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Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4
From: |
Richard Stallman |
Subject: |
Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4 |
Date: |
Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:32:37 -0500 |
It can become even more fuzzy as the instruments used for
observation combine both measurement and computation. These
devices are almost exclusively proprietary and expensive, so labs
must send genetic material to a company which performs the
measurement and computation, thus SaaS, for them. Doesn't sound
very much like freedom does it?
I am not sure. Correct me if I have misunderstood, but I think the
company is doing a physical measurement and then analyzing it,
providing the analyzed result. It seems that the computing is
ancillary to the measurement itself. If so, I would not say it is
SaaS.
An argument might be made that this scientific data should be free
anyways, except it can put a person's individual liberty at
risk. What if that DNA was your own?
I don't think your DNA data should be public, but these two issues are
separate ones.
So while I agree with some of the basic tenants of your SaaS
essay, I feel the broad statements of "Don't use SaaS!" and "this
is always bad" inhibits scientific progress.
When a practice that denies people freedom becomes widely accepted,
several phenomena put more pressure on people to follow it. (One is
the network effect.) Thus, if we resist it, we will less often find
we are pressured to do it.
--
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 free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, (continued)
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Riccardo Mottola, 2011/11/03
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Richard Stallman, 2011/11/05
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Ivan Vučica, 2011/11/05
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Richard Stallman, 2011/11/06
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Pirmin Braun, 2011/11/06
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Richard Stallman, 2011/11/06
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Pirmin Braun, 2011/11/07
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Maarten Sander, 2011/11/07
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Richard Stallman, 2011/11/07
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Scott Christley, 2011/11/06
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4,
Richard Stallman <=
- Re: ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Scott Christley, 2011/11/15
- Re: [gap-discuss] ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Riccardo Mottola, 2011/11/07
- Re: [gap-discuss] ANN: DataBasin 0.4, Richard Stallman, 2011/11/07