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

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    > It is a category error to describe a service as "proprietary" (or as
    > "free").  If AWS is a service, then it isn't proprietary, and it isn't
    > free.

    Probably, in your view. Though I still prefer to use Linux, Apache, PHP
    and MySQL,

You must mean the GNU/Linux system.  Since it is more our work than
Mr Torvalds', would you please give us equal mention when you talk
about it?

    rather than Windows, IIS, ASP.net and MSSQL.

I too prefer GNU/Linux and other free programs -- but how does this
relate to the question of AWS?  I thought Debian was making images to
support running Debian GNU/Linux on AWS.

    Now, let's imagine I rent 10 physical servers from a provider, and ask
    him to install and maintain OpenStack on it for me, then I use the
    service using the OpenStack API. Even that is a remote service, don't
    you think that's much much more free than what AWS does?

Ir you rent physical servers, and they run OpenStack for you, maybe
they will run your own copy of OpenStack, etc.  Then that level is
under your control.

On the other hand, if we imagine that a company (Omazon?) offers to
rent you VMs working with _their_ version of OpenStack, then you don't
get any more control over the virtual platform with them than you get
with AWS.

Thus, whether the program is available as free software
is only part of the question.


-- 
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