rms

Cloud computing trap

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Cloud-computing-concept_nobg
Richard Stallman has spoken out about cloud computing and what he believes is a trap aimed at forcing people to buy into proprietary systems.

Cloud computing is basically where you store data online or run your servers via remote. Millions of people now upload personal data such as emails, photographs and, increasingly, their work, to sites owned by companies such as Google.

Stallman sees cloud computing as nothing more than a sales ploy;

“It’s stupidity. It’s worse than stupidity: it’s a marketing hype campaign,”

“One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control,” he said. “It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.”

                                                                                                                     The Guardian
If we choose to store data online we have to accept that we could lose it at anytime, either through a mistake, hacking or some other disaster.
Insightful and thought provoking stuff from Stallman.

Sahana wins the 2006 social benefit award

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Sahana wins the 2006 social benefit award

Sahana, an entirely volunteer effort to create technology for managing large-scale relief efforts, is the recipient of the 2006 Free Software Foundation Award for Projects of Social Benefit.

Colombo, Sri Lanka and Cambridge, Massachussets—March 26, 2007—Sahana, an entirely volunteer effort to create technology for managing large-scale relief efforts, is the recipient of the 2006 Free Software Foundation Award for Projects of Social Benefit. Sahana was created, in the wake of the tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia in 2004, to compensate for the devastating consequences of a government attempt to manually manage the process of locating victims, distributing aid and coordinating volunteers.

The Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit is presented to a free software project that intentionally and significantly benefits society through collaboration to accomplish an important social task.

Speaking at the award ceremony, the Sahana project leader Chamindra de Silva said, “We are deeply honored to receive this award and were so excited we traveled half way around the world from Sri Lanka to attend the ceremony today. The Sahana project is all about a cohesive disaster response between multiple agencies and bringing them together to help victims. None of this would have been possible without the work of the wider free software community, and we would not have been able to bring benefit to the victims and the people who help the victims without that. It is a credit to the whole community.”

Richard Stallman, President and Founder of the Free Software Foundation, in presenting the award said, “We were inspired to create this award when we heard of the tremendous good the Sahana project was able to achieve through the use of free software. With this award we give recognition to their efforts.”

The founding team, made up of Sri Lankan technology workers, worked around the clock for three days to produce the first release of the software that was quickly adopted by their country’s government. The software resolves common coordination problems that arise during a disaster and thus facilitates the search for missing people, aid and volunteer management, and victim tracking across refugee camps. Read more…

rms birthday 2007

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Chris and Stallman

Sure I look a little odd but I look so happy. The other day it was rms birthday, I sent a Happy birthday email from Wikiversity community, TALO egroup, Learnscope and education network Australia Online and he sends his thanks.

Its great that a computer scientist has such high standard of ethics and morality.

RMS Calls to Liberate Cyberspace

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“Proprietary software is an antisocial practice”.

RMS Calls to Liberate Cyberspace

Henri Poole writes “In an interview with Groklaw’s Sean Daly at GPLv3 Conference in Barcelona, RMS talks with passion about the dangers of DRM. From the article: ‘the point is, we shouldn’t be passive victims! We should decide that it will not happen! And the way we decide that is by activism. We have to do everything possible to make sure that those products are rejected, that they fail, that they give bad reputations to whoever makes them.’ He closed the interview with a far reaching goal for the Free Software Movement: ‘the goal is to liberate everyone in cyberspace.'”