Re: Please let's not talk about "clouds"

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    > That makes no difference to the ethics of the service.  Even if the
    > programs are released as free software in whichever way you like, the
    > users of the service have no control over what that server does.

    And so with any shared hosting solution, even those running exclusively
    with free software.

If you mean remote server rental, that's a different issue entirely.

When you rent a remote physical server, you generally have full
control over the software running on it, so it's ok.  With a virtual
server, you have control over most of the software running on it, and
maybe you have control over all of that software.  If so, it's ok.

However, as a user of SaaS, you don't have any control over the software
running on the server which does your computing.

Thus, these two scenarios (SaaS and virtual machine rental)
are as different as can be.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call