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

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    > Is AWS a program, or is it a service?
    > In other words, does Amazon offer you a copy of AWS (a program),
    > or is it a service that you might communicate with thru an API?

    It is, of course, the latter.  It is a service; it is, in fact, a number of
    discrete services.

In that case, it makes no sense to say that AWS is "proprietary".
That concept applies to programs.

      At Eucalyptus, we do our best to provide you with "a
    copy of AWS" -- a local program that provides the same set of services,

Eucalyptus is a program, so it does make sense to say it is free.  But
it's not a "copy" of AWS; there is no such thing as "copying" a
service.  For precision, we should say rather that Eucalyptus
implements a service compatible with AWS.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
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