[Freedombox-discuss] blogging in the FB (was Re: Roadmap Brainstorming)

[Les Orchard]

On 3/18/11 12:31 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> Cloud computing is a buzzword that can mean anything and nothing.  It 
> can mean "computing centralized and virtualized" but I prefer to use 
> it for "web of computers", i.e. the internet as intended: woven 
> together complex enough to be resilient to interruptions.
>
> A pencil can be a tool dangerous to human beings if used cleverly.  
> Similarly with cloud computing.  All things can be used or abused.
>
> FreedomBox is not about avoiding cloud computing, or about tolerating 
> it in public sphere(s).  FreedomBox is about _using_ cloud computing.

+1

This may or may not entirely agree with what you mean, but: I'd like my 
FreedomBox to be my command center for the cloud.

It may itself be a service provider in a web of computers (eg. I run 
Wordpress in my house on port 80). But, I'd also like mine to be a 
private node that orchestrates the use of things like Amazon S3, 
Rackspace, Nearly Free Speech, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

If we someday have a perfect user-owned cloud / mesh of networked 
FreedomBoxes that leaves no need for infrastructure like caching 
intermediaries, proxies, and tunnels, then that will be wonderful.

In the meantime, we can get some incremental and practical improvements 
in control over one's data and privacy by using cheap cloud services. If 
the real power and original data is kept in the user's hands and 
hardware, all the supporting infrastructure can be rendered commoditized 
and fungible. That inversion of the Web 2.0 paradigm, at least, would be 
a huge win.

-- 
l.m.orchard at pobox.com
http://decafbad.com
{web,mad,computer} scientist