> The web throws a monkey wrench into a lot of assumptions the free software model seems to make about what software is - obviously you can't download the sourc

> The web throws a monkey wrench into a lot of assumptions the free software model seems to make about what software is - obviously you can't download the source of an entire server stack and compile it, much less rewrite and redistribute it, but that would seem to be what would be required for the web to be 'free.' This looks like a strawman. For a user of a service there is no difference between a service provider that uses free software and a service provider that uses proprietary software. Proprietary software primarily harms the user of that software --- and in this case it is the service provider, not the user with a browser. There are different concerns to outsouring computing and/or communication to services, but these are not the same concerns that apply with the use of proprietary software. JavaScript applications, however, do run on the user's machine and thus the usual concerns about running non-free software apply. > [Stallman] does seem to believe that only running free javascript somehow makes it safe to run... which isn't true. I haven't heard him argue that position. Free software obviously can be faulty and it can be unsafe to use.