No one should have to use proprietary software to talk to their government
fsf.org
fsf.org
That this particular source code is JavaScript on a web page means that it obeys under some more or less correctly implemented sandbox, but you're still obliged to execute minified and unlicensed code.
The FSF views that as unethical. You shouldn't need to load proprietary software onto your computer to communicate with the government.
It's a principled stance that applies even where the current situation is not abusive, so it can seem like exaggeration or even "craziness."
Their comment itself clearly explains their stance.
https://www.fsf.org/licensing/2016-tech-comment-copyright-of...
It's just the fact that they can't HTTP POST their message to a server using open protocols that sticks in their craw?
I'm curious where they draw the line at coming to terms with the mechanical necessities of interacting with the government to represent their constituency's interests.
(1) software freedom is mostly about protecting the rights of you as a user of software, and if the government uses proprietary software on their own end to make decisions based on secret rules or whatever then that's basically their business; but on the other hand
(2) there are strong arguments for making the decision making technology of government into free software since government is for and by the people who should have the right to understand the technology that governs them.
So, in a way they do just want to be able to keep their own computers free from proprietary/secret binary blobs; on the other hand, advocating for government transparency goes hand in hand with advocating for software freedom (thus FSF and EFF are allies).
Why do you assume that? I don't think the FSF is okay with closed-source software existing at all
The FSF uses LibreJS on the computers in their office. Which makes it excruciating to buy airline tickets, for example.
I was flabbergasted when I found this out. I thought something along the lines of "I've been giving these mad martyrs money!?". :)
...It took a while to sink in, but... They are right.
The reasoning goes like this:
A script embedded in a website is a tiny program that runs on your computer. It is software.
Some software is morally wrong. Some software is morally neutral or good. Software can/has/will change the world, and it's important that it be a force of good, not evil.
You can tell the difference between good and bad software by applying the following metrics. The software is "free" (as in William Wallace) if it provides the user with the following freedoms:
* The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any
purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and change
it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1).
Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your
neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to distribute copies of your modified
versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can
give the whole community a chance to benefit from your
changes. Access to the source code is a precondition
for this.
Another comment here said that the FSF needs to "pick its battles". Actually, don't you think this is a great one to pick? There's no good excuse for a government web-dev to avoid meeting those requirements. And there's no good argument against users demanding them. It's just javascript!
[Edit: wrap "excruciating" in * instead of ".]
Arguably, there is a perfectly valid excuse - the four freedoms aren't actually laws, so governments have no reason (or right) to enforce them.
Among other reasons: because they impose restrictions on the subcontractors the government can employ to do the job that increase the overall cost, therefore perhaps failing to do their fiduciary duty to the taxpayer.
It's still an open question which side this issue should fall on for most people who don't see Four Freedoms as a necessary tenet.
What if it worked properly for those with ADA abilities, like say the blind on a text mode TTY with a text-only browser? Those still support basic web forms and the server side is where all data-validation should occur anyway.
Alternatively, as the EFF notes, allowing alternate communications protocols (such as the freely open standard of shudder email) is also a viable secondary channel.
I think you mean FSF here.
I recommend reading or re-reading https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html (...remember the part about asteroid mining? It's near this part: "In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the postscarcity world [...]")
And there are in fact a lot of documents on this topic available here: https://www.gnu.org/server/sitemap.html#directory-philosophy
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10
For what it's worth, I have a Mac so those won't work. I don't have the time right now to search microsoft.com for a Mac version so I reserve judgment until then :)
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v...
Supported Operating System
Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows
Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 2
Windows 7
I'm not sure whether that's ironic or expected.
I don't get it. You don't have to install anything and if you're concerned about what could be in the javascript, then use incognito mode, tor, a proxy, etc.
You're going to increase the cost of web software products exponentially if devs can't use propriety javascript.
IoT is a mess right now, purely because of rent-seeking anti-standards, treacherous computing. Do you own your devices? Hardly! Phillips shut down all 3rd party bulbs, and 'graciously' fixed that after a bad 1 day campaign... but retains the ability to do it again.
Google destroyed the Revolv servers for no good reason. It trashed all the devices that relied the purely webAPI implemented hardware.
I can go on... In the end, I just get sick and tired of being pulled in 1000 different directions, with as many 'cloud providers', doing that many different bad implementations of the same thing (but as their serf in their castle).
Open Source is a way out of local computing problems. Open Standards allows me to bring my business elsewhere when I'm alienated. Open Protocols allows me to communicate with other networks and computers. All are essential.
Why?
Minifying the Javascript files admittedly reduces the bandwidth of a server, however providing source code for compiled/minified code can still be handled separately, and remove the argument of bandwidth since a small fraction of users care to look at the source itself.
Minification is easy to get around - copy & paste into IDE and autoformat. Anyone who cares enough about the source code knows that they can do this.
I have a very strong aversion to evoting systems and will campaign against their introduction.
That said, there should be nothing "fancy" on government web sites, and they should be compatible,with all operating systems and common web browsers.
I had to double check if this was a buzzfeed clickbait or real FSF article. Travesty!
They're not arguing the language is proprietary, they're taking issue that the code embedded in websites is often under a proprietary license. See https://fsf.org/campaigns/freejs
> Proprietary JavaScript is a threat to all users on the Web. When minified, the code can hide all sorts of nasty items, like spyware and other security risks.
Minification is the big baddie here, as it can hide all sorts of stuff. We all joke about spaghetti code and badly named variables. What happens with minification is that variables are a, b, c, d, e, .... and functions are truncated the same way.
It'd be the equivalent of using an open-source system (like busybox), making modifications to it, and then including it on hardware. Then to comply with the license, you provide a hodgepodge of source files in non-standard ways, that might make the environment they provided.
So practically speaking, malicious JavaScript could, perhaps, exploit weaknesses in your sandbox but it can't save files the browser doesn't allow, read state the browser doesn't allow, make network connections the browser or the hosting machine's network configuration don't allow, etc., etc., etc.
It's... An odd hill to choose to die on.
Maybe we should rename the story as The girl that cried wolf instead... a girl that goes by the name of Cassandra.
I make money by selling software. Does that make me a pariah to the FSF? I've never been sure. I still want to donate money to preserve their unique voice, so maybe the answer is that you have to be a little crazy to do their job.
FSF encourages people to make money by selling software, but their view is that it is unethical to arrange for a user of software not to enjoy the four freedoms with respect to that software.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition#T...
If you've arranged for users of your software not to have those four freedoms, FSF finds what you do objectionable and wants you to stop doing it (I don't think "pariah" would be fair).
I can give people as many copies as I like and yet they sold enough copies to make millions (on a team of 20 people iirc). I also bought the game a second time to gift it to someone.
When the free software movement started, software DRM was an almost entirely unknown issue, and so the focus was on the legal permission to share copies with friends (not the absence of technical means that deter this).
So DRM free success is not evidence of any kind that freeing the software from legal copying restrictions would be successful at all.
Capitalism doesn't mean money rules, although abuse of a capitalist system often involves money being used to corrupt capitalism. Paying politicians, judges, controlling the media, and other forms of corruption or fraud are often labeled "Capitalist" by anti-capitalists, but those things are not capitalist but abuses.
An example of a genuine critique of capitalism (or the limits of it), is to point out that each of us has benefited from our governments social investment in us, such as education, and we should therefore all contribute to educating the next generation. This is not a capitalist arrangement in the sense that individuals are being both given education and required to pay for the next generation without express agreement with each individual.
But recognizing the usefulness of some non-capitalist arrangements is not the same as being anti-capitalist. Most people who say they want capitalism to overrule all other concerns are actually people who want their money to overrule other concerns and are deceptively using the name "capitalism" to hide their parasitic agenda.
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
A free man cannot become a slave. But if you were tried and found guilty of a crime, then the 13th amendment no longer protects you. And all people of "X Attribute" are criminals; they just didn't know it yet.