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A lot of non-free software is written in Javascript and runs on webpages. If you want to avoid using non-free software you have to disable Javascript on many we

A lot of non-free software is written in Javascript and runs on webpages. If you want to avoid using non-free software you have to disable Javascript on many websites. Ideally the Javascript would be freed, but making it optional might be a more feasible goal.

close04 7y ago
> A lot of non-free software is written in Javascript Dropping JS will just lead to a lot of non-free software written in [something else]. It's not like non-free software will suddenly stop existing. You're not banning English because of the content that might use it. There must be a better approach to this than "I'm not running any code because some of it may be non-free".
- simion314 7y ago
  It is server site rendering, use whatever you want to generate an html file and send it to the browser, most websites can do this (blogs,news, forums) then the small interactive interactions you can make them in JS using GPL/BSD whatever.
  - close04 7y ago
    > then the small interactive interactions you can make them in JS With JS enabled any site could potentially run non-free code so this has no benefits. As far as I can tell the proposed solution wasn't to develop some tech that ensures (somehow) that all functionality JS provides is transferred to something "free-only" but rather to give up that functionality entirely. That's not a solution, that's just running away from the problem.
    - UserIsUnused 7y ago
      Sometimes there is no practical solution, and running away is the pragmatist approach
      - close04 7y ago
        I'm not seeing any reasonable evidence of a consensus that this even is a problem. Let alone that there is no other solution than to run from it. There's no fix for criminal activity on the internet (objectively worse than non-free code) and yet I don't think anyone (RMS included) is proposing to sever the connections just to make sure they don't accidentally encounter such activity. The more radical comparison would be "bad stuff" in society and completely isolating yourself from it.
Smithalicious 7y ago
I think this is a really weird reductionist take. Yes, if you don't run code, you also don't run nonfree code, but I'm skeptical that that "make people run less code" should be a goal of a free software movement...
- gnode 7y ago
  Given that a major criticism of closed source software is that it can contain adverse behaviour which is practically un-auditable, running less code is the minimal implementation of don't run closed source software. For some, open source software isn't just seen as a "nice to have", but the only way to avoid a society where freedoms are limited by dependence on software which works against us by design.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  You can't know before loading a page whether it'll load non-free code. Browsers don't have a mechanism for telling you what license governs the code, and figuring out what license blocked JavaScript uses is a fair bit of work, especially since most pages use multiple JavaScript files, and which flies are downloaded may change from page to page. Even if nearly everyone uses GPL for their JavaScript, you still need to go through this process for every site that may use non-free software, which is a royal pain. Perhaps a "better" solution is to fight to have browsers check the license of JavaScript before loading it (either prompt the user, or have a browser setting for acceptable licenses), but that's a much harder battle than promoting JavaScript-less web pages, especially since the user has control of blocking JavaScript today.
  - duckerude 7y ago
    LibreJS is a Firefox add-on that does roughly what you describe. If a piece of Javascript code is not properly annotated with a license (for example in a comment block at the top) it refuses to execute it. https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.html https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.ht... It can be a bit fickle. I recently tried to make code comply with it and it didn't initially work because I was using a non-standard version of the ISC license with one different word.
danShumway 7y ago
I've always been a bit confused by this take, because the most likely alternative to having proprietary code in the front-end is to have proprietary code in the back-end. It's not clear to me why I shouldn't tolerate closed-source Javascript that I can nonetheless inspect, archive, and edit on my own machine, but I should tolerate a closed-source SaaS backend that I can't inspect, archive, or edit. Of course proprietary software limits freedoms, but does it limit freedom more than serverside logic? There are equal legal restrictions on both codebases, but I can't even exercise fair-use freedoms with code that I literally can't touch.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  Javascript in the browser is practically compiled binary software at this point. You can't realistically inspect or edit 99% of what you're running since it's fully minified and obfuscated. And that's even more the case with WASM.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    I'm going to push back on this, at least a bit. Maybe I'm atypical because I work with Javascript a lot, but I don't think it's that hard to read minified JS. Modern browsers have a lot of tools to help with that -- you can set breakpoints on DOM manipulations, you can autoformat the code so it's not just a jumble of text -- you can even pause execution and add custom code to functions that can do additional logging or subvert existing behavior. And because the industry is at least somewhat focused on minimizing bundle size, it's pretty uncommon outside of captchas for me to see obfuscated code -- most of the time, you'll only be dealing with minification. I don't know how WASM is going to affect this -- I suspect it'll be more problematic. But I manipulate minified JS all the time. It's a very 'inspectable' language, for lack of a better term.
    - coldpie 7y ago
      Documentation, comments, code layout and file structure are all critical components to any software project. Minimization removes all of that (right?) and I wouldn't consider it to be in "source form" in the spirit the phrase intends.

close04 7y ago

> A lot of non-free software is written in Javascript Dropping JS will just lead to a lot of non-free software written in [something else]. It's not like non-free software will suddenly stop existing. You're not banning English because of the content that might use it. There must be a better approach to this than "I'm not running any code because some of it may be non-free".

simion314 7y ago
It is server site rendering, use whatever you want to generate an html file and send it to the browser, most websites can do this (blogs,news, forums) then the small interactive interactions you can make them in JS using GPL/BSD whatever.
- close04 7y ago
  > then the small interactive interactions you can make them in JS With JS enabled any site could potentially run non-free code so this has no benefits. As far as I can tell the proposed solution wasn't to develop some tech that ensures (somehow) that all functionality JS provides is transferred to something "free-only" but rather to give up that functionality entirely. That's not a solution, that's just running away from the problem.
  - UserIsUnused 7y ago
    Sometimes there is no practical solution, and running away is the pragmatist approach
    - close04 7y ago
      I'm not seeing any reasonable evidence of a consensus that this even is a problem. Let alone that there is no other solution than to run from it. There's no fix for criminal activity on the internet (objectively worse than non-free code) and yet I don't think anyone (RMS included) is proposing to sever the connections just to make sure they don't accidentally encounter such activity. The more radical comparison would be "bad stuff" in society and completely isolating yourself from it.

Smithalicious 7y ago

I think this is a really weird reductionist take. Yes, if you don't run code, you also don't run nonfree code, but I'm skeptical that that "make people run less code" should be a goal of a free software movement...

gnode 7y ago
Given that a major criticism of closed source software is that it can contain adverse behaviour which is practically un-auditable, running less code is the minimal implementation of don't run closed source software. For some, open source software isn't just seen as a "nice to have", but the only way to avoid a society where freedoms are limited by dependence on software which works against us by design.
beatgammit 7y ago
You can't know before loading a page whether it'll load non-free code. Browsers don't have a mechanism for telling you what license governs the code, and figuring out what license blocked JavaScript uses is a fair bit of work, especially since most pages use multiple JavaScript files, and which flies are downloaded may change from page to page. Even if nearly everyone uses GPL for their JavaScript, you still need to go through this process for every site that may use non-free software, which is a royal pain. Perhaps a "better" solution is to fight to have browsers check the license of JavaScript before loading it (either prompt the user, or have a browser setting for acceptable licenses), but that's a much harder battle than promoting JavaScript-less web pages, especially since the user has control of blocking JavaScript today.
- duckerude 7y ago
  LibreJS is a Firefox add-on that does roughly what you describe. If a piece of Javascript code is not properly annotated with a license (for example in a comment block at the top) it refuses to execute it. https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.html https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.ht... It can be a bit fickle. I recently tried to make code comply with it and it didn't initially work because I was using a non-standard version of the ISC license with one different word.

danShumway 7y ago

I've always been a bit confused by this take, because the most likely alternative to having proprietary code in the front-end is to have proprietary code in the back-end. It's not clear to me why I shouldn't tolerate closed-source Javascript that I can nonetheless inspect, archive, and edit on my own machine, but I should tolerate a closed-source SaaS backend that I can't inspect, archive, or edit. Of course proprietary software limits freedoms, but does it limit freedom more than serverside logic? There are equal legal restrictions on both codebases, but I can't even exercise fair-use freedoms with code that I literally can't touch.

rhinoceraptor 7y ago
Javascript in the browser is practically compiled binary software at this point. You can't realistically inspect or edit 99% of what you're running since it's fully minified and obfuscated. And that's even more the case with WASM.
- danShumway 7y ago
  I'm going to push back on this, at least a bit. Maybe I'm atypical because I work with Javascript a lot, but I don't think it's that hard to read minified JS. Modern browsers have a lot of tools to help with that -- you can set breakpoints on DOM manipulations, you can autoformat the code so it's not just a jumble of text -- you can even pause execution and add custom code to functions that can do additional logging or subvert existing behavior. And because the industry is at least somewhat focused on minimizing bundle size, it's pretty uncommon outside of captchas for me to see obfuscated code -- most of the time, you'll only be dealing with minification. I don't know how WASM is going to affect this -- I suspect it'll be more problematic. But I manipulate minified JS all the time. It's a very 'inspectable' language, for lack of a better term.
  - coldpie 7y ago
    Documentation, comments, code layout and file structure are all critical components to any software project. Minimization removes all of that (right?) and I wouldn't consider it to be in "source form" in the spirit the phrase intends.