GNU founder Richard Stallman: Using Google ChromeOS is "worse than stupidity."

[Speck Tater]

Google's ChromeOS means losing control of data, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman

Google's new cloud computing ChromeOS looks like a plan "to push people into careless computing" by forcing them to store their data in the cloud rather than on machines directly under their control, warns Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the operating system GNU.

Two years ago Stallman, a computing veteran who is a strong advocate of free software via his Free Software Foundation, warned that making extensive use of cloud computing was "worse than stupidity" because it meant a loss of control of data.
...
More at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/dec/14/chrome-os-richard-stallman-warning

[Kaleko]

1. Not using chrome, but K & R for those who do.

[druidity33]

2. thought about trying it...

but Google has been scaring me lately...

long arms and all.

:(

K&R.

[Kaleko]

4. Is it the consenus then that Google has joined the evile Big Brother brigades as well?

[L0oniX]

3. I only use it to test html. I use all browsers to test but only FF for myself.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. He's talking about the operating system (still in beta)

Not the browser.

We should certainly continue to test our code in all popular browsers. :-)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Sort of an odd position for a guy who's mantra has been "Data wants to be free"

However, he has a point. If its not stored and backed up locally, you are going to have to trust someome.

[cbdo2007]

6. While he does have some points - it's not like you are transferring ownership of your data to Google

They just store it on their servers rather than on your machine at home which will probably fail every 1.5 years. Their servers are backed up constantly.

I'm not completely sold on the "cloud computing" yet but it is definitely interesting and I did sign up for one of the Chrome beta testing notebooks, so we'll see how that goes.

You just need SOME way to access your data if Google gets destroyed or if you can't get internet connection but I'm sure this is all a work in progress while they figure this stuff out.

[The Straight Story]

8. My biggest problem with it (and we do use it to some extent where I work now)

Is the security angle. Sensitive company data sitting in someone else's data center where others have access to it.

When I ran Chase's Ohio data centers we had very strict guidelines on who could even walk into the center, we controlled the access, etc and so on - I cannot imagine we would have dumped tons of customer data into a building we had never seen, had no idea where it existed, and could lose access to it if we did not pay a bill on time.

For small companies or individuals I don't see an issue (and many already operate this way using web sites that are hosted along with the data bases and such) but I don't see the big money companies using it.

Where I work now we use a ticketing/tracking/sales system that is in the cloud, but our core data bases stay out of it.

[negativenihil]

9. READ THIS Chrome the web browser and ChromeOS...

...aren't exactly the same thing.

ChromeOS is built around the core of the Chrome web browser. Stallman is ranting against ChromeOS, which does in fact keep all your data "in the cloud". There's some serious confusion here with some of the replied, but the Chrome web browser is keeping data locally on your system.

edited to add - Stallman can be a bit of a dink btw...