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Florian Snow floriansnow at fsfe.org
Tue Jan 23 20:18:41 UTC 2018


Hi Jonas,


Jonas Oberg <jonas at fsfe.org> writes:
> By and large, I believe *where* a certain piece of code runs is immaterial
> to the question, and what matters is the interface the user of a service is
> subject to.

> Let's imagine for a second that Google and Facebook rewrote their frontend
> to use only CSS/HTML, and avoid JavaScript. Would that magically make their
> service more respecting of my freedom? I do not believe so. It would still
> be a proprietary service.

I agree with you, but I see multiple different questions involved here:
1) Is it Free Software?
2) Do I control my data?
3) Is it ok to execute client-side code (in order to see information)?

So what you describe would satisfy 1 and 3, but Facebook would still
process my data in a way I may disagree with.  This is a privacy-related
question, though, not a Free Software question.


> It would still be a proprietary service.

I am not quite sure I would call it that, though.  It might even be a
free service then that locks in my data.

Happy hacking!
Florian



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