RMS & SaaS
Latest update:
Somehow I've missed this jolly good piece from RMS:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html
I think he's finally reached the point where his logical analysis has
levelled off w/ deep medieval theological insights. Go read it, it's
hilarious.
To distinguish a pure "communication" server from an atrocious SaaSS
we ought to leave out a few non-essential details: by definition every
network server that (a) has a network card & (b) its OS has a working
TCP/IP stack, performs a "computing" for us, merely via parsing our
requests & generating responses.
But never us mind. Suppose we attach ourselves, for a moment, to RMS's
doctrine, pretend to be convinced by RMS's arguments, pine for a union
w/ the only true Church of GNU & re-examine several valid examples of
the network services that he touches w/ his divine grace.
If we write a comment to some blog post & (perhaps coincidentally)
inject <script><alert>Hi, Mom!</alert></script> string alongside
it, then the blog software is forced to perform "a computing" on
our behalf via removing such an evil peace of JS code from the
comment. Has DW suddenly not become the SaaSS in this case?
If we upload a photo to an image hosting provider (IHP) that
doesn't have any fancy filters that presumably make a person on the
photo look more "attractive", then we're not using a SaaSS
(yet). Righty-oh! But what if the very same IHP sees that the orig
photo has a huge resolution, hence IHP decides that it's rather
prudent to make a humble thumbnail from it. Has it not immediately
become the SaaSS then?
If we host a CI server & advertise it as a handy CI solution for
any GNU project, than it (again, according to RMS)
absolutely "will not be SaaSS". Why? Because RMS says so. But
"If individual users use it for CI for their own non-GNU projects,
that would be SaaSS." E.g., it's fine for a server to perform "a
computing" when it does it for a Good Cause (== GNU), but it's a
mortal sin to "compute" or, heaven forbid, to use the results of
such a "computing" for anything else.
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Tags: ойті
Authors: ag