3 ms·

Even RMS has no problems with using open source frontends to proprietary services. The reasoning is: if you can audit and modify the way you talk to the service

by jakear 7y ago

Even RMS has no problems with using open source frontends to proprietary services. The reasoning is: if you can audit and modify the way you talk to the service to ensure you arent revealing any information you'd rather not, why do you care if the service itself is OSS, proprietary, or some dude in Qubec handcrafting TLS packets?

jka 7y ago
That doesn't sound like him :) Do you have a reference/quote for that, out of interest? In the past it seems like he's been skeptical[0] of providing user data to third-party services. [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.com...
- jakear 7y ago
  This was from a private email exchange, but you can look at how he's soliciting a FOSS Google Docs client as evidence that he'd be fine with a FOSS interface to a proprietary service. Additionally, https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html makes no mention of proprietary backends being harmful to user freedom, only obfuscated (unauditable) frontend code.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    I guess the logic there being, if you're running it, you should be able to change it / fix it.
  - jka 7y ago
    That's cool - do you think his opinions have changed since writing that 'to identify yourself to a Google service is a grave error'?[0] It'd be great to learn more about that call for a FOSS Google Docs client if you can share a hyperlink. [0] - https://www.stallman.org/google.html https://www.stallman.org/google.html
  - LukeShu 7y ago
    > https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html makes no mention of proprietary backends being harmful to user freedom OK, but the later essay https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s... does. The proprietary backend is providing a network service, the question is: to what degree is that service being used as a software substitute? ---- My own opinions on RMS' opinions: The essay I linked is from 2010; don't get too hung up on specific examples, things have changed since then. The Facebook of 2010 was fairly usable as a dumb service without being a software substitute. It was possible to consume your news feed via RSS, and perform your own sorting of it (for example). That said, I do think that RMS has taken a rather naive view of which services are pure services, and which services are software substitutes. I can see how many things can reasonably be conceptualized as a pure service... but also, they could be replaced by software. If you could use software as a service substitute, then surely the service is a software substitute. And part of this changes over time, as people figure out how to replace more things with software. (Based on personal (mailing list?) communication regarding DDG vs YaCy vs Searx as the default search engines in FSF-endorsed distros) It should also be said that RMS refines his views change over time, and that he often doesn't do a good job of acknowledging that they've changed, instead doing a sort of "I've always had this wisdom" thing. Years ago, he had a bit about how people would ask him about "free hardware", and that his answer was that the concept of free hardware didn't make much sense, as you can't copy a piece of hardware the way that you can a piece of software, and that having the source files for hardware wasn't very important. Then a few years later, consumer 3D printing and home manufacturing started to take off, but he held on to his old position. Then a few years later, he came around, and he had a bit in a talk at LibrePlanet about how free hardware was obviously important. So don't give old statements by him too much weight--his views change in response to new information and developments (as they should).
mendelmaleh 7y ago
It doesn't seem to me that this is end-to-end encrypted, I would care where my conversation, video, and voice data go.
- jakear 7y ago
  You quite explicitly don't need to audit the backend to verify something is end to end encrypted. I can be confident nobody is snooping on my TLS communications without needing to audit every router along the way, this is in some ways the entire point.
  - swsieber 7y ago
    The point of e2e encryption is that the server can't decrypt it.
    - jakear 7y ago
      Yes, but I don't need to audit the server to be sure it can't decrypt it. Thats the real point. Otherwise a ROT-13 that I've manually verified isn't decoded by the backend would be considered "e2e encryption".

by jakear 7y ago

jka 7y ago

That doesn't sound like him :) Do you have a reference/quote for that, out of interest? In the past it seems like he's been skeptical[0] of providing user data to third-party services. [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.com...

jakear 7y ago
This was from a private email exchange, but you can look at how he's soliciting a FOSS Google Docs client as evidence that he'd be fine with a FOSS interface to a proprietary service. Additionally, https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html makes no mention of proprietary backends being harmful to user freedom, only obfuscated (unauditable) frontend code.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  I guess the logic there being, if you're running it, you should be able to change it / fix it.
- jka 7y ago
  That's cool - do you think his opinions have changed since writing that 'to identify yourself to a Google service is a grave error'?[0] It'd be great to learn more about that call for a FOSS Google Docs client if you can share a hyperlink. [0] - https://www.stallman.org/google.html https://www.stallman.org/google.html
- LukeShu 7y ago
  > https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html makes no mention of proprietary backends being harmful to user freedom OK, but the later essay https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s... does. The proprietary backend is providing a network service, the question is: to what degree is that service being used as a software substitute? ---- My own opinions on RMS' opinions: The essay I linked is from 2010; don't get too hung up on specific examples, things have changed since then. The Facebook of 2010 was fairly usable as a dumb service without being a software substitute. It was possible to consume your news feed via RSS, and perform your own sorting of it (for example). That said, I do think that RMS has taken a rather naive view of which services are pure services, and which services are software substitutes. I can see how many things can reasonably be conceptualized as a pure service... but also, they could be replaced by software. If you could use software as a service substitute, then surely the service is a software substitute. And part of this changes over time, as people figure out how to replace more things with software. (Based on personal (mailing list?) communication regarding DDG vs YaCy vs Searx as the default search engines in FSF-endorsed distros) It should also be said that RMS refines his views change over time, and that he often doesn't do a good job of acknowledging that they've changed, instead doing a sort of "I've always had this wisdom" thing. Years ago, he had a bit about how people would ask him about "free hardware", and that his answer was that the concept of free hardware didn't make much sense, as you can't copy a piece of hardware the way that you can a piece of software, and that having the source files for hardware wasn't very important. Then a few years later, consumer 3D printing and home manufacturing started to take off, but he held on to his old position. Then a few years later, he came around, and he had a bit in a talk at LibrePlanet about how free hardware was obviously important. So don't give old statements by him too much weight--his views change in response to new information and developments (as they should).

mendelmaleh 7y ago

It doesn't seem to me that this is end-to-end encrypted, I would care where my conversation, video, and voice data go.

jakear 7y ago
You quite explicitly don't need to audit the backend to verify something is end to end encrypted. I can be confident nobody is snooping on my TLS communications without needing to audit every router along the way, this is in some ways the entire point.
- swsieber 7y ago
  The point of e2e encryption is that the server can't decrypt it.
  - jakear 7y ago
    Yes, but I don't need to audit the server to be sure it can't decrypt it. Thats the real point. Otherwise a ROT-13 that I've manually verified isn't decoded by the backend would be considered "e2e encryption".