
you do have the source code.

I cannot think of any significant changes in the idea of software as a service
over time that would account for such different views on it.

[1] [http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/08/open-source-
licens...](http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/08/open-source-licenses-are-
obsol.html)

e:

The talk mentioned:
<http://tim.oreilly.com/archives/mikro_age_of_infoware.pdf>

The QA the quote comes from:
<http://tim.oreilly.com/archives/mikro_discussion.pdf>

~~~
jpablo
Things are very different now than in 1999. 1999 we were talking a few cgis
and perl script that did funny stuff. Now we have google docs and facebook. I
think that is a very significant change that would account for the different
view.

I think the _idea_ is the same, but the scales and implementation and hugely
different.

~~~
orblivion
Yes but Stallman is an unrelenting moral absolutist when it comes to software.
Scales wouldn't make him change his stance, just the scale of his stance.

~~~
jpablo
But he did changed his stance. What is your point anyway ?

~~~
orblivion
Well, yes he changed his stance altogether, that's sortof what I'm saying.
He's not giving a different position for a different situation, because as you
said, the idea is the same. From what I've seen of him, he's not into gray
areas, so this is an altogether different point of view coming from him. In
other words, if you asked him today about the 90s, he would say the same thing
as in this recent video.

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thunk
Stallman's worldview is so paranoid and cynical. And maybe it's for good
reason. Facebook and Apple have been doing evil things. But Facebook and Apple
have paid dearly for their behavior, whether they've felt the repercussions
yet or not. Their value on the Global Hacker Reputation Index has plummeted,
and they _will_ have to pay the piper sooner or later.

Question of the day: Is reputation among hackers enough to keep tech companies
honest? I think for the smart companies the answer is Yes.

~~~
borism
NO!

there are no tech companies! there are advertising, media, luxury goods etc.
companies. Tech is just what drives their business, as many other businesses,
just slightly more noticeably.

~~~
thunk
Pshh, splitting hairs. You know what I mean. Next time I'll be sure to fully
enumerate the infinite list.

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JarekS
I think that Stallman is discussing 2 points at the same time. First thing is
freedom of data (easy import/export and ability to completely delete your data
from a SaaS app) - in the world where each MB of information is replicated
around 7 times (archiving, backup, replication etc.) and therefore it's
virtually impossible to delete information...

Second thing - free software - you have no control of the app when it's run by
the service provider. Again - reality is that most of the people can not read
code and sourcode or even executable binary is almost equal to 90% of the
population. Biggest advantage of SaaS is that it can provide value that normal
"behind the firewall" software can not match. What kind of value? I.e. cost
reduction (thanks to consolidation effect). This leads us to the
democratization of access to the computing power/software power - and it's,
after all, what Stallman is all about, right?

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motters
With SaaS I think there is always a danger of developing an unhealthy
dependency, and some Facebook users are beginning to recognise this phenomena.
As Stallman says, with SaaS the user has no access to or control over the
program, either at source code, executable, or often even the raw data level.

Potentially this can mean that the user is totally disempowered - effectively
they're no longer using a "personal computer", and their computer might be
operating primarily for the benefit of someone other than the user.

------
adamdecaf
Video:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Stallman_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Stallman_2.ogg)

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mgrouchy
I can appreciate the fact that Richard Stallman fights for FOSS, and I would
say I am a huge supporter and proponent of FOSS however in this instance(and
many others), he is just completely way out there.

His standard may not be completely unrealistic, but it is borderline and would
make my life and work, pretty inconvenient.

~~~
rimantas
His fans alway point out that his ideas are for some greater good, but don't
ever bother to elaborate how the ultimate future according to Stallman would
look like.

Another common point is that they adore the guy sticking to his believes. You
know what, believes can be wrong too…

His is way out simply because his needs and thinking is waaaay different from
ordinary people (software users). I couldn't care less how proprietary is
equipment in my car, all I want is it to run smoothly. On the other hand
mechanic servicing my car couldn't care less what powers his computer as long
as it does what he needs.

I am sure there will be a lot hand waving about the greater good without any
demonstration of such good.

I don't think any radical idea was ever good.

~~~
obsaysditto
_I don't think any radical idea was ever good._

What? Something that seems radical today is the norm of tomorrow.

Columbus looking for new trade routes was radical, but good. Ending world
hunger is a pretty radical idea, but it will be good. Being an entrepreneur is
radical.

~~~
protomyth
"Columbus looking for new trade routes was radical, but good." - got a lot of
ancestors on my father's side who would disagree.

~~~
obsaysditto
Genocide of the native population wasn't the initial thought I had in mind.

~~~
protomyth
I figured (should have added the smiley) - the naming he chose really is a
(lesser) pain, too.

Although, how radical the idea was pretty dependent on the lost knowledge of
Eratosthenes and the black plague cutting off the Mongol lands.

------
moron4hire
The consistent underlying theme to all of Stallman's writings and musings on
software is "don't make a profit on me". He is an anti-capitalist. That his
views hold so much weight in the tech industry is a testament to the extreme
levels of socialist indoctrination that occurs in universities.

~~~
jolie
You're completely wrong. He wants developers, musicians, anyone who releases
FOSS content to be compensated for their work if they choose.

~~~
moron4hire
He may say he wants them to be compensated, but he never suggests how they
might after decrying their current methods as "evil". Are we supposed to live
on donations? Musicians can get away with charging for concerts (though I
suspect he'd eventually argue that it was depriving the poor of the right to
culture), but software developers have no analogue.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
Red Hat sells their product, despite it being open source. When you buy Red
Hat, you buy support for your product, as well as a guarantee that it works
with a certain set of hardware and has been well tested on that hardware. Red
Hat releases everything as open source, and they don't even make it hard to
reassemble if you want to (see CentOS, which does just that). They could
provide the sources in quite a difficult manner, but they don't. And they
still pull in quite a bit of business.

~~~
moron4hire
To the contrary, Red Hat is the perfect example for why Open Source does NOT
pay. Sure, Red Hat is making money off of OSS, but the thousands of people who
built all of those pieces of software are not. Red Hat can make a living off
of support contracts because they didn't have to pay for the majority of the
development work.

