Re: [to all candidates] Free Software challenges and Debian role
(I still hadn't replied to that question -- I'll do that by following-up
on Moray's reply since I agree with most of it)
On 12/03/13 at 17:11 +0300, Moray Allan wrote:
> [...]
>
> - End-users are moving to web applications/"the cloud". Few of the
> most heavily used ones are free software. Even if they are,
> centralised web applications remove users' ability to modify
> software to their own needs unless they duplicate a large amount of
> infrastructure. And in many cases cloud services reduce users'
> control even over their data itself, not just over the platform. We
> used to have trouble with the network effect of e.g. Microsoft
> Office file formats, but free-of-charge web applications can be even
> worse for free software, since objectors need to argue an
> ideological point to say why they want information in another way,
> rather than only explain that they haven't bought that piece of
> software or that it won't work on their OS.
>
> - Server users are also migrating to "the cloud". In many cases
> this means that their services move to sit on a non-free platform,
> and it often reduces ease of modification even in free parts of the
> platform.
Note that in that case, the cloud is also a great opportunity for us,
since most IaaS clouds users use them with free software. So the Cloud
tends to reinforce the position of libre operating systems for server
OS.
Which brings me to another challenge that was not mentioned by Moray:
the increased "commoditization" of software. Increasingly, free software
becomes one of the building blocks of locked-in or proprietary software
sets. That applies to e.g. Android or to public Clouds, where most of
the infrastructure is based on free software, but where the final user
has no awareness of that.
Lucas
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