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Carmen Bianca Bakker carmenbianca at fsfe.org
Fri Jan 19 12:51:37 UTC 2018


Hi Jonas,

Je 2018-01-19 13:30:09, Jonas Oberg <jonas at fsfe.org> skribis:
> And to follow up, since I can anticipate one answer :-), you can decide
> what runs or what does not run on your computer. No one is forcing you to
> run priorietary JavaScript from Google or Facebook. You just need to stop
> using those services. When you accept to use a service, you also, implicitly
> agree to the conditions by which that service is offered.

That doesn't seem quite right.  Assuming both the server software and
the client software is proprietary, then the difference is indeed
minimal, though you could technically reverse-engineer the proprietary
client software.  But assuming one or both are free, then I would
_always_ pick client-side computing over server-side computing, because
that gives me greater influence over Freedom 3; the right to modify the
software.

If the software exists somewhere on a server, then I would have to run
my own server to exercise that freedom, which is often times
impractical, sometimes impossible.  It is especially impractical when
the servers aren't federated.  Reddit was for a long time Free Software,
but almost nobody ran any Reddit servers of their own, because it is
simply no use when all the users and data exist on the _real_ Reddit.

But you're also right; if the terms of services of a certain service are
objectionable and the software is not free, then the only thing you can
truly do is simply not use the software.

Yours,

-- 
Carmen Bianca Bakker
en eo nl
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