Re: Savannah vs. Gitlab

[H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 09.12.2015 um 07:32 schrieb Svetlana A. Tkachenko <svetlana@members.fsf.org>:

>> did you mean the unknown scripts running on Github's servers making up
>> their web site?
> 
> No.
> 
> Backend = software GitHub runs on its servers. Whether it's free or not
> is up to them. The burden of running proprietary software there is on
> them.
> 
> Frontend = the things we download and render in our web browsers. It has
> been established among GNU project that all scripts users run need to be
> free. It is not ethical to publish non-free scripts on the web. But
> GitHub does that.

Exactly.

> 
> (There is this question of whether the HTML markup also needs to be
> free. I think yes. I have not got a second opinion on this, though, and
> it is another can of worms.)

This looks to me like hair cutting...

Both, the JS scripts and HTML are coming as open source. As others said
you can always look into the code. Do you agree?

How do you differentiate those bits being received to be open or to be free?

It is a matter of license of course.

But IMHO there are no licences and contracts and copyrights for public
web content and the scripts sent to the browser.

> 
>> The word "frontend" would be the word Ivan and me have misunderstood:
>> the "computer in front of you" = the web browser / client running
>> JavaScripts.
> 
> Think of it as of a TV. The movie you see is the front. The wires are at
> the back.

We agree on that.

We were only not aware that you indeed mean the frontend scripts that
Github sends to your browser and are wondering why they are a problem.

> 
>> I learned ~1 year ago that there is an FSF initiative (license? I don't
>> know the
>> right word) that all software running on a web server must also be open
>> source
>> to be considered "free speech".
> 
> It may, but it is not your primary concern: you are just a user.
> The bigger concern is what is running on your web client (i.e. in your
> own browser).

Java Script is open source by principle.

Java bytecode isn't. But AFAIK GitHub doesn't use it.

> 
> For this reason I use and recommend LibreJS:
> https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/

I have read that plus

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html

but I am not sure if that is the right approach. It tries to waste network 
bandwidth
for license code embedded into the JS code which carries exactly 1 bit of 
information.

I don't see a problem in instructing my browser:

if (url = "github/something.js)
        replace-with(my-modified-copy/something.js)

Would be less than 20 lines of code in SWK. Or a little more to have regular 
expressions.

Then I am free to modify the file for my purposes. And GitHub can't prevent me 
to do so.
So they can't stop my freedom. Unless they enforce copyright on the JS they 
send. But
how should they do except banning me from using their service?

Well, they can ban me from distributing the modified version. But why should I 
do that?
I don't see a reason that I as a GitHub user should "improve" their system. I 
just want
to use it for GNUstep hosting.

Therefore I think it is NOT the author of the JS at GitHub who restricts 
freedom. It is the
browser that does not provide such capabilities. The evil is not GitHub but the 
browser
developer... And banning GitHub for that reason is IMHO the wrong conclusion.

BR,
Nikolaus