The darkside of the cloud.
 

I hope that Linux will keep cloud use as an option only.
The MS world is moving lickity split to a phone-cloud-like dependent PC where you have little of your work in your own possession, your docs are in the cloud. And, software will be an app you must rent- not own.

There is a great potential to control individuals lives by restricting both access and functionality of our machines.

So I hope Linux will not race off into the clouds with MS and Apple.;)

Yes, of course. Linux distributions aimed at people who own hard drives aren't going away any time soon.

I've been hearing the cloud (or similar names) for 25 years.

"Cloud" is a marketing term primarily designed to cloud the perceptions of users for purposes of greater control and profit.

I do not know if they originated the term, but I do clearly remember that my first encounter with it was in an M$ promotion. It was a "New way of thinking..." and afterward I saw many articles discussing M$'s bold new vision...

I also recall rolling my eyes back in my head and thinking. "Great, a return to the timesharing mainframes of the '70s! The Source is back!".

Now, the world is very cloudy...

They will have to pry my hard drive from my cold dead fingers!

My guess is that the term comes from the symbol fro the internet in MS Visio -- that tool much beloved of those who make grand plans for others to fulfil.
I laugh every time I hear of a "cloud" failing but also weep that so many people seem to believe in a meaningless term caused by a marketroid misinterpreting a diagram and thinking that little cloud on it representing the unknown was a good thing.

then you inform people that we already HAD "the cloud"
and had it since the 1970's
it is called
loging in to a remote server

and thin client / server in the office from the 80's
the 8080 on a desk that had 8 in floppys needed the server in the back room

add some new shiny wrapping paper and " presto -- THE CLOUD"

mind you the new iteration has some automatic scripts to spin out VM's as needed
but just fancy wrapping paper



--- added ---
i missed this
and just WHY would i want to store MY files on someone else's server where
I DO NOT HAVE 100% CONTROL OVER THE ENCRYPTION KEYS
and where EVERY Government can ( without a warrant ) can just ask for my files
( please sir may i have some more )

Oddly enough the customer whose contract I work on is going back to thin client so it really is full-circle. I'm not sure how I feel about this other than, teething troubles aside, it may be a little more stable.
However, that isn't my problem with "cloud". My issue with "cloud" is that in salesman speak it means "stored in a distributed cluster like Google have" but in reality it may mean it's stored on a Raspberry Pi in somebody's broom cupboard -- the definition means nothing but the marketing sells to idiots.

This is the nub of it. Vendors in the commercial software world want to move from a purchase model to a license model so they make users pay for same bit of software over and over again for a small monthly fee in perpetuity.

software as service

for the "grandma" that uses MS word twice a year,or so.
renting 1 days worth a few times a year might work out

BUT
that is a very VERY small part of the user base

the same as the comcast 5 gig data cap for a $20 discount
very few people will really save

a thin client would work and save a business $$$
if
they them selves ran the local server room they used
having a room full of EFFICIENT arm servers will beat out a building of i5 on the desk

otherwise
WHO KNOWS the physical location OF your confidential files and under what contrary laws it is
-- if any apply
nsa asks gchb
the brits ask us or the Aussies
the Aussies ask the brits
and they all do this with out the judiciary branches in the mix ( no warrants )


as you can tell it is a bit obvious where my head is with the"darker lining of the cloud"

we here on this side of the pond fought a little war, a while back . One of the reasons was the "British general warrant "
they are slowly coming back here in the USofA

control and profit
 

When your pc gets too old... and parts are not there... you'll have a smartphone pc. And access to your stuff will cost you, maybe,
possibly, including your public affiliations. For increased profit the surrender of liberty is being made for you without a consideration for the broader implications.
We need a smart young person with a Jack Trammel mindset: put computing power into the hands of the average person at an affordable price. We need a micro-computer on ROM chip that boots into a basic, easy to use programming language. Rom to thwart hacks, viruses and trojans. Programming to ignite a generation into creativity. A new architecture not tied into the phone system.

I saw this today and thought it quite timely.

http://www.gocomics.com/jumpstart/2014/12/20

What we really need is for the masses to get their heads of their arses and recognise the danger of storing their data on someone else's equipment. Unfortunately, in today's lazy society convenience supersedes all other factors: security, health, finances and common sense.

There are a lot of smart people doing lots of work on this.
Look at diaspora or movim, both excellent social media networks you can freely install, with guides to do so.

Several new single boards computers (such as rpi) that are extreamly cheap for the computing power you get.

I don't think we need more people working on this kind of stuff (more is always better of course) to solve this problem,
people need to understand that the "default" != the best. Nor is what is advertised the only options.
Yet some literature (like newspapers and online guides) I read goes along with this train of thought.

No matter what the OS can do the hardware will be what the masses are using. I find it impossible to find a small laptop with a big drive. So I had to move to a small drive with a data off the laptop and in a cloud (or on a server) approach. So I now store my most important data on my laptop synced to my own cloud service.

That symbol existed long before Visio. The cloud has been used to show the telco network since the 60's.