Richard Stallman:

I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there’s a sucker born every minute.

(“careless computing” is Richard’s stupid replacement term for cloud computing).

This seems incredibly naive. People will continue moving towards cloud computing because:

  1. installing apps breaks computers1
  2. cloud data is available from anywhere, not just your home computer

#2 is difficult to combat (you need infrastructure, not just software). But #1 is a long-running failing of the software industry. Modern smartphones are doing well in this space, but desktop systems are still failing miserably.

I hope this is something that zero install’s ebox might make popular, although it’s a pretty big challenge.

  1. No, installing apps does not often break computers. But “not often” and “not ever” are worlds apart - particularly for computer-illiterate users, who often end up superstitiously mistrustful and scared of their own computer because of such breakages. ↩