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Free Software Foundation: Dating Is a Free Software Issue (fsf.org)
"I've been making the argument that everything is a free software issue for a few months now," writes the campaigns manager for the Free Software Foundation, in a new essay sharing thoughts on "the issues proprietary technology poses in dating and maintaining romantic relationships":
Many dating Web sites run proprietary JavaScript... Proprietary JavaScript is a trap that impacts your ability to run a free system, and not only does it sneak proprietary software onto your machine, but it also poses a security risk. Any piece of software can be malicious, but proprietary JavaScript goes the extra mile. Much of the JavaScript you encounter runs automatically when you load a Web site, which enables it to attack you without you even noticing.
Proprietary JavaScript doesn't have to be the only way to use Web sites. LibreJS is an initiative which blocks "nonfree nontrivial" JavaScript while allowing JavaScript that is either free or trivial. Many dating apps are also proprietary, available only at the Apple App and Google Play stores, both of which currently require the use of proprietary software.
The essay also warns about the proprietry software used for restaurant reservations, ride-sharing apps, and chat applications. (Not to mention the non-free software behind gift shopping on Amazon.) And even if you decide on a romantic evening at home, "you might find yourself tempted by freedom-disrespecting, DRM-supporting streaming services like Hulu and Netflix...."
"These are all proprietary tools, and the act of using them restricts our freedoms. When the ways we connect with one another are proprietary, we're trusting our secrets, intimacies, and relationships to technology we cannot trust."
Proprietary JavaScript doesn't have to be the only way to use Web sites. LibreJS is an initiative which blocks "nonfree nontrivial" JavaScript while allowing JavaScript that is either free or trivial. Many dating apps are also proprietary, available only at the Apple App and Google Play stores, both of which currently require the use of proprietary software.
The essay also warns about the proprietry software used for restaurant reservations, ride-sharing apps, and chat applications. (Not to mention the non-free software behind gift shopping on Amazon.) And even if you decide on a romantic evening at home, "you might find yourself tempted by freedom-disrespecting, DRM-supporting streaming services like Hulu and Netflix...."
"These are all proprietary tools, and the act of using them restricts our freedoms. When the ways we connect with one another are proprietary, we're trusting our secrets, intimacies, and relationships to technology we cannot trust."
Oh, sorry, it was you... Well in this case not only it isn't funny but it's somewhere from pathetic to dangerous. We can make fun of RMS but it's the world that's sick.
"Many dating Web sites run proprietary JavaScript..."
No shit, Sherlock. Why not just say "Many web sites run proprietary JavaScript..."? Why call out dating sites?
Practically every goddamn site I visit runs JS and sometimes they run fucking gobs of it to the point where my browser pops up warnings about scripts slowing down the system. Why are dating sites any different? Why not say car sales sites or blogs or Amazon? What's so special about dating sites?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
. . .it's hard to find a date.
I support free software and see the obvious benefits of its existence, but these guys who try to excise all proprietary software are living in a dreamland. My wife thinks I'm weird enough for abstaining from social media. When free software is convenient and useful, I use it.
The ironic part is that, as much as guys like Stallman rant and rave about freedom, the lifestyle they promote is extremely limiting. No wonder those nerds can't get dates. A free software dating app wouldn't change things.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Had to check my calendar that it isn't already an election year.
"When all you have is a hammer"... Well, you know the drill.
I used to think "incel" was a made-up controversy of mainstream outlets picking up on some bizarre, niche forum of a very wide, global internet, but that this essay get made makes we reconsider that conclusion.
Free Software is important, and promoting its use in the fundamental components of software architecture and systems design is important, as is having its principles applied to critical aspects of modern communication -- arguably now including social network systems.
Dating sites are not a critical aspect of modern communications. This essay comes across as someone who thinks the reason they don't get hits on Tinder is because there's a binary blob somewhere, when chances are higher it's because the blob is you.
FSF has more important things to work on and much lower hanging fruit than this.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Dating is a social activity with the end goal being to get some.
Software is the thing running on a computer that makes it useful (more or less).
Whatever weed you were smoking when writing this meta-article, please don't offer any of that to me.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I mean, who wants a significant other telling us what to do? Live free or die, right? /s
All relationships are built on trust. The medium used to communicate is the least of your worries if you can't do that.
Get over yourself.
So will "Piratebay and Chill" become the new PC term for sex on the couch?
How is a better browser going to make a javascript-dependent site magically work when the necessary javascript is blocked?
Your "solution" is completely idiotic and does absolutely nothing to address the issue.
and not only does it sneak proprietary software onto your machine
Is this like a vegan who found out that mayonnaise is made with eggs?
but it also poses a security risk
Why? I mean you said it yourself: "Any piece of software can be malicious". If they published the source code to your apparent demise will that have made you more secure? Are you under the impression there's a magical fairy out there auditing everything open source and that you are magically safe as a result?
Much of the JavaScript you encounter runs automatically when you load a Web site, which enables it to attack you without you even noticing.
Any code you run on your computer enables it to attack you without even noticing.
There's a lot to be said for open source, but really this retarded hyperbole gives Open Source advocates a bad name.
Richard Stallman isn't listed as the author of the "Dating is a free software issues" essay, Molly de Blanc is.
