Bob Mottram 🔧 ☕ ✅Dec 5, 2018
I think this is a near term threat for Software Freedom, and not one which many people are thinking about.

The threat is a return to mainframe computing. Giant server warehouses and very dumb clients with minimal local electronics which can be mass produced at minimal cost for the next billion.

In the demo they're running a game, but all the compute is happening in an Android VM in an Amazon warehouse. When you think about it, it's perfect disempowerment of the user, suitable for all kinds of unfreedom.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/sG-eHDBu3h4
android_in_cloud.jpg
Show threadTomas SA2TMSDec 5, 2018
@bob But you can just as well run this stuff on your own machine. Running it on Amazon's hardware is just work specialization (putting more money going into Bezos' pockets aside)

"Cloud gaming" has been attempted before, and latency tends to kill it. But that said, this is why the AGPL and possibly the SSPL are important. This is already a concern on the Web, as @vertigo points out.
Show threadBob Mottram 🔧 ☕ ✅Dec 5, 2018
@tomas @vertigo

It is, and the evolution from what we have now will be that you don't need an operating system on your phone or laptop-like-thing. You only need some receiver electronics to link to the remote computer. The end point cost goes down and battery life goes up, but you no longer have even potential control of your computing.
Show threadVertigo

@bob @tomas Yep. 5G networking intends to provide yet more bandwidth (how it deals with latency is an open question), so this is only going to get worse with time.

Though our levels of pessimisim may differ, we are in broad agreement. The age of utility computing (as foreseen by GE and the Multics project) are truly upon us at last.

Dec 5, 2018 at 6:03pmWeb
Show thread@hDec 5, 2018

@vertigo Glass full view: faster bandwidth paired with supercomputer-carrying users renders servers redundant.

Provided that you run the right software.

@bob @tomas