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The majority of the sites on the web are non-free software that you interact with -- the browser is effectively a remote terminal. Whether or not large JavaScr

The majority of the sites on the web are non-free software that you interact with -- the browser is effectively a remote terminal. Whether or not large JavaScript is involved seems secondary. I understand the distinction between code running on a remote server and code distributed to me and run the browser but that seems like a more of a technical distinction than a moral one. (In terms of my own raw time, the percentage of open source[1] software the web I interact with daily is surprisingly high) [1] Unsure of exact licensing compatibility so I can't say it's all Free Software.

justinlardinois 11y ago
I was thinking this too. You can read the HTML and CSS of any website, but there's likely no licensing information attached to it. And you'll never see the server side code of most websites. What's the reason that's not considered a problem? Is it because it's not actually running on the user's computer? Or because you can think of the resulting HTML/CSS as output of the program?
- Delmania 11y ago
  > What's the reason that's not considered a problem It's considered a problem: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-se...
  - Touche 11y ago
    > The original idea of web servers wasn't to do computing for you, it was to publish information for you to access. Even today this is what most web sites do, and it doesn't pose the SaaSS problem, because accessing someone's published information isn't doing your own computing. The more grey area that exists the harder it is for me to understand what Stallman's beliefs actually are. "doing your own computing", why is that the center of his moral beliefs? The longer time passes, the more it feels like Stallman is holding a lifelong vendetta because he had trouble debugging some printers.
    - Spooky23 11y ago
      Because laws around digital intellectual property are profoundly different from physical goods, even when the goods are intellectual property like a book. Consider a trivial example. I bought an iOS SSH app called prompt. The authors subsequently release a new version and removed the old one from the store. It works great on my phone and I decided decided to put it on another device. Guess what? It's not on the App Store any more, and my options for using it are limited.
      - stephen_g 11y ago
        If you log in to the App Store on that device, go to Updates -> Purchased -> Not on this iPhone (or iPad, etc.) you should be able to install it on the new device.
      - sooheon 11y ago
        Well if the FSF had its way prompt would never have been made to the degree of polish and quality that it was, because there would have been no financial incentive, no?
        izacus 11y ago
        Really? So that's why so many of those fancy proprietary web sites run on fully opensource free stacks?
        Natanael_L 11y ago
        In the same way that Red Hat isn't a thing, right?
    - educar 11y ago
      > The longer time passes, the more it feels like Stallman is holding a lifelong vendetta because he had trouble debugging some printers. That ad hominem is uncalled for.
    - EuAndreh 11y ago
      The point of "doing your computing" is the concept of freedom within the Free Software movement. According to RMS, "freedom is having control over your life". "In a computer system there are just two possibilities: either the user controls the program or the program controls the user". So, "doing your own computing" is "having control over your life", and thus, having freedom.
- jordigh 11y ago
  Much HTML and CSS nowadays is not really readable, but minified or obfuscated. It's not the 1990s where reading other people's static HTML was a good way to learn how to make your own websites.
  - madeofpalk 11y ago
    Eh. HTML and CSS is the easy part - you can't really obfuscated, only minify it to remove whitespace, which is easily reversible. All great browser dev tools have built in ways to unminify web assets. And it's even easier for HTML and CSS as they're easily viewable in parsed form (DOM).
    - jordigh 11y ago
      My point is that HTML and CSS rarely is "source code" these days, (i.e. "the preferred form for modification") but the output of a tool. Back when we were using assemblers instead of compilers, assembly was considered source code, but now it's an opaque object. It is most HTML and CSS these days: opaque objects. If nothing else, the identifiers and CSS selectors can be easily obfuscated.
    - ashitlerferad 11y ago
      CSS is often compiled from other languages like SASS. HTML is often built from complicated templates.
jordigh 11y ago
> Unsure of exact licensing compatibility so I can't say it's all Free Software. Open source and free software mean the same thing, or at least they intend to mean the same thing. There are very few obscure examples where they differ (for example, the NASA license). You are very unlikely to run across a difference. https://opensource.org/faq#free-software https://opensource.org/faq#free-software https://lobste.rs/s/lexyz5/why_open_source_misses_the_point_of_free_software/comments/rcdtg0#c_rcdtg0 https://lobste.rs/s/lexyz5/why_open_source_misses_the_point_...
- the_af 11y ago
  They do not mean the same thing. They are often coincidentally the same thing, but philosophically they are not the same: "Why 'Free Software' is better than 'Open Source'": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en.h... (Note: the title is not mine)
  - jordigh 11y ago
    No, the intention of "open source" was to have a synonym for "free software". http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/5-things-we-have-forgotten-about-open-source/ http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/5-things-we-have-forgot... They mean the same thing in the same way that "digital rights management" and "digital restrictions management" means the same thing: they refer to the same thing, but give a different slant to refer to the same thing.
    - the_af 11y ago
      Like you mentioned in your article, this indeed seems to be Bruce Perens' opinion. However, notice how both Eric Raymond (on the side of open source) and Richard Stallman (on the side of free software) disagree with him. If you listen to people like Eric Raymond, open source is all about quality. "Many eyes make all bugs shallow", etc. If you listen to people like Richard Stallman, free software is all about users' rights: in some cases free software may be of higher quality than comparable proprietary software, but that's just a welcome side-effect -- what matters is that it respects users' rights. In this view, free software would be worthwhile even if it was technically inferior to contemporary proprietary software. Or to put it another way: if Eric Raymond one days wakes up convinced that Open Source is technically inferior, he must drop it in order to remain consistent with his own justifications. If Richard Stallman one day wakes up convinced Free Software is technically inferior, he will remain committed to it, since technical quality was never his primary goal. I'd say that's a pretty big philosophical difference!

justinlardinois 11y ago

I was thinking this too. You can read the HTML and CSS of any website, but there's likely no licensing information attached to it. And you'll never see the server side code of most websites. What's the reason that's not considered a problem? Is it because it's not actually running on the user's computer? Or because you can think of the resulting HTML/CSS as output of the program?

Delmania 11y ago
> What's the reason that's not considered a problem It's considered a problem: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-se...
- Touche 11y ago
  > The original idea of web servers wasn't to do computing for you, it was to publish information for you to access. Even today this is what most web sites do, and it doesn't pose the SaaSS problem, because accessing someone's published information isn't doing your own computing. The more grey area that exists the harder it is for me to understand what Stallman's beliefs actually are. "doing your own computing", why is that the center of his moral beliefs? The longer time passes, the more it feels like Stallman is holding a lifelong vendetta because he had trouble debugging some printers.
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    Because laws around digital intellectual property are profoundly different from physical goods, even when the goods are intellectual property like a book. Consider a trivial example. I bought an iOS SSH app called prompt. The authors subsequently release a new version and removed the old one from the store. It works great on my phone and I decided decided to put it on another device. Guess what? It's not on the App Store any more, and my options for using it are limited.
    - stephen_g 11y ago
      If you log in to the App Store on that device, go to Updates -> Purchased -> Not on this iPhone (or iPad, etc.) you should be able to install it on the new device.
    - sooheon 11y ago
      Well if the FSF had its way prompt would never have been made to the degree of polish and quality that it was, because there would have been no financial incentive, no?
      - izacus 11y ago
        Really? So that's why so many of those fancy proprietary web sites run on fully opensource free stacks?
      - Natanael_L 11y ago
        In the same way that Red Hat isn't a thing, right?
  - educar 11y ago
    > The longer time passes, the more it feels like Stallman is holding a lifelong vendetta because he had trouble debugging some printers. That ad hominem is uncalled for.
  - EuAndreh 11y ago
    The point of "doing your computing" is the concept of freedom within the Free Software movement. According to RMS, "freedom is having control over your life". "In a computer system there are just two possibilities: either the user controls the program or the program controls the user". So, "doing your own computing" is "having control over your life", and thus, having freedom.
jordigh 11y ago
Much HTML and CSS nowadays is not really readable, but minified or obfuscated. It's not the 1990s where reading other people's static HTML was a good way to learn how to make your own websites.
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  Eh. HTML and CSS is the easy part - you can't really obfuscated, only minify it to remove whitespace, which is easily reversible. All great browser dev tools have built in ways to unminify web assets. And it's even easier for HTML and CSS as they're easily viewable in parsed form (DOM).
  - jordigh 11y ago
    My point is that HTML and CSS rarely is "source code" these days, (i.e. "the preferred form for modification") but the output of a tool. Back when we were using assemblers instead of compilers, assembly was considered source code, but now it's an opaque object. It is most HTML and CSS these days: opaque objects. If nothing else, the identifiers and CSS selectors can be easily obfuscated.
  - ashitlerferad 11y ago
    CSS is often compiled from other languages like SASS. HTML is often built from complicated templates.

jordigh 11y ago

> Unsure of exact licensing compatibility so I can't say it's all Free Software. Open source and free software mean the same thing, or at least they intend to mean the same thing. There are very few obscure examples where they differ (for example, the NASA license). You are very unlikely to run across a difference. https://opensource.org/faq#free-software https://opensource.org/faq#free-software https://lobste.rs/s/lexyz5/why_open_source_misses_the_point_of_free_software/comments/rcdtg0#c_rcdtg0 https://lobste.rs/s/lexyz5/why_open_source_misses_the_point_...

the_af 11y ago
They do not mean the same thing. They are often coincidentally the same thing, but philosophically they are not the same: "Why 'Free Software' is better than 'Open Source'": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en.h... (Note: the title is not mine)
- jordigh 11y ago
  No, the intention of "open source" was to have a synonym for "free software". http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/5-things-we-have-forgotten-about-open-source/ http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/5-things-we-have-forgot... They mean the same thing in the same way that "digital rights management" and "digital restrictions management" means the same thing: they refer to the same thing, but give a different slant to refer to the same thing.
  - the_af 11y ago
    Like you mentioned in your article, this indeed seems to be Bruce Perens' opinion. However, notice how both Eric Raymond (on the side of open source) and Richard Stallman (on the side of free software) disagree with him. If you listen to people like Eric Raymond, open source is all about quality. "Many eyes make all bugs shallow", etc. If you listen to people like Richard Stallman, free software is all about users' rights: in some cases free software may be of higher quality than comparable proprietary software, but that's just a welcome side-effect -- what matters is that it respects users' rights. In this view, free software would be worthwhile even if it was technically inferior to contemporary proprietary software. Or to put it another way: if Eric Raymond one days wakes up convinced that Open Source is technically inferior, he must drop it in order to remain consistent with his own justifications. If Richard Stallman one day wakes up convinced Free Software is technically inferior, he will remain committed to it, since technical quality was never his primary goal. I'd say that's a pretty big philosophical difference!