"Web-based programs like Google's Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner" Read more herehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman .
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 9:30 AM, Vikram Vincent vincentvikram@gmail.com wrote:
I can certainly agree what giving away one's data to a third party agency for storage and protection is not always wise.
Just yesterday at work, I had a discussion (status check, actually) with my senior colleague on how we're going to move away from Lotus Notes and Domino, and move to Kolab for our email needs. We've got started some weeks ago with understanding how Kolab works and are busy fixing and testing issues with Kolab and various IMAP and non-IMAP capable mail clients. Our top fixes are focussed on X.509 security issues.
We have used Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino for years. Most of our users have detested the Lotus Notes interface. The Lotus Domino sever is extremely stable, scalable and managable, but we now feel the need to have mail stored in a format that will not be tied by with any specific company's closed technology. Also, we've had issues with email client interoperability with Lotus Domino.
We've evaluated Kolab, Scalix, Zimbra, and Zarafa. The enterprise grade features of all except Kolab costs thousands of dollars per year for us - a trap that we don't want to fall into. Kolab is what we've selected, and our patches and fixes will all go upstream. There's nothing to showcase to anyone right now, because all progress is still in terms of exploring, understanding and configuring.
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 6:00 AM, Vikram Vincent vincentvikram@gmail.com wrote:
Not a troll. But just curious. Wasn't AGPL created for Web applications?? If yes, why this dual stand? Also, now how many of the "free" software activists can afford to have their own mail servers setup? So everybody must stop using email? May be not even google search because thats also a web application IMO and one must have ones own version of Search running on his/her own computer.
I am really curious after this comment.
I make it a point again, this is not a troll and looking forward for clarifications.
Regards, Aanjhan
2008/10/2 Aanjhan R aanjhan@gmail.com:
hmm I should seriously start using thunderbird for gmail, so that all my eggs are not in the same basket.
There is two things in this.
1) The software itself - which AGPL tries to address 2) The actual data and privacy concerns
RMS has been an advocate of privacy for a long time and I don't see any thing new in his position.
The problem here is people depending more and more on data on some one else's computer. Not just for mails, but for documents, personal data on the social networks...
There is an interesting discussion going on in ilugd list and one of the comment I would like to mention here.
It was Iran going on a virtual stand still when US government banned all US companies from operating in Iran since it was depending on Microsoft software. Now they are on GNU/Linux. Now think about a case if US does that to India, say when we do a nuclear test in future and google is banned to work in India.
It is a serious concern.
hmm I should seriously start using thunderbird for gmail, so that all my eggs are not in the same basket.
The point is not about using a client/webmail it is about using GMail.
IMO, Google would not do anything to screw up the reputation that they've oh-so-carefully built in the past decade. It will be ridiculous if it was expected of each and every person to host a server. I agree that privacy is not guaranteed when you use such services but these are risks that are inevitable.
Regards, -Aswin.
"Aswin M. Sahadevan" aswinms@gmail.com wrote:
Why not encrypt, wherever possible, wherever you're concerned about privacy? SMTP itself is not designed with privacy or authenticity as the greatest concerns (presumably because of separation of mechanisms and policies yada yada). That's how PGP and GnuPG came to be, true?
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"Sankarshan (সঙ্কর্ষণ)" -
Aanjhan R -
Aswin M. Sahadevan -
Praveen A -
Sajith T S -
Sriram Narayanan -
Vikram Vincent