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I was thinking of a new 'open source website' concept, where you can call your website 'open source' if all the javascript behind it is unobfuscated/unminified,

I was thinking of a new 'open source website' concept, where you can call your website 'open source' if all the javascript behind it is unobfuscated/unminified, comments still there. I would even like to take it a step further, an 'open source' OS where every binary has symbols available. The system can be stopped anywhere and the full stack trace is understandable.

junon 5y ago
Symbols being stripped isn't usually for "open source" reasons. Neither is minification. It's done to reduce sizes. A binary with symbols has tons of extra crust that is largely unnecessary. Even if you have them, what good does a stack trace do if you don't also have the source to fix it?
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > Even if you have them, what good does a stack trace do if you don't also have the source to fix it? It makes patching the binary yourself a heck of a lot easier. As is often the case with legacy enterprise software from a vendor now long-gone…
  - junon 5y ago
    Do you want full open source? Or allow enterprise software? pick one.
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      How are those mutually exclusive? Enterprise software ends up as something invariably so specific to the company using it that it doesn’t matter if it’s open-source or not - absolutely no-one could extract any value from it than the original company and whatever kafkaesque internal processes lead to its development. Anything more general-purpose is already commodity - ERP being the prime example.
- trixie_ 5y ago
  The point is complete transparency into everything happening on your computer through installed application, operating system, or loaded website. Absolutely nothing would be running as an obfuscated binary. The source to build it is not just 'open'. All running binaries would be able to be mapped to their corresponding source.
  - junon 5y ago
    Again, we don't "obfuscate" binaries to make them harder to decipher. We do it because debug symbols are massive and cause a lot of bloat and sometimes even performance hits. If you want a system like that, just compile Linux and all of your tools in debug mode. But again, why do this when you can just recompile from source? This is a gross misunderstanding of how computers work, I feel.

junon 5y ago

Symbols being stripped isn't usually for "open source" reasons. Neither is minification. It's done to reduce sizes. A binary with symbols has tons of extra crust that is largely unnecessary. Even if you have them, what good does a stack trace do if you don't also have the source to fix it?

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> Even if you have them, what good does a stack trace do if you don't also have the source to fix it? It makes patching the binary yourself a heck of a lot easier. As is often the case with legacy enterprise software from a vendor now long-gone…
- junon 5y ago
  Do you want full open source? Or allow enterprise software? pick one.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    How are those mutually exclusive? Enterprise software ends up as something invariably so specific to the company using it that it doesn’t matter if it’s open-source or not - absolutely no-one could extract any value from it than the original company and whatever kafkaesque internal processes lead to its development. Anything more general-purpose is already commodity - ERP being the prime example.
trixie_ 5y ago
The point is complete transparency into everything happening on your computer through installed application, operating system, or loaded website. Absolutely nothing would be running as an obfuscated binary. The source to build it is not just 'open'. All running binaries would be able to be mapped to their corresponding source.
- junon 5y ago
  Again, we don't "obfuscate" binaries to make them harder to decipher. We do it because debug symbols are massive and cause a lot of bloat and sometimes even performance hits. If you want a system like that, just compile Linux and all of your tools in debug mode. But again, why do this when you can just recompile from source? This is a gross misunderstanding of how computers work, I feel.