Re: [Bug-librejs] Allow to use 'link' instead of 'a'?

[Loic J. Duros]

On 07/20/2012 10:07 PM, res-librejs wrote:
> Feedback for "JavaScript License Web Labels":
>
> I wonder whether it is allowed to link to the webpage containing the
> table with the 'link' element instead of the 'a' element? If not, I'd
> like to propose it hereby.

Thanks for your feedback.

Currently it requires an <a> tag, yes. Making the link invisible is not 
good since we want users to see the link. In any case, instead of using 
a <link> tag, why not just use an <a> tag, give it an id, and then use 
CSS to hide it?
For example:

<a id="js-link" href="/about/javascript" rel="jslicense">[…]</a>

and in CSS:

#js-link {
  display:none;
}

alternatively you could do:
<a style="display:none" href="/about/javascript" rel="jslicense">[…]</a>

The idea behind the JS Web labels was to make it easy to both users and programs (like 
LibreJS) to find license information about JavaScript, and the documentation does mention 
that it should be "visible" to the users.

So I'd really go against making it invisible.


> My primary concern is the adoption by CMS. When a CMS ships with 
> JavaScript and wants to use JavaScript License Web Labels, it could be 
> very hard to succeed in ensuring that the CMS administrator/themer 
> (who maybe never heard of JavaScript) does not remove the link 
> (intentionally or accidentally). A 'link' element could be inserted 
> automatically, independent of the chosen theme. What do you think? 
If the administrator has never heard of software freedom and licenses, 
there is the risk that he will put nonfree JavaScript along with the 
free one, and so I'm not sure we want to have Js Web Labels present on a 
page without the owner being at least aware of what it is there for and 
what it means.