> Software that can be freely accessed, redistributed, and modified can be the basis of a successful business. and later: > SaaS The initial intent of "Softw

> Software that can be freely accessed, redistributed, and modified can be the basis of a successful business. and later: > SaaS The initial intent of "Software that can be freely accessed, redistributed, and modified" was to limit the control the distributor had on the end user (At that time, the question of service providers running software for you wasn't so relevant). Although SaaS can certainly be more user-friendly and convenient, it still takes away some control from the end user ... to give it back to the service provider. Actually, the man who coined the word "Open-Source" does not like Saas very much: "In general, I don’t allow myself to rely on such services. And I have a rule: unless I can get all my data back through some sort of export or dump function in a non-obfuscated format, I won’t go there. I recommend this rule to others as well." ( Eric.S.Raymond, http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=932 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=932 )