Cloud computing is a big meme to wrap your head around.
A good place to start is this
video (go to tab "The Coming Cloud"), featuring amongst others Nic Carr, who wrote the book.
The free software community should be mightily worried about these developments.
- A world in which most software runs in one of two megaclouds
controlled by the likes of Google and Microsoft is the ultimate
dystopia from a software freedom point of view.
- Currently available open source cloud computing software
is mainly funded by Yahoo!. A Microsoft takeover of Yahoo! can hardly
be beneficial.
- The web 2.0 / cloud computing / software as a service paradigm
disrupts the social contract constructed by the GPL around
software distribution - because it disrupts software distribution per se.