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Can we get !gnusocial javascript to be recognized as free software with librejs?
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@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.
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@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
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@mikegerwitz @mmn @arunisaac If I may intrude, https://onpon4.github.io/other/kill-js/
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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.
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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.?
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#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)
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@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.
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@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.
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> 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.
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@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.
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@mmn @mikegerwitz @arunisaac *A* problem with browser JS is security. Doesn't make other problems not worth solving.
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