Ressources numériques en sciences humaines et sociales OpenEdition Nos plateformes OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypothèses Calenda Bibliothèques OpenEdition Freemium Suivez-nous

Serveurs, services et données face à la “récentralisation”

Philippe Aigrain, PDG de la Société pour les Espaces Publics d’Information (Sopinspace) aborde la question de la “recentralisation” du calcul, du stockage et de la gestion de données au cours de son intervention à la conférence PARADISO, Bruxelles, 7-9 Septembre 2011:

“The key components of our open common infrastructure of computing and communication, that is the open personal computer and the neutral end-to-end Internet were designed in the 1970s, based on work conducted before. It took 30 years, and the addition of free software and information commons before their empowerment impact for individuals and groups fully materialized. However, during these 30 years, and in particular the last 15 years, powerful players have been at work to undermine this potential. They used a variety of means: the extension of copyright and patents and the hardening of their enforcement, a focus on innovation that targeted primarily the maintenance or acquisition of dominant positions rather than new user capabilities, and more recently, invoking security to tramp on fundamental rights. I am going to insist on another track of this counter-reform movement. It is particularly important because, in a way, most of us gave it an implicit consent. It is the recentralization of computing, data storage and service provision.

Suddenly, we woke up with centralized social networks such as Facebook, centralized group and document management such as GoogleDocs and centralized media hosting such as YouTube or Megaupload. Whether we, as individuals, as groups, as neighbours, will be able to reclaim servers, services and data is the key issue that will determine the answer to the questions tabled for this last session (Addressing Research Challenges and Other Open Issues, N.d.R.). There is a powerful movement in the US and in Europe for constructing a new decentralized infrastructure for the Internet.”

La communication est disponible dans son entièreté ici.

A lire aussi: l’intéressant article “Declouding Freedom: Reclaiming Servers, Services and Data” cité par Philippe Aigrain lors de son intervention.

Francesca Musiani

Chercheuse postdoctorale, MINES ParisTech Yahoo! Fellow in Residence, Georgetown University

More Posts - Website