People used to "rant and rave" about how one was "living in a dreamland" to think that they could run a computer with a completely free OS. Fortunately people who fought for software freedom didn't take those criticisms seriously and now we have multiple completely free OSes. It seems that what was readily declared to be fantastic is becoming real thanks to those who push past the objectors and the namecallers. What matters is the substance of what we fight for—lazy convenience accepting whatever someone else wants to do to our computers, or demanding control over our computers and making it possible to do various jobs while retaining our software freedom.
Digital Citizen
How can a SW engineer actually test the code, given they will never date in the first place?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
That doesn't seem like the "real issue." That seems like a solution to the actual real issue of dating apps and sites being flooded with fake profiles.
Yes, and it'll also prevent you from using the site in most cases. That's kind of the opposite of "freedom".
That's about the most foolish definition of freedom I've seen today on the internet. Installing LibreJS is your choice. Claiming that choosing to not run non-free JS is 'the opposite of "freedom"' is several steps beyond facile.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
However if you're suspicious of a piece of OSS you can ask or pay someone to check it. That option doesn't exist with proprietary software.
Claiming that choosing to not run non-free JS is 'the opposite of "freedom"' is several steps beyond facile.
Sure, except for the fact that I never claimed any such thing.
Not running non-free JS is fine, but if it prevents you from doing what you want to do then what have you gained? Where's the "freedom" part in not being able to do what you need?
Your response is the same as saying that "disabling your car frees you from driving it." Right, but what if I want to drive it?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Sure, except for the fact that I never claimed any such thing.
Yes you literally did and you're about to do it again!
Not running non-free JS is fine, but if it prevents you from doing what you want to do then what have you gained?
Irrelevant, we're talking about freedom not utility.
Where's the "freedom" part in not being able to do what you need?
You said above you didn't say this. You're saying it again. You're 100% free because you're choosing that. Choosing to not do something doesn't mean you're not free any more because you haven't done it.
Your response is the same as saying that "disabling your car frees you from driving it." Right, but what if I want to drive it?
Not even slightly. It'e more like saying: choosing to sell your car is the opposite of "freedom" because you might want to drive.
You can freely make the choice to drive or not drive. Choosing to not drive does not make you less free. because you can un-choose whenever you like. Seriously how can you not understand such a basic concept?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Some sort of code for a site that can:
Allow a users to create an account, accepting an email and encrypted password. Keeping all that encrypted.
To ensure the CoC was displayed and some way having the CoC accepted.
To accept an image uploaded for the user computer. To size, rotate and crop.
To allow the user to see their account and enter data about their interests eg if they like Ada, Lisp, Assembler, C, Python, Forth, html, LabVIEW?
To then search for users with the same interests.
Chat rooms under a list of interests?
To send an encrypted message to people with the same interests.
To support text, mic and webcam chat? Fully encrypted.
What computer power, OS and code would be needed to do all that?
Code that works well with slow networks global and that can support different OS, web browsers?
Thats great crypto, images, text, accounts, video, voice, chat, a database of interests, searching.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
You do. Get off your ass.
Requiem for the American Dream
Games differ from tools for one big reason: They're typically not used for profit. One common pattern to fund development of free software is "eating one's own dogfood," in which a company improves the software that it uses in its line of business through which it realizes a profit. This doesn't apply nearly as cleanly to games, which are made for use in recreation by individuals.
A car company may develop software "to design complex parts for a car". An electronics company may develop software "for complex PCB design". A record label, a production music library, etc. may develop software "to create music". Even Disney, widely hated for its lobbying attacks on the public domain, has released the OpenSubdiv code library for CGI animation in order to interoperate with CGI tools made by and for other studios. Involving the public in improving these processes helps each such company turn a profit.
Games, not so much. The only companies that make profitable use of games are esports leagues, and as I understand it, one of the big draws of esports is use (under license) of proprietary games with which viewers are already familiar.
Recursive code filled the memory and caused unintended acceleration.
Yet Emacs, GIMP, and numerous other GNU applications use Lisp languages for user scripting. Lisp languages are based on recursion as a core control structure. Emacs uses Elisp, and GIMP ships with Script-Fu, an implementation of Scheme. A bunch of applications are scriptable in Guile, an implementation of Scheme.
Choosing to not do something doesn't mean you're not free any more because you haven't done it.
Failure to run proprietary JavaScript leads to failure to complete a web-based application to prepare and file an individual income tax return. Failing to file your individual income tax return leads to loss of freedom when the feds incarcerate you.
Failure to run proprietary JavaScript leads to failure to complete "I'm not a robot" checks, which leads to failure to submit comments on proposed regulation, which leads to failure "to petition the government for a redress of grievances" (U.S. Const., Amendment I).
Javascript runs in the browser and the browser prohibits certain activities.
The copyright license of the JavaScript code downloaded by the browser usually prohibits the user from certain activities.
Choosing to not drive does not make you less free.
Yeah it actually does, and in a real-world way, not in some nebulous philosophical sense.
Basically what you're saying is equivalent to "refusing medical care doesn't make you less healthy."
Just tell that blockage in your artery to go away (you can always choose to come back to life later).
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Yeah it actually does
Not by any normal definition of the word free. If you have the choice then you have your freedom. I, as a non car owner am every bit as free as a car owner, because it is my choice and I can choose precisely the opposite tomorrow if I so desire. Altering the relative levels of convenience is not the opposite of "freedom".
In the context of this thread it's even more completely inane because you can install LibreJS then use its whitelisting feature to whitelist any sites you feel you need that won't run without non-free JavaScript.
So what you're really claiming is that choosