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

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    > If you host the platform and use it, that isn't SaaS.
    > That is using your own computer.

    So, for you, the line is who is providing the hosting?

Perhaps "host" was the wrong word for me to use.  Sorry
for not being precise.

The question is whether you control the software running on that
server, or whether someone else controls it.  If you control it, it's
ok.  If someone else controls it, you shouldn't do your own computing
in it.

    For me, the problem is more when the underlying IaaS
    isn't free, when the SaaS uses a PaaS which isn't free,

Sorry, I can never remember what IaaS or PaaS mean.
I have seen their definitions, but I forget them a few minutes later.

    or if the software on the SaaS platform isn't free. 

In the case of SaaS, it makes no difference to the users
of the service whether the programs are free.

The reason software should be free is so that the users have
control over their software.  How does that apply to a case of SaaS?

The server operator decides what software to put on the server.
If that software is free, that is good for the server operator.
If that software is nonfree, that is an injustice to the server operator.

But it makes no difference to the users of the service, because they
have no control over the software in the server in either case.
That's why SaaS (more precisely, Service as a Software Substitute) is
always bad.

-- 
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