>>>>>>So how does .NET differ from, say, VFP ?
>>>>>It's in the philosophy of application. Either local compute, storage, communication, or remote.
>>>>So how do they differ ?
>>>>The same choices are available for both platforms.
>>>Look ahead, Viv. It's in .NET's design. If you can't see it ... I can't help you.
>>
>>Why not?
>
>It's one of those things you either see and understand, or not.
>
>FWIW, in my limited scope of acquaintances and online blogs/articles
>I've read, I haven't met anyone outside of the FLOSS camps who sees it.
>It's like each person is either able to see it, or not. And if they are, they're
>probably already doing something about it with the focus of their life (such
>as contributing to FLOSS). If they aren't ... I don' t know, maybe they never
>will. Maybe the light bulb will illuminate someday.


Also, Viv, I wasn't trying to talk down to you. I apologize if it came across that way. It was honestly my best answer.

To expand further:
It's just "the plan" in going forward at Microsoft. .NET is about moving things into Windows Azure-esque server farms where you, the business, the developer, lose all control over compute and data isolation, and even over basic things like the validity of signing something, or in being able to trust that your executing environment as reported through software APIs is really the underlying executing environment, or in anything really. You just don't know, because it's out of your control, out of your ability to go and touch the machine, and pull out the hard drive, and examine it physically and literally. And in such a case, and under such a host of unknowns, so long as that line going from the local machine you have drawn on a whiteboard, goes up to "the cloud" you have also drawn on the whiteboard, and returns the seemingly correct information each time you query it ... how would you ever know? The API is being handled remotely. I can give you some debugger extensions today that will attach to specific Windows 32 API functions to make your software report it's running Linux Mint 14.

Data processing should not be handled on a remote platform that a person can't physically walk in to at their leisure, unannounced, and say "I'm here to work on MY machine". And there should never be any fee-for-service server farms with mechanisms dedicated exclusively to supporting a platform like Azure which can automatically scale up/down/in/out to all of the machines there if need be, or to other locations, or to other cities, or to other countries ... etc. That kind of migration, while a wonderful feature of technology ... is horrid. It's dangerous to everything related to anything of integrity.

Too much is lost by handing everything over. It places each company in the position of trusting that what they say they're going to do, they're going to do. And with the way this world is moving ... well ask the people who lost their retirement accounts, or the million people in Afghanistan and Iraq if our (The U.S.'s, of which Microsoft, Google, Apple are all U.S. companies) olive branch hand of peace has proven itself welcomed?

Evil things are at work in this world. Microsoft's .NET and Azure platforms are another one.

It would be better to have similar abilities, and keep everything under your own control, in your own server shops, or co-los where you can walk in, and you do have the key, and things are physically isolated from anybody's ability to touch the machine, except through hacking. But I don't see that "freedom" lasting for long in this nation. Something is going to happen publicly which makes it then mandatory due to the disruption of business, or loss of a community service, or (Heaven forbid) a great loss of life, or even such that a new "best practices" "rule" is created that it's better to migrate your local data housing mechanisms to one of these Azure-esque farms. It will only make sense to do so at that time, though it won't make sense really, and not at all actually.

My last post on the subject other than to answer questions. People will either see the threat or not. It's there, in bold neon letters.

Watch those videos by Eben Moglen ("Why Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media and Why Free Media Requires Free Software" and "Innovation Under Austerity"). They explain the concerns in a commensurate manner, though with a slightly different subject matter (social media).

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EDIT: I will say one more thing ... we're about at the end of our ability to change the course of this Titantic. If the path we're heading on is not changed within about the next 5-10 years ... it never will be (or, as Eben says, "without bloodshed"). The massive patent portfolios controlled by huge corporations will be pulled out, weilded, with one purpose: to take down the FLOSS communities. And then it will be over. No longer will source code software of any substance be generally available. The machines will all be locked down. The software they run will all be locked down. There will still be IT jobs, and people will still be able to use devices ... but ONLY in the way dictated to you by someone else. ALL control will have been lost, and nothing will remain which gives people freedom to choose for themselves, other than "Verizon, or Apple, or LG, etc." People need to wake up. What's coming is bad. "Enslaving all of mankind" level bad.