Stallman on SaaS [video]

http://mashable.com/2010/06/09/stallman-on-saas/

by jolie • 16 years ago

24 33 16 years ago

mgrouchy• 16 years ago

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.

joe_the_user• 16 years ago

He isn't phrasing it in contemporary terms.

But I think the issues around Facebook and the iPhone show the rising walled-garden environments we see today have serious issues concerning one's control of one's data.

rimantas• 16 years ago

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.

obsaysditto2• 16 years ago

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.

alextgordon• 16 years ago

You're not supposed take Stallman's claims at face value. His vision is unimportant, what matters is his effect on the world.

The FSF exists to provide balance: remember we have companies radically promoting proprietary software, we just don't notice it because that's what companies normally do. The FSF promoting free software seems a little odd because they're not a company and the software is free, however it's not really any different.

There's absolutely no chance of proprietary software disappearing (at least in capitalist countries), but without Stallman free software might have been much less popular.

orblivion4• 16 years ago

I feel the same way. As crazy as people like him are, if he weren't there being all crazy, we probably wouldn't have as much software freedom as we do.

adamdecaf• 16 years ago

Video: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Stallman_...

mukyu• 16 years ago

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...

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

papachito3• 16 years ago

Here is his full opinion on SaaS http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-se...

mattw2• 16 years ago

Thanks for the link. What I take away from it is that Stallman's full opinion on SaaS is internally inconsistent, either that or I am completely misunderstanding him. The "Distinguishing SaaS from Other Network Services" section was exceptionally incoherent; here's one quote:

> Multiplayer games are a group activity carried out on someone else's server, which makes them SaaS. But where the data involved is just the state of play and the score, the worst wrong the operator might commit is favoritism. You might well ignore that risk, since it seems unlikely and very little is at stake. On the other hand, when the game becomes more than just a game, the issue changes.

So, SaaS is okay so long as the "risks" are sufficiently small? Who defines that risk, me? So that makes it okay for me to use Google Docs, since I deem the risk of Google doing something evil with my documents to be small? (Well, no, because Stallman explicitly calls out Docs as unacceptable. So I guess I better not use that.)

Or from the conclusion:

> Don't buy or install “thin clients”, which are simply computers so weak they make you do the real work on a server, unless you're going to use them with your server.

...thus violating the "essential freedoms" of anyone who uses your thin clients?

This is (one of the reasons) why it's so hard to take Stallman and his "four essential freedoms" seriously.

jpablo2• 16 years ago

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.

orblivion4• 16 years ago

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.

orblivion4• 16 years ago

This leads me to think that Free Software, while a good, ambiguous ideal, can't be made into a strict moral system because it's impossible.

Stallman is right on both counts. Software running on another computer isn't unfree to you, you just have to be careful what you send to it. And, there's really no difference between that and having a server running proprietary software in your living room. Or on a guest user account on the same computer. Really if you treat proprietary software as a dangerous black box it's no different from interacting with the outside world. So, unless you never send data to the outside world, you can't reach the ideal.

naner• 16 years ago

This is correct. O'Reilly kept harping on this issue whenever he talked to RMS but I don't think RMS could intuit the future as well as Tim could.

JarekS• 16 years ago

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?

thunk2• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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.

thunk2• 16 years ago

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

moron4hire3• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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

cemerick• 16 years ago

Regardless of Stallman's preferences, it doesn't seem like that's panning out very well.

Fortunes are made every day by people and companies using OSS, but so rare is the open-source millionaire (or even sole operator eeking out a living) that they're largely exceptions that prove the rule.

So, keeping software proprietary isn't strictly necessary for making money, but the correlation is so strong as to make any alternative interpretation moot.

moron4hire3• 16 years ago

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.

papachito3• 16 years ago

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

motters• 16 years ago

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.

Stallman on SaaS [video]

Related Stories