Mike Gerwitz's GNU Social Instance
  • Login
  • Public

    • Groups
    • Recent tags

Conversation

Notices

  1. Arun Isaac (அருண் ஐசக்) (arunisaac)'s status on Thursday, 14-Apr-2016 17:50:55 UTC Arun Isaac (அருண் ஐசக்) Arun Isaac (அருண் ஐசக்)
    • GNU social
    Can we get !gnusocial javascript to be recognized as free software with librejs?
    Thursday, 14-Apr-2016 17:50:55 UTC from social.systemreboot.net permalink
    • Mike Gerwitz likes this.
    • MMN-o ✅⃠ (mmn)'s status on Thursday, 14-Apr-2016 19:48:48 UTC MMN-o ✅⃠ MMN-o ✅⃠
      in reply to
      • Free and Open Source Software
      • Hannes
      @arunisaac I know @hannes2peer has complained lots about how sucky/difficult #LibreJS is. It's apparently hard to make it conform to the requirements (and personally I don't see the point, as the problem with JS is security - and that's not solved by just putting JS malware under a !foss license).

      I prefer to just make stuff usable without javascript.
      Thursday, 14-Apr-2016 19:48:48 UTC permalink
    • Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz)'s status on Friday, 15-Apr-2016 01:04:10 UTC Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
      in reply to
      • MMN-o ✅⃠
      @arunisaac @mmn #LibreJS-compliant #JavaScript is important, because it's currently the only way to verify that code is actually free software. Even if you're a JavaScript expert, you'd otherwise need a way to verify that all the code served to you is free by correlating it with source, and even still it might serve other non-free code with it.

      Making sites work without JS is important---I don't enable JS for 99% of the web, period; even free software can do bad things. But if you write JavaScript and I don't have a way to verify that it's free, then you may as well not write it. At the very least, that includes a license header. And if you have a license header, it may as well be LibreJS-compatible.

      https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.html
      Friday, 15-Apr-2016 01:04:10 UTC permalink
      ニコラス likes this.
    • ニコラス (nicolasmaia)'s status on Friday, 15-Apr-2016 01:29:51 UTC ニコラス ニコラス
      in reply to
      • Mike Gerwitz
      • MMN-o ✅⃠
      @mikegerwitz @mmn @arunisaac If I may intrude, https://onpon4.github.io/other/kill-js/
      Friday, 15-Apr-2016 01:29:51 UTC permalink
      Kei likes this.
    • Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz)'s status on Friday, 15-Apr-2016 02:32:24 UTC Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
      in reply to
      • ニコラス
      I agree with most of the points in that article:

      https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/restore-online-freedom/

      But the article misses what I consider to be a very important distinction: there are JavaScript programs---SaaSS, usually---which are alternatives to desktop software; and then there are small JavaScript programs that are tightly coupled to an otherwise normal website, and cannot function without it.

      The former can be packaged; I call it "unwebbing". The latter can't be; you can't package millions of small programs. That needs to be distributed.

      I disagree with killing JS. But I also disagree with polluting the web with "documents" (HTML pages) that aren't actually documents. Let programs be programs and documents be documents; programs can augment them, but not replace them, or fundamentally compose them.
      Friday, 15-Apr-2016 02:32:24 UTC permalink
      ニコラス likes this.
    • Arun Isaac (அருண் ஐசக்) (arunisaac)'s status on Friday, 15-Apr-2016 04:56:54 UTC Arun Isaac (அருண் ஐசக்) Arun Isaac (அருண் ஐசக்)
      in reply to
      • Mike Gerwitz
      I actually saw your LibrePlanet talk very recently and that's what prompted me to bring up LibreJS here. :-)

      Unfortunately, using LibreJS breaks most of the web for me, and I end up disabling it most of the time thus defeating its purpose. :-( Is there any repository of libre javascript for replacing the proprietary javascript served by say, big sites like ebay, amazon, google, etc.?
      Friday, 15-Apr-2016 04:56:54 UTC permalink
    • MMN-o ✅⃠ (mmn)'s status on Friday, 15-Apr-2016 07:46:01 UTC MMN-o ✅⃠ MMN-o ✅⃠
      in reply to
      • Mike Gerwitz
      • Qvitter
      • Hannes
      #LibreJS afaik also has caveats other than the license header, some bits about how code is run etc and statements that aren't allowed. And so far I've heard problems with people having a hard time figuring out _why_ their code doesn't verify as libre. If it happens to be really easy, I'd happily accept a patch and I guess @hannes2peer too (though last I read he had managed to fix it for !qvitter)
      Friday, 15-Apr-2016 07:46:01 UTC permalink
      ニコラス and Arun Isaac (அருண் ஐசக்) like this.
    • Annah (maiyannah)'s status on Friday, 15-Apr-2016 08:03:26 UTC Annah Annah
      in reply to
      • Mike Gerwitz
      • MMN-o ✅⃠
      @mmn @mikegerwitz Seems like a lot of work just to get something that's a moderate to massive security risk for a client to work.  I'm put in mind of all the weird stuff people used to do in Flash until easier and somewhat more secure stuff came around.
      Friday, 15-Apr-2016 08:03:26 UTC permalink
    • Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz)'s status on Friday, 15-Apr-2016 12:39:33 UTC Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
      in reply to
      • MMN-o ✅⃠
      • Annah
      @mmn @maiyannah The security risk comes from the indiscriminate running of ephemeral, unsigned, untrusted programs. Yes, recognizing a program as free software isn't a solution in itself---that could be a lie to get around LibreJS, or it could still be doing bad things. So this is nowhere near a solution to that problem.

      It's very rare that I actually permit a site to run JavaScript, even if I know it's free. But for those who _do_ want to run JS for a site, should they choose to do so, they should be able to have an idea what parts of it are free, and avoid all the rest.
      Friday, 15-Apr-2016 12:39:33 UTC permalink
    • Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz)'s status on Friday, 15-Apr-2016 12:43:44 UTC Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
      in reply to
      • Mike Gerwitz
      > some bits about how code is run etc and statements that aren't allowed

      There's no restrictions on the JS; perhaps you're referring to what it recognizes as "trivial" (and therefore not needing a license)? For example, "trivial" scripts can't define functions.

      If it's not working for whatever reason, it's worth asking about it at help-librejs@gnu.org. If it's a bug, then it can be improved upon.
      Friday, 15-Apr-2016 12:43:44 UTC permalink
      Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) likes this.
    • Mike Gerwitz (mikegerwitz)'s status on Friday, 15-Apr-2016 12:48:53 UTC Mike Gerwitz Mike Gerwitz
      in reply to
      @arunisaac Oh, great; thank you for watching. :)

      Most of the web "breaks" in part, as I said in the talk, because it's already broken---most JS programs are nonfree; so even if all free programs were marked as such, most of the web would not operate as you'd hope.

      As for replacements for major sites: I rarely run JS, and consequently I can't really use (or try to use) many websites. I'm working on getting my slides on the LibrePlanet MediaGoblin instance; it has links in it to some sites you can try:

      https://gitlab.com/mikegerwitz/online-freedom/blob/master/talk.tex#L1102

      Otherwise, I'm unsure. :( I haven't put in the necessary research outside of that, so please lmk what you find, if anything.
      Friday, 15-Apr-2016 12:48:53 UTC permalink
    • Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) (clackemovedtoheldscalla)'s status on Thursday, 12-May-2016 12:44:43 UTC Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)
      in reply to
      • Mike Gerwitz
      • MMN-o ✅⃠
      @mmn @mikegerwitz @arunisaac *A* problem with browser JS is security. Doesn't make other problems not worth solving.
      Thursday, 12-May-2016 12:44:43 UTC permalink

Feeds

  • Activity Streams
  • RSS 2.0
  • Atom
  • Help
  • About
  • FAQ
  • TOS
  • Privacy
  • Source
  • Version
  • Contact

Mike Gerwitz's GNU Social Instance is a social network, courtesy of Mike Gerwitz. It runs on GNU social, version 1.2.0-beta4, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported All Mike Gerwitz's GNU Social Instance content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Switch to mobile site layout.