Titre: SlapOS: a Slap into Cloud Monopolies

Auteur : Jean-Paul Smets (Nexedi)

Abstract :

SlapOS is an operating for Cloud Computing designed to solve the
growing concerns of lack of Freedom, loss of Privacy and weak
Resilience of Cloud Monopolies. SlapOS is designed as a practical
alternative so that everyone can create his own Cloud Computing
business, help one each other and compete efficiently with Google,
Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce in a matter of hours or days.

- Designed for Resilience : SlapOS can leverage the resources of
  multiple, independent providers of Computing power. Servers can be
  located in data centers, in offices or even at home. By combining
  independent providers of computing power, independent providers of
  electricity, of network, of storage, SlapOS is more resilient to
  natural disasters, political crisis, financial crisis, strikes or
  wars than traditional Cloud solutions managed by a single company.


- Free Market Enabler : SlapOS is based on the idea, just like the
  Internet, that "intelligence should be at the end points". In
  SlapOS, it is the end point which takes the decision to change a
  provider or not in order to maximise quality of service.

- Privacy Conscious : SlapOS is designed from the ground up to
  enourage data distribution and thus preserve user privacy.

- Community Driven : SlapOS is based on mature, community driven open
  source software such as buildout, supervisord and ERP5. Everyone can
  also contribute his own server to the SlapOS community cloud and
  help eachother.

- Technology Neutral : SlapOS is designed to run on the Cloud any
  software which depends on GNU glibc. Thus includes python, ruby,
  java, etc (long list)

- Business Friendly : Unlike other initiatives for a Free Cloud,
  SlapOS recognizes that Cloud is not only about technology but also
  about business. For this purpose, SlapOS provides a business
  friendly, accounting and billing solution which can help any company
  become a Cloud Computing provider yet benefit from the support of
  the community.

- Globally Educational : SlapOS is designed and developed in close
  relation with universities and research centers in Europe, Asia,
  America and Africa (soon Oceania). SlapOS community develops a
  practical curriculum to teach students "how to build scalable
  distributed systems which keep on working even when nothing works",
  using only open source software.