On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Richard Stallman <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Now I know what you are referring to. This is remote virtual > computer > > rental. > > No. Cloud IaaS is very different from just "virtual computer". > > I said "remote virtual computer rental", not just "virtual computer". > > If what you're talking about is different from remote virtual computer > rental, then I don't understand clearly. What, concretely, is the > difference? > > > Ethically it is a totally different issue from SaaS. > > In both cases, you rely on the underlying installed things by the > provider. > > I don't think that is inherently a problem. Not that as such. > > > What does "proprietary" mean in the context of remote virtual server > > rental? > > We don't have the source code of AWS or Azure. But we do have the > source > code for OpenStack > > Is AWS a program, or is it a service? > In other words, does Amazon offer you a copy of AWS (a program), > or is it a service that you might communicate with thru an API? > It is, of course, the latter. It is a service; it is, in fact, a number of discrete services. At Eucalyptus, we do our best to provide you with "a copy of AWS" -- a local program that provides the same set of services, using the same APIs with the best fidelity we can manage, as free software. > It is a category error to describe a service as "proprietary" (or as > "free"). If AWS is a service, then it isn't proprietary, and it isn't > free. > > IaaS clouds have very rich APIs and a huge amount of features. > > When you call something a "cloud", you confuse it with many other > things; as a result, I have no idea what it really is. I will replace > "cloud" with "thingumajig". It conveys the same concrete information > (none at all), but has the virtue of being honest about conveying no > information. > > What sort of things are these APIs used to do? Some of them might be > SaaSS -- it depends on the substance of what they do. > > Also, remember that you can rent a "private IaaS cloud" from these > providers using OpenStack. > > I don't know what a private IaaS thingumajig is. > Not sure if you are pressing this point in a Socratic method to force clarity -- but I find the NIST definitions of "cloud" helpful here, as they provide concrete terminology for study/debate: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf They break "cloud computing" down into "essential characteristics" and "service models". The "essential characteristics": * On-demand self service of resources (give me a VM pls); * Broad network access (can be accessed from anywhere and any device); * Resource pooling (plug in lots of boxes and get VMs from any of them, transparently); * Rapid elasticity (I want one VM. No, five! No, ten! No, back to one); * Measured service (who used these 100 VMs?) There are, naturally, many models that can satisfy these characteristics. Amazon does so strictly as a service, the guts of which they do not share ("public IaaS"); Eucalyptus provides it as free software that you can host yourself ("private IaaS"). I agree; the terminology tends to be confusing and full of marketing-isms. I personally am satisfied that we at Eucalyptus are trying to do the right thing -- i.e. provide freedom and choice for users who have attached themselves to the AWS service model. --g -- Greg DeKoenigsberg, Eucalyptus Build your own AWS-compatible cloud in 30 minutes: http://eucalyptus.com/faststart
