Gmail is "worse than stupidity"

Gmail is "worse than stupidity"

Ah, I’m sure that catchy title has your attention. The more in depth title is “Gmail is worse than stupidity OR Cloud computing is a trap”. Or, so says GNU founder Richard Stallman.

The concept of using web-based programs like Google’s Gmail is “worse than stupidity”, according to a leading advocate of free software.
Cloud computing – where IT power is delivered over the internet as you need it, rather than drawn from a desktop computer – has gained currency in recent years. Large internet and technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon are pushing forward their plans to deliver information and software over the net.
But Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.
“It’s stupidity. It’s worse than stupidity: it’s a marketing hype campaign,” he told The Guardian.
“Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it’s very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true.”

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman
P.S. On a related note, check out:
The Google Master Plan: Comedy, Conspiracy, or Correct?

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One Response

  1. These cloud computing power houses have a better track record of security than the UK government. How many UK government related organisations and companies have “lost” hard disks in the last 18 months? Seems that every couple of months now an organisation owns up to losing critical information.

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