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from the free-to-do-what-you-want-with-it dept.
http://steveburge.com/blog/open-source-communities-are-asking-the-wrong-questions/
Just a random blog, but what caught my eye is seeing someone in the "open source" movement (not "free software" since that term isn't used anymore) noticing how big corporations are exploiting "open source" to build their walled gardens. He did not mention the Chromebook, which uses Linux to create something that is the opposite of everything free software stands for, a computer where you can't even save files locally. I've been pointing out for years how Apple, Google, and others are making their billions by exploiting "open source", to create something that is the opposite of everything the hacker ethos is about with closed hardware, walled gardens, and devices that are not general purpose. I'm not sure anyone cares about the hacker ethos these days, but at least someone has a glimmer that something is wrong.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Slartibartfast on Friday September 18 2015, @03:07PM
Yeah... reading it, it really struck me as someone who was angry about something, but hadn't really investigated what they were angry *about*. The thing I find most fascinating is that we've passed the inflection point, and nobody seems to have noticed. Just a mere decade ago, places like the Alexis de Toqueville Institution (now gone, thank the gods) were mounting an active assault on "Open Sores Software" (their words), and attempting to paint Linus as a master, Machiavellian schemer and thief of copyrighted material. And there was no guarantee that Linux, or Open Source, would prevail. Those days are *GONE*.
Netflix, Amazon, Google, Comcast, IBM, HP -- a few of the companies that have tied their futures to Open Source.
MySQL, MongoDB, Openstack, Linux itself, Hadoop, Elasticsearch -- a few of the software projects that receive huge amounts of code written by corporations.
FOSS has completely changed the face of modern corporations, and computing itself (e.g., "the cloud"). And while there are certainly things to be wary of, that's true any time, and all the time. If anything, now is a time to rejoice at how awesome FOSS is, and how extensive its reach. It would literally be impossible for it to be removed from today's computing landscape. And as someone who works with FOSS, I find that incredibly gratifying.
(Score: 1) by Pino P on Friday September 18 2015, @04:15PM
FOSS has completely changed the face of modern corporations, and computing itself (e.g., "the cloud").
In a way, "the cloud" has the potential to be even worse for users' freedom. A user of software on someone else's computer has no access to the software that he's using, unless it's under a license such as AGPL that specifically addresses this issue. Nor does he even have access to the data that is associated with his account, unless the software implements some sort of "takeout" feature. And even then, the user has no way to ensure that the data in "takeout" is complete or that the user can completely remove his data from someone else's computer. Richard Stallman wrote an article about this titled Who does that server really serve? [gnu.org]
(Score: 1) by Slartibartfast on Friday September 18 2015, @05:08PM
You start out your comment with the words, "in a way." And, of course, you're right -- and wrong -- and your argument is completely beside the point. Any tool can be used for good or ill. That does not, however, reflect on the tool, but on the user thereof. The cloud is an awesome way to leverage resources, improve the environment (really -- good cloud management leads to much less waste), and all sorts of other benefits. It's also centralized, which could definitely be abused. Which is why there are projects out there to allow tenants to have encryption all over the place -- which, really, is the single best way to defeat Big Brother, regardless of where your data resides.
And none of this reflects on how free software is being used or not.
As for "who does that server really serve," while that's a fine question, it, also, is completely beside the point of the discussion at-hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 18 2015, @05:43PM
The problem is that many of these 'cloud' [gnu.org] companies rely on the ignorance of users and mine all their data, rather than making it easy for them to encrypt everything locally so their data can actually be more secure. These services *will* abuse users (just like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, and countless other companies do for their own benefit), and that's just being realistic.