In the cloud or earth bound

In recent years there have been migrations of who have decided that online applications are the way to go.

I have my reservations.

Once you decide to rely on another party to store any material created by you, you then lose complete control of which you have created. Let us cast our mind back some years when Microsoft ™ made a comment that in years to come the point of facilities (IE- word processing applications, spreadsheet, collaboration tools, etc.) would be the norm, and that essentially that your computer system would then become (albeit powerful) a dumb terminal. Since that point, services such as Google © & Novell ™ have created cloud environments with all the bells and whistles.

I suppose my IT roots are having a hard time adjusting to this environment because I have always firmly believed that access information is a right, not a permission. Just as I coincide the issue of Microsoft marketing strategy, using a tactic that every system has to be loaded with their operating system(s). This in my view is BS! Yes they have a place in the market but it should be peoples choice what operating systems they wish to use, not be told what can & can't use!

To be fair I admit I use a dual boot environment of both Linux & Windows, where Linux is my primary operating system of choice and Windows is there merely to play games and to facilitate in the aiding of clients who have issues with their own Windows systems.

Now I say these following words purely as opinion and not to be misconceived as an attack on the people themselves.

Bill Gates was not that great a programmer but more of a marketing person. Unfortunately his ideas initially when the group who were developing the operating system initially for IBM, saw him license the code under Intellectual Property allowing the user to operate with the product but sole ownership remained with his company. This has been carried over with Steve Ballmer as well, merely looking at increasing the bottom line.

I have often pondered "what if I created a complete an LCARS (a Star Trek reference operating system compatible with all forms of processor) and merely patented the software, thus allowing for anyone to make system changes (similar to LGPL) they wished as long as the initial code reference remained the same and the modified code was included down the line. How would that affect the behemoths already mentioned? Should I be in the cloud or earth bound? Food for thought.