Re: gtranslate.el --- google translation

[Andreas Röhler]

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     Here is my first contribution to the open-source world, and first 
> meaningful chunk of emacs-lisp! :-)
> 
> Thanks for contributing to Emacs -- but please don't refer to our
> community with the term "open-source".  That is an amoral approach to
> the issue, and we disagree with it.  What we do is called "free software".
> 
> (Your name looks French; in French it is called « logiciel libre ».)
> 
> Google translation suffers from a problem: it is Software as a
> Service.  I'm writing an article about why that is a bad thing for
> users' freedom.
> 
> 


Hi,

Software as a Service here is a misleading term IMHO, even if used by many.
Google doesn't deliver any peace of software,
while doing translations via its API.

You don't get Software as a Service here, the service it does, is just not 
delivering software. As
the name says, software is a ware, something you may
buy, a value. Seems useful to discriminate between
distribution of a possible ware or providing a service,
which may but must not be done with computers.

Precisely the user sends a peace of text and gets back
a peace of text. That's a plain translation-service,
whoever it did.

The problem with this kind of SaaS is, that it isn't
SaaS, because you don't get the Software as a Service,
it's hidden from you, the term is deceiving...

Behind it's API a huge amount of knowledge is
collected. A monopoly of knowledge is a danger for all
others. So far I'm well concerned too and looking
forward for your article.

Best regards,

Andreas