Re: Please, no GitHub

[Maxthon Chan]

Richard:

> On Dec 12, 2015, at 13:00, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
> 
>> As far as I can see,  the existance of the Github JSON API [1] allows it
>> to meet all of the criteria in section C of that document,  and hence be
>> an acceptable host.
> 
> I think you've misunderstood the meaning of some conditionss.
> 
>    <li id="C0"><p>All important site functionality that’s enabled for use
>        with that package works correctly (though it need not look
>        as nice) in free browsers, including
>        <a href="/software/gnuzilla/">IceCat</a>,
>        without running any nonfree software sent by the
>        site.  <strong>(C0)</strong></p>
> 
> means that if you visit the site normally, with nonfree JS code blocked,
> the site works normally.
> 
> I think you are talking about something quite different, such as whether
> you could write some other interface that would work.  Maybe you could,
> but that is not what C0 is about.

They exposed **every single** site functionality through the API (in fact, the 
Web interface itself uses the API to do its business, so it is safe to say that 
https://github.com/ is no more than one of the several available front-ends for 
https://api.github.com/) so https://api.github.com/ is satisfying this criteria.

>    <li id="C5"><p>Recommends and encourages GPL 3-or-later licensing at
>        least as much as any other kind of licensing.  
> <strong>(C5)</strong></p></li>
> 
> Since you talk about offering a "choice", I think you may have
> misinterpreted "Recommends and encourages" as "permits”.

Their website and API are license-blind. Github have a “choose a license” 
website that put GPL at the same level of recommendation as Apache 2.0 and 
MIT/X11 license. Due to **practical reasons** people are **avoiding** GPLv3 
(you may need to check the reason why folks are doing this, or GPLv3 will soon 
become the license of past,) so their recommendation is GPLv2+ for GPL.

> I don't know if we could make our criteria bulletproof against
> misunderstanding, but I will continue to clarify the meaning as needed.
> 
> -- 
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
> Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss-gnustep mailing list
> Discuss-gnustep@gnu.org
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep

smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature