IBM and other players on Monday will launch its Open Cloud Manifesto, a call to make cloud computing “open as all other IT technologies.” But the list of companies that didn’t sign on to the manifesto is telling. Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce never signed on. Google was on a preliminary list of companies that signed on with the manifesto, but dropped off the final list.

THERE is some outrageous coverage in the press which not only misses the point that Microsoft was kept inside the "Open Cloud Manifesto" loop; it also falls for Microsoft's PR stunt, which almost characterises the company as a proponent of openness.

IBM and other tech companies have issued a statement of principles that calls for keeping cloud computing services as open as possible

I've read a bit of angst about cloud lock-in, a lot of weed pulling in the form of interoperability standards for the cloud, and a manifesto or two about 'Open Cloud'. And in between, I've seen lots of interesting new tools for cloud computing, and lots of narratives about how the tools, combined with the formalization of use cases, pave the way for open clouds.

Steven Martin, Microsoft's senior director of developer platform management, discusses Microsoft's call for an open process to define cloud computing going forward. Essentially, Martin expressed concern about a so-called "Cloud Manifesto" and Microsoft's view that it is biased to benefit its authors.

"Most regular readers of this blog are familiar with the Mozilla Manifesto and with the work that the Mozilla Corporation undertakes to advance the manifesto. It is good work. Actually, it is great work from a great community of people. However, the corporation focuses most on Firefox and the related software and communities. The manifesto is much broader in scope than a small set of products and communities, no matter how important these things are..."

The Public Domain Manifesto has its heart in the right place as it objects to some of the unjust extensions of copyright power, so Richard Stallman wish he could support it. However, it falls far short of what is needed.

Have you been wanting to fly to the cloud, to experiment with cloud computing? Now is your chance. With this article, we will step through the process of setting up a private cloud system using Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), which is powered by the Eucalyptus platform.

Principals from more than 60 elementary, junior high, and senior high schools of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, signed a "Software Freedom Manifesto" at the invitation of the city's Education Bureau on Sep 9 Thursday morning in a press conference.