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

[Claude Rubinson]

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 03:25:38PM +0200, Nick Jennings wrote:
> Untrusted only in as far as running something which you cannot easily
> vet the source of. Which is not the case of open-source webapps, with
> publically available github repositories. What's the difference
> between running an open-source webapp or checking out and compiling an
> open-source native application? Assuming you can address the vendor
> lock-in (keeping your data on their servers, or the app being
> dependant on some critical server-side functionality), the only
> difference is the open-source web-app can reach a broader audience.

Which is why the AGPL is so important.  And why I really wish that the
Affero clause had made it into the GPL3.

> The paradigm is simple. Keep all web-app logic on the client-size (js,
> css, html), decouple the vendor lock-in by providing a generic library
> to facility remote-storage (remoteStorage.js) which could just as
> easily be running on localhost, or on your own server somewhere "in
> the cloud". The app could be distributed straight from the github
> repository, or via various open-app channels of your choosing.

Aside from the user being in control of where their data is stored,
what's the difference between this and the idea of the web browser as
the universal frontend (a concept that I think sounds better than it
works in practice)?

Claude