Re: [Action Required] glibc decision to use CTI services.

[Alexandre Oliva <oliva@gnu.org>]

On Feb 19, 2024, DJ Delorie <dj@redhat.com> wrote:

> Alexandre Oliva <oliva@gnu.org> writes:
>> Outsourcing an individual's or a group's computing is SaaSS even when
>> using Free Software,

> You just argued that we should all stop using sourceware.org or gnu.org.

Your response just confirms that there's some misunderstanding around
the notion of SaaSS.  You may be confusing it with SaSS.

The services that gnu.org and sourceware.org offer are publishing and
communication, that are not any one party's computing, and that
necessarily involve more than one party.  These are not SaaSS.
See "Distinguishing SaaSS from Other Network Services" on
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html

You may also get a better understanding by reading "When the User Is a
Collective Activity Or an Organization" on the same web page.  It
applies to our case.

> I respect the SaaSS argument, but we have to draw the line somewhere or
> we can't work together at all.  Trust has to be a factor.

The line is drawn, it just needs to be understood and respected.

It has enabled us to work together for a long time.  Currently, we're
not outsourcing our computing, so there's no loss of software freedom,
regardless of whom we trust.

Trust may play a role when it comes to communication and publishing
services, and we have a reasonably trusted party we've all relied on for
a long time.  There's a push to move them to a third party that is not
uniformly better trusted, which is a problem in itself.

But the anathema IMHO is that the plans AFAICT involve outsourcing our
computing.  That would be crossing a line that nobody should cross, and
we, the Free Software movement, as the reference in this issue, must be
the change we wish to see in the world, not seek ways to compromise.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, happy hacker                    https://FSFLA.org/blogs/lxo/
   Free Software Activist                           GNU Toolchain Engineer
Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but
very few check the facts.  Think Assange & Stallman.  The empires strike back