4 ms·

What is Richard Stallman's stance on the electric utilities?

by delano 18y ago

Herring 18y ago
Yeah, there's a strong economic case for cloud computing. I'm not worried though. If control & source code availability become important, I'm sure people will switch again to the AGPL as they once switched to using GPL. Best part is you can link the two & distribute.
gregwebs 18y ago
There is nothing wrong with centralized models, it is when there is a center that is not open source. Anything that is programmable (multiple times, not write once mediums) should be ran on open source software. The electrical utilities are immorally not sharing the source code that controls them.
ajross 18y ago
Electricity is a commodity. There's no inherent "freedom" lost in paying someone to give it to you, any more than there is for buying your bread from a market instead of growing your own wheat. The proper analogy would be not to electricity in general, but to (in the US) 220V 60Hz two-phase alternating current. What if you could only buy that power format from one vendor, who then decided to increase the price or change the format such that you'd have to replace all your existing electrical hardware or be at their mercy? Then you might feel that your freedom to operate your equipment was being infringed, no?
- delano 18y ago
  Ya, the vendors of alternating current are the electrical utilities. And the issues your talking about happened in the 1880s, between Edison's DC vs Teslas's AC. Obviously 110V AC won (not 220V) and market forces and regulation have kept that standard and the price stable. The point is that if we feel okay paying for electricity as a service, why not computing? Data ownership and security is one reasonable concern but they're not show stoppers.
Agathos 18y ago
If your electric utility is telling you that you can't modify the electricity that enters your home then I think RMS might object. I know I would object if I couldn't convert my AC to DC. My computer wouldn't run!

What is Richard Stallman's stance on the electric utilities?

by delano 18y ago

What is Richard Stallman's stance on the electric utilities?

Yeah, there's a strong economic case for cloud computing. I'm not worried though. If control & source code availability become important, I'm sure people will switch again to the AGPL as they once switched to using GPL. Best part is you can link the two & distribute.

gregwebs 18y ago

There is nothing wrong with centralized models, it is when there is a center that is not open source. Anything that is programmable (multiple times, not write once mediums) should be ran on open source software. The electrical utilities are immorally not sharing the source code that controls them.

ajross 18y ago

Electricity is a commodity. There's no inherent "freedom" lost in paying someone to give it to you, any more than there is for buying your bread from a market instead of growing your own wheat. The proper analogy would be not to electricity in general, but to (in the US) 220V 60Hz two-phase alternating current. What if you could only buy that power format from one vendor, who then decided to increase the price or change the format such that you'd have to replace all your existing electrical hardware or be at their mercy? Then you might feel that your freedom to operate your equipment was being infringed, no?

delano 18y ago
Ya, the vendors of alternating current are the electrical utilities. And the issues your talking about happened in the 1880s, between Edison's DC vs Teslas's AC. Obviously 110V AC won (not 220V) and market forces and regulation have kept that standard and the price stable. The point is that if we feel okay paying for electricity as a service, why not computing? Data ownership and security is one reasonable concern but they're not show stoppers.

Agathos 18y ago

If your electric utility is telling you that you can't modify the electricity that enters your home then I think RMS might object. I know I would object if I couldn't convert my AC to DC. My computer wouldn't run!