Richard Stallman on cloud computing: "It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign." Photograph: www.stallman.org

「真是愚蠢，簡直是愚蠢之極：簡直就是一場說得天花亂墜的營銷宣傳」，Richard Stallman這樣評價雲端運算。

The concept of using web-based programs like Google's Gmail is "worse than stupidity", according to a leading advocate of free software.

以自由軟體的理念來看，利用像google的gmail，這樣基於web的程序的想法愚蠢之極。

Cloud computing – where IT power is delivered over the internet as you need it, rather than drawn from a desktop computer – has gained currency in recent years. Large internet and technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon are pushing forward their plans to deliver information and software over the net.

雲端運算——你所需要的IT之力來自網際網路，而不是汲取自桌面電腦，在近幾年發展很快，大量的網際網路和新技術企業，包括google、微軟和亞馬遜都將他們的計劃擴展到這一領域。

But Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.

但是， Richard Stallman指出，雲端運算只不過是一個陷阱，旨在迫使更多的人花費更多的時間購買固定的私有系統。

"It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign," he told The Guardian.

「真是愚蠢，簡直是愚蠢之極：簡直就是一場說得天花亂墜的營銷宣傳」，Richard Stallman這樣告訴他的擁護者。

"Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true."

有人說這是不可避免的，而且，每當你聽到有人說起，就像一場商業營銷使之變成現實。

The 55-year-old New Yorker said that computer users should be keen to keep their information in their own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party.

一個55歲的紐約客說到，計算機使用者應當把自己的資訊掌握在自己手裡，而不是交給第三方來保管。

His comments echo those made last week by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, who criticised the rash of cloud computing announcements as "fashion-driven" and "complete gibberish".

他的評論正好呼應了Larry Ellison在上個禮拜對雲端運算的評價，這位甲骨文的創始人批評雲端運算的瘋狂發展是「趕時髦」和「純屬胡扯」。

"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do," he said. "The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"

他說：「關於雲端運算，有意義的是現在我們把我們現在所做的事都定義為雲端運算，計算機工業是唯一一個比女性時裝更時髦的行業，也許我是個白痴，但是我不理解每個人都在討論它什麼。它到底是什麼？純粹是胡扯，簡直是痴人說夢。這種白痴的行徑何時才會終止呢？」

The growing number of people storing information on internet-accessible servers rather than on their own machines, has become a core part of the rise of Web 2.0 applications. Millions of people now upload personal data such as emails, photographs and, increasingly, their work, to sites owned by companies such as Google.

越來越多的人將資訊存儲到氾濫的網絡服務器上而不是自己的機器上，這構成了web2.0應用的一個核心增長點。數以萬計的人們將自己的email、照片、和作品等個人資訊上傳到網絡站點，這些站點歸商業公司所有，像google。

Computer manufacturer Dell recently even tried to trademark the term "cloud computing", although its application was refused.

計算機製造商DELL最近嘗試將「cloud computing」註冊為商標，但是沒能如願。

But there has been growing concern that mainstream adoption of cloud computing could present a mixture of privacy and ownership issues, with users potentially being locked out of their own files.

隨著雲端運算日漸成為主流，人們開始逐漸對參雜著個人隱私和檔案所有權的問題擔憂，因為使用者對自己的檔案存在著潛在的拒絕訪問。

Stallman, who is a staunch privacy advocate, advised users to stay local and stick with their own computers.

Stallman 一個忠實的保護隱私的擁護者，建議使用者使用自己(本地端)的計算機。

"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."