Re: [GNU/consensus] [RFC][SH] User Data Manifesto

[Richard Stallman]

    I'm not a native speaker so sorry I I choose the wrong words. What words do 
you suggest?

I suggest talking about which _actions_ should be under who's control.

    Sure. This documents is targeting every data that is not a program. I think 
freedom in programs are perfectly covered by the FSF principals and the GNU 
licenses.
    This is about holiday pictures, microblogging messages, blog posts, 
personal documents, emails and so on.

Some of these works should be free/libre too.  For instance, if they
are educational resources.

However, if you don't use the word "own", and instead talk about
access to the data, this issue goes away.  It is not a real
substantive issue, just a spurious issue of language.

    >> I guess so, but in the long term, this is aiming low.  The real goal
    >> should be that everyone has a server and keeps her data there.

    Yes. It would be the perfect solution if every user would have a
    personal server. But in the midterm this is not realistic so
    people store their data on server that are owned and run by other
    people. And this is not necessary a problem if the principals of
    this document are respected. Data is encrypted, can be migrated,
    ...

We need to focus on the long term!  To ask for less, because in the
short term we can only get less, is to risk making a temporary
compromise permanent.

Storing data on servers run by someone else is a bad idea!  We should
teach people to worry when they do this.  The company that gets the
data may store it in a server in the US and the NSA will copy all the
data on its way to and from the US.

It's not so bad, if the user encrypts the data before uploading it
and the server has no access to unencrypted mail.  But we need
to talk about this as a compromise.

    >> "Invulnerability" is too strong.  Nobody can achieve that.

    Yes. You are right. This is impossible to achieve. The idea is
    that this is a principal where we should aim for but propbalby
    can't be reached. Do you know what I mean?

Yes, I understand.  I suggest saying it differently; perhaps
"Protect the data from loss".

    >>    8. Server software transparency
    >>    Server software should be free and open source software so that the
    >>    source code of the software can be inspected to confirm that it works 
as
    >>    specified.
    >> 
    >> Please don't use the term "open source" here.  This is part of the
    >> free software movement.  "Open source" is the slogan of people who
    >> disagree with our ethical ideals.

    I'm sorry. My mistake. I will change this to free software.

Thanks.  However, there is an issue of substance here too.

If the server does the users' own computing, that is SaaS,
and it always tramples the user's freedom as explained in
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html.

Not all services are SaaS.  If it doesn't do _the user's own computing_
then it isn't SaaS.

    Do you like the general direction of this document?

Not yet, but with changes maybe I would.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call