Tim Almond

From The Guardian

But Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.

The thing is, Stallman’s dead wrong about this. They are not locked in any way that I can see. Each one has a simple exit strategy. I’ve seen Microsoft’s new offering for “cloud” data storage, and it’s based on the open REST and SOAP protocols. Amazon’s SimpleDB uses REST, SOAP and Bittorrent. These are all well defined, open protocols. Google Mail is HTTP, but you can also easily enable POP email and IMAP and get your mail out at any time. The whole point of the “cloud” databases is precisely that they’re easy, that every developer can easily build their programs to work with them.

The key thing is not open source software, but open protocols. This gives you an exit strategy with your data. It means that if someone doesn’t deliver a good service, you can take it all out and ship it elsewhere.

Tags: Software Development //