Cloud computing should be proprietary right now (Score 1)

Skimming through the comments here, they seems to break down into several categories:

• Don't need it because I can do it myself.
• It is just like some other technology.
• Beware of vendor lock in.

I don't see any posts talking about

here is what we used cloud computing for and here are the problems with the current platforms.

This tells me that whatever this technology is, it is still early and people are still testing the water. If we want some kind of standard or open implementation of clouds, we are going to need much more people using it to explore what is good and bad about the model.

The beginning of a new technology should be about trying to find the limits of it. It is stupid to worry about open or proprietary before we even know if people will want it. The proprietary people are getting first crack at it because they think it will make them money. So let them find out what the issues are and if they can make money.

After they do your R&D for you, then you can make an open and free version. That's been the model of most successful open source projects.