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> The Javascript issue never made sense to me. [...] Even releasing the spying software under GPL wouldn't stop it from spying on you. Exactly. The licence is

> The Javascript issue never made sense to me. [...] Even releasing the spying software under GPL wouldn't stop it from spying on you. Exactly. The licence is not the only problem with javascript on the web because you can't use your freedoms in practice anyway since the code is automatically downloaded and executed when you load the page in a common web browser. What we need is something that allows people to choose what code to run, similarly to how software traditionally is downloaded and executed in two separate steps. We need to get away from the assumption that people will run all code you throw at them when they visit your site. Then maybe licences on javascript can start to make more sense.

jraph 4y ago
> because you can't use your freedoms in practice anyway Yes, you could. You can adapt the code and use an extension to use your "fork" instead of the provided one. A convenient extension to do this might not exist yet, but you could block the website's provided JavaScript with uBlock Origin / uMatrix and use your fork with ViolentMonkey or another *Monkey extension. And distribute your fork on some user scripts repository (for instance). Free software is not (only) about avoiding spying. It's about running the code you want to run for any endeavor you can have, and be able to study and distribute your modifications. I totally agree with your last paragraph and I agree something should be done to deal with how (web) software is distributed and run.
- robalni 4y ago
  > Yes, you could. You can adapt the code and use an extension to use your "fork" instead of the provided one. Ok, that's possible to do but it's not a solution to the problem because: - You would not have much use of it because javascript is often very dependent on the web page and the server so if any of those changes, your script breaks. There is no expectation that people do this so the website owners have no reason to keep a stable API. - Only the people who use that extension or browser benefit from having that freedom. Compare this to traditional software where forks can easily be created and maintained and get more popular than the original fork. Now people who don't even know about the forks will benefit from it because they will likely use the fork that gets popular which can be the better one. An example of this is software distributions (like Debian and so on) that may modify upstream software in a way that benefits all users, even the ones who are not aware. That would be extremely difficult to do with all websites on the web without things constantly breaking.
  - jraph 4y ago
    I agree that its not practical nor satisfactory indeed.
javajosh 4y ago
GNU has some interesting things to say about this. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html However this page is a little out of date :)

jraph 4y ago

> because you can't use your freedoms in practice anyway Yes, you could. You can adapt the code and use an extension to use your "fork" instead of the provided one. A convenient extension to do this might not exist yet, but you could block the website's provided JavaScript with uBlock Origin / uMatrix and use your fork with ViolentMonkey or another *Monkey extension. And distribute your fork on some user scripts repository (for instance). Free software is not (only) about avoiding spying. It's about running the code you want to run for any endeavor you can have, and be able to study and distribute your modifications. I totally agree with your last paragraph and I agree something should be done to deal with how (web) software is distributed and run.

robalni 4y ago
> Yes, you could. You can adapt the code and use an extension to use your "fork" instead of the provided one. Ok, that's possible to do but it's not a solution to the problem because: - You would not have much use of it because javascript is often very dependent on the web page and the server so if any of those changes, your script breaks. There is no expectation that people do this so the website owners have no reason to keep a stable API. - Only the people who use that extension or browser benefit from having that freedom. Compare this to traditional software where forks can easily be created and maintained and get more popular than the original fork. Now people who don't even know about the forks will benefit from it because they will likely use the fork that gets popular which can be the better one. An example of this is software distributions (like Debian and so on) that may modify upstream software in a way that benefits all users, even the ones who are not aware. That would be extremely difficult to do with all websites on the web without things constantly breaking.
- jraph 4y ago
  I agree that its not practical nor satisfactory indeed.

javajosh 4y ago

GNU has some interesting things to say about this. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html However this page is a little out of date :)