Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GNU LibreJS

gnu.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 165 posts

Re: GNU LibreJS

#31

Post by justinlardinois »

wvenable wrote: post #5

The majority of the sites on the web are non-free software that you interact with -- the browser is effectively a remote terminal. Whether or not large JavaScript is involved seems secondary. I understand the distinction between code running on a remote server and code distributed to me and run the browser but that seems like a more of a technical distinction than a moral one. (In terms of my own raw time, the percen…

I was thinking this too. You can read the HTML and CSS of any website, but there's likely no licensing information attached to it. And you'll never see the server side code of most websites.

What's the reason that's not considered a problem? Is it because it's not actually running on the user's computer? Or because you can think of the resulting HTML/CSS as output of the program?

Re: GNU LibreJS

#32

Post by Delmania »

striking wrote: post #6
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #2

Apparently it adds a "Complain" tab to your browser when it detects offensive JavaScript: https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/manual/librejs.html#Com...

That's just what the world needs. More bikeshedding about "offensive JavaScript". Offensive JS includes: "It makes an AJAX request or is loaded along with scripts that make an AJAX request" and "Calling methods with the square bracket notation" and "Using any other construct than a string literal with certain methods (Obj.write, Obj.createElement, …)." If it includes something like the above (which 99% of HTML framew…

> That's just what the world needs. More bikeshedding

You pretty much summed up one of the two biggest issues at why the FSF has not had a larger impact on the world. The organization makes issues over these kinds of details and then paints it into a "us vs. them" situation. It seems to have little interest with trying to work with people, and more insistent on making sure you follow it's dogma.

The other issue is that the organization presents its arguments like a sophomoric adolescent. "Windows 7 Sins"? Who's going to take that seriously?

Re: GNU LibreJS

#33

Post by justinlardinois »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #2

Apparently it adds a "Complain" tab to your browser when it detects offensive JavaScript: https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/manual/librejs.html#Com...

> LibreJS includes a default subject line and body for the complaint email, with a link to the JavaScript Trap essay.

If that's not some pedantic RMS bullshit, I don't know what is.

At least it's easy enough for a spam filter to catch.

Re: GNU LibreJS

#34

Post by Delmania »

justinlardinois wrote: post #31
wvenable wrote: post #5

The majority of the sites on the web are non-free software that you interact with -- the browser is effectively a remote terminal. Whether or not large JavaScript is involved seems secondary. I understand the distinction between code running on a remote server and code distributed to me and run the browser but that seems like a more of a technical distinction than a moral one. (In terms of my own raw time, the percen…

I was thinking this too. You can read the HTML and CSS of any website, but there's likely no licensing information attached to it. And you'll never see the server side code of most websites. What's the reason that's not considered a problem? Is it because it's not actually running on the user's computer? Or because you can think of the resulting HTML/CSS as output of the program?

> What's the reason that's not considered a problem

It's considered a problem:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-se...

Re: GNU LibreJS

#35

Post by Delmania »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #24
DanielDent wrote: post #7

Just wait until they discover NaCL, PNaCL, ASM.js, and web assembly...

Or even just regular minification, or using a compile-to-js language that emits non-human readable JS.

I could have sworn the "Javascript Trap" mentioned that issue, but I think the viewpoint is that minified JS is the compiled version. So long as you provide the raw files, it's fine.

Re: GNU LibreJS

#36

Post by chris_wot »

This could have been useful if it applied to ALL of Stallman's arguments. Like for instance, the ability to swap out JavaScript with your own code, which this can't do.

Re: GNU LibreJS

#37

Post by rubbingalcohol »

justinlardinois wrote: post #13

And it looks like to get your Javascript to be considered free, even if it already is free, you have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get this to pick it up: http://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.htm... This is a joke.

I don't see the problem with putting a small license comment in my JS includes. A lot of people only want to run Free Software to the extent possible. Just as it's not unreasonable for restaurants to have offerings for people who are vegans, it's not unreasonable for software developers to offer software for hardcore FOSS types.

If you don't understand or dislike it, you don't have to include license info in your JavaScript, but why disrespect people who care?

Re: GNU LibreJS

#38

Post by lazaroclapp »

Zikes wrote: post #27
lazaroclapp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the point is that RMS is against complex Javascript apps at all. His point is: a) If it makes an AJAX request, it likely is a piece of software (a web app) more than it is a webpage. b) If it is software, then he (and the people using this) care about it being free software. I use and have made proprietary web apps, yet I wouldn't disagree with RMS on the argument that such apps leave less control to th…

Blocking the JS is great and makes complete sense. It's like a slightly more open NoScript, in that it tries to analyze the JS first. The part I take issue with is that LibreJS adds a "Complaint" feature[1] that asks users to contact the web developers to ask them to change their pages. Should people really be emailing Google and asking them to disable AJAX in their Gmail application? Or Twitter's automatic feed upda…

Technically, you wouldn't be asking them to disable AJAX, you would be asking them to make the code free software. Now, if people do this for Gmail or Twitter they will probably get no response or a formulaic response about not opening their code. But how about Wordpress? Or Wikipedia? Or government sites developed with public money in certain countries that require open sourcing public works?

I think opening that tab by default is a bit much, but I can imagine cases where people would report "hey, this site is/should be running open-source/free software, please add a license to your code".

This is not about blocking code execution in your browser, is about not running proprietary code in your browser if you don't want to.

Re: GNU LibreJS

#39

Post by Morgawr »

justinlardinois wrote: post #30
mordocai wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but how else can it tell? It isn't like code inherently has some kind of magical tag that tells you the license. So they created a format to tell the license.

My point is that you're likely to get a lot of false negatives. For your browser to remain usable after installing this, you'll pretty much have to add every new site you visit to your whitelist. This convention will only work if everyone follows it. And very few will because it's aiming to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

>This convention will only work if everyone follows it.

Just like original FOSS licenses started out then? What's the problem? People who care will start to follow it and if it turns out to be a good idea (like how the original GPL & similar licenses came to being into a mostly proprietary licensed world) people will follow.

Re: GNU LibreJS

#40

Post by of »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #2

Apparently it adds a "Complain" tab to your browser when it detects offensive JavaScript: https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/manual/librejs.html#Com...

The "Complain" feature is my favorite feature of LibreJS! In fact, I think everything should have a complaint box. :P
Post reply on HN