

The Kindness of strangers can defeat proprietary cloud computing - codemechanic
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/kindness_strangers_can_defeat_proprietary_cloud_computing_free_software_solutions

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frossie
Quite an interesting article.

I certainly don't wish to turn my nose at the Cloud, but as this article
points out, there are downsides to everything. The thing that has been
bothering me the most is that for the first time, I have handed someone else
the power to massively waste my time.

Let me explain. If I click "upgrade" on a kubuntu box right now, my KDE 3
turns into KDE 4. If I don't want KDE 4 (I don't like it, or I don't have time
to set up and familiarise myself with a new desktop paradigm) _I can choose
not to push the button_.

If Nintendo go bankrupt tomorrow and disappear off the face of the world, I
can still play Age of Empires on my DS.

As a counterexample, after setting myself a nice little workflow using Google
Notebook, Google decided they didn't care about Notebook anymore. I could not
choose to keep using it. Google had a lovely iPhone specific interface to
their iGoogle portal. I started using it as an RSS reader (something it did
very well). Then Google decided they didn't want to provide it anymore. I
didn't have the choice to keep using it as an old unsupported version; it was
gone. Of course, I have the choice not to use iGoogle, but then I have to
invest time to get used to netvibes, say.

The problem with the cloud is that while it gives you what you want,
everything is rosy; but you have no control over your environment any more. In
a away, free-to-the-user services are worse; when Netflix withdrew its
multiple queue support and its paying customers protested, it brought them
back. As a commercial service they felt they had to pay attention to their
paying customers. When Google takes something away, or fails to improve a
service because they are off on their next shiny-but-soon-to-languish beta,
the user has no leverage at all.

I still like the Cloud; but I am nowhere as gung-ho about moving everything to
it as I once was.

~~~
TomOfTTB
EC2 isn't really like that. Truth be told, one of the few problems I have with
EC2 is the fact that I can't get it upgraded to the newest thing (at least in
Windows)

But other than that I agree. I think I've been pretty consistent in saying I
don't consider services like Google App Engine or Microsoft's Azure usable
unless there's some way to take your program off their servers without
rewriting it.

But again, with EC2 it's just a matter of loading the OS on an actual web
server and copying your app to that.

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richcollins
"They see a useful product, they want it and they are in too much of a hurry
to read the small print"

Or maybe there just aren't alternatives that provide the same value.

