The Cloud Computing Manifesto is a manifesto containing a "public declaration of principles and intentions" for cloud computing providers and vendors,[1] annotated as "a call to action for the worldwide cloud community" and "dedicated belief that the cloud should be open".[2] It follows the earlier development of the Cloud Computing Bill of Rights which addresses similar issues from the users' point of view.[3] The document was developed "by way of an open community consensus process"[1] in response to a request by Microsoft that "any 'manifesto' should be created, from its inception, through an open mechanism like a Wiki, for public debate and comment, all available through a Creative Commons license".[4] Accordingly, it is hosted on a MediaWiki wiki and licensed under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.[1] 30 March 2009
User centric systems enrich the lives of individuals, education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment and society as a whole; the end user is the primary stakeholder in cloud computing.
Philanthropic initiatives don’t work!
Openness of standards, systems and software empowers and protects users; existing standards should be adopted where possible for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Transparency fosters trust and accountability; decisions should be open to public collaboration and scrutiny and never be made “behind closed doors”.
Interoperability ensures effectiveness of cloud computing as a public resource; systems must be interoperable over a minimal set of community defined standards and vendor lock-in must be avoided.
Representation of all stakeholders is essential; interoperability and standards efforts should not be dominated by vendor(s).
Discrimination against any party for any reason is unacceptable; barriers to entry must be minimised.
Evolution is an ongoing process in an immature market; standards may take some time to develop and coalesce but activities should be coordinated and collaborative.
Balance of commercial and consumer interests is paramount; if in doubt consumer interests prevail.
Security is fundamental, not optional.
