With Software As a Service,
Is Only the Network Luddite Free?
Bradley M. Kuhn
Saturday 10 September 2011
In The Beginning …
… Then Freedom Eluded Us
Who Invented Licensing?
Some think he did:
As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. … [If] software is something to share … You prevent good software from being written.
- Gates convinces IBM to license rather then acquire DOS.
Who Fixed this Problem?
Who Fixed this Problem?
RMS
MIT AI Lab: The Golden Age
- academic computing.
- software sharing.
- no licenses!
MIT AI Lab
MIT changed.
MIT AI Lab
spin-offs == $$$
GNU
Internet changes little (to start)
Email: The MTA
Yours has freedom: (postfix, exim, sendmail).
Plenty of proprietary ones: (exchange).
RFCs define interoperability.
We protocol-analyze & reimplement RFC-less protocols: (OpenChange).
Email: The MUA
Yours has freedom: (Thunderbird, mutt, Gnus)
Plenty of proprietary ones: (outlook)
The Great Fear: SaaS
SaaS: Software as a Service
True “SaaS” would end software freedom.
Imagine: GCC as an network service.
SaaS == your private computing done elsewhere.
Copyleft proponents all feared this threat.
A New Era of Computing?
Anyone know what this is?
☁
New Era: Cloud Computing?
- Unicode Character ‘CLOUD’ (U+2601)
- Given what this looks like …
- … Unicode committee was omniscient.
☁
Cloud Computing: What changed?
The Browser as application delivery platform.
AJAX.
Whose computing is done where?
Cloud Computing: more complicated than SaaS.
Interesting applications are collaboration.
Email becomes Gmail
“The experience”
Effectively: Thin Client.
Mixes Up Free again: Price vs. Freedom.
RFCs no longer enough.
We’re back to proprietary “lock-in”.
Talk about Obfuscated!
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function da(b,a,c){b=b.split(".");c=c||ea;
!(b[0]in c)&&c.execScript&&c.execScript("var "+b[0]);
for(var d;b.length&&(d=b.shift());)
!b.length&&s(a)?c[d]=a:c=c[d]?c[d]:c[d]={}}
function fa(b,a){for(var c=b.split("."),d=a||ea,f;f=c.shift();)
if(t(d[f]))d=d[f];else return k;return d}function u(){}
function ga(b){b.va=function $(){return b.xY||(b.xY=new b)}}
function ia(b){var a=typeof b;if(a=="object")if(b){
if(b instanceof Array)return"array";else if(b instanceof Object)return a;
var c=Object.prototype.toString.call(b);if(c=="[object Window]")
return"object";if(c=="[object Array]"||typeof b.length=="number"&&
typeof b.splice!="undefined"&&typeof b.propertyIsEnumerable!="undefined"
&&!b.propertyIsEnumerable("splice"))return"array";
if(c=="[object Function]"||typeof b.call!="undefined"&&
typeof b.propertyIsEnumerable!="undefined"&&!b.propertyIsEnumerable("call"))
return"function"}else return"null";
else if(a=="function"&&typeof b.call=="undefined")return"object";return a}function s(b){return b!==i}function ja(b){return b===k}function t(b){return b!=k}function ka(b){return ia(b)=="array"}function la(b){var a=ia(b);return a=="array"||a=="object"&&typeof b.length=="number"}function ma(b){return typeof b=="string"}function na(b){return typeof b=="boolean"}function oa(b){return typeof b=="number"}function pa(b){return ia(b)=="function"}
The Javascript Problem
- Microsoft gets this:
- the platform for future of proprietariness …
- … is already on your computer.
- You might run a software freedom operating system …
- … but how much proprietary runs in your browser?
- Effectively, “Compressed” Javascript is a proprietary binary.
JavaScript is an assembly language. JavaScript + HTML is like a .NET assembly. The browser can execute it, but no human should care what’s there.
— Erik Meijer of Microsoft on 5 July 2011.
Users and “The Cloud”
Users and “The Cloud”
Even Worse Than Proprietary Apps and OS’es
The Bigger Challenge
Not merely a question of code and licensing.
A question of community source+data control.
Power to transport: applications, data, human connections.
Autonomy: of code, of data, of community.
How Do We Start?
Infrastructure that respects freedom.
Empower the user: give them all the code.
Link to your Javascript source repository.
Explain what code runs on server & share that code.
New Code’s Needed, Too
User communities need ability to transplant.
Reclaim your data; relocate your community.
Truly distributed data.
This programming is tough.
Projects to Look At
Run NoScript plugin to at least see what proprietary Javascript you’re getting.
- status.net / identi.ca
- DTRT in this regard for Microblogging
- Follow me there: ‘bkuhn’
- Losing Free Software Community lately to Google Plus
MediaGoblin (replaces Flickr & Picasso)
Jesse Vincent’s Prophet, CouchDB, and other truly decentralized data stores.
License To Look At
GPL is the BSD of Network Service.
Affero GPL.
Extends copyleft to network service world.
Handles the code side well.
Very few applications use AGPL, though!
“Future” of the Cloud
More Info and This Talk’s License
- More Info:
- http://gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html
- Oggcast: faif.us ; Blog: ebb.org/bkuhn/blog
- identi.ca: @bkuhn
Presentation & slides: Copyright © 2008—2011 Bradley M. Kuhn. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-By-SA) 3.0 United States License. 
Some images included herein are ©’ed by others. I believe my use of those images is fair use under USA © law. However, I suggest you remove such images if you redistribute these slides under CC-By-SA.