[buug] $*#! JavaScript and the new playing field for Free Software

Ian Zimmerman itz at buug.org
Mon Sep 10 09:14:10 PDT 2012


Nick> There will never be a replacement for keeping the power of your OS
Nick> (I hate the concept of the chrome-book), but in many ways the
Nick> advent of HTML5, the movement to embrace JavaScript rather than
Nick> put up with it, and web-apps in general, do help to level the
Nick> playing feild for free operating systems.

I cannot see this at all.  For me, the trends toward web apps is
essentially an end run around free software, as RMS has predicted.  And
the conspiracy theorist in me is convinced this is quite intentional,
i.e. someone somewhere (probably in the US Northwest) in a smoke filled
room came up with the idea and saw where it would go.

Of course it is not about JavaScript the language which is no uglier
than, say, Perl.  It is about depending on untrusted, unfixable (unless
you control the website) and mostly un-inspectable (with minimization
etc.) code.

-- 
Ian Zimmerman
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