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Comment by malicka | Hacker News Reader

It’s not mental illness, it’s the logical extension of principle. If you think non-free software is unjustifiable and should be avoided, you’re probably going to try to avoid using it (or, at least, promoting it).

There are three exceptions people sometimes make in their avoidance: Using non-free drivers, using non-free software for work/school, and using non-free software in the browser. It’s rational that someone would want to limit these exceptions as best they can, and LibreJS is useful for that.

I use LibreJS not to help me completely avoid non-free JS, but to make me more concious of my software use. If a site has non-free code and LibreJS pings me about it, I’ll consider if there’s a better site I should be supporting instead.

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> If a site has non-free code and LibreJS pings me about it, I’ll consider if there’s a better site I should be supporting instead.

I wonder how viable this is in the age of the network effect, where most people and content can be found on like 10 big sites.

If I need an answer for something but it's on StackOverflow, YouTube, Reddit or even a Discord server, then that's just where I'll go, principles be damned. For many it's probably the same way with X vs Mastodon, the latter of which does feel more wholesome but can get lonely, or at the very least limits your reach. Same with social media or professional sites like LinkedIn. Same with using one of the more popular browsers, OSes, drivers or a lot of other proprietary software.

Not to dismiss anyone who cares deeply about free software, but honestly I wonder what % of people are actually committed to those ideals and how many are just cruising through life with whatever is the most popular option with least troubles for everything.

> principles be damned

This is a very common occurrence: convenience or perceived necessity trumping principles.

> I wonder what % of people are actually committed

Almost 0%, if by “actually committed” you mean consistently applying these principles in practice, in the face of inconvenience.

I nevertheless believe that having principles, however vague and sometimes inconsistently applied, is a good thing, in that it structures thought and informs action. It gives a way to discuss how things “should” be.

I don't think many developers would even consider "properly licensed" javascript to be subjectively "better" in any way simply because they don't care.

Not saying that you don't or shouldn't care yourself, but IMO it is seen as a total non-issue for the vast majority of people. And I'm not sure LibreJS is doing much in the way of trying to convince people otherwise (besides breaking half the internet), but maybe I'm wrong.

For me, including firmware as software is where the movement loses me. Do we then move on to microcode? Why don’t we need to know the VHDL or Verilog used for the chips?

If I buy a computer designed using non-free software, isn’t that just as bad as buying shoes made in a sweatshop?

My problem with applying principles to an artificially low level is that it lays bare the inherent dishonesty in the principle.

In sending this message, an unknown but certainly non-zero number of proprietary systems will be invoked. Can RMS ethically post on Lemmy from any platform? Why is this ok? And if it is, why can we not use web pages that rely on transient but nevertheless client-side JavaScript?

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