Stallman on cloud computing: Run, it's a trap!
"One reason you should not use Web applications to do your computing is that you lose control" of the email, photos and other data in your account, GNU founder Richard Stallman told the Guardian's website. "We've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do ... it's a marketing hype campaign" designed to ensare people into becoming locked-in customers of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or whoever else holds their hard-to-transfer digital property. Don't you just hate it when Stallman's right? But his proposed alternative — "Do your own computing on your own computer" — is about as likely as getting people to churn their own butter. (Photo by Paolo Colonnello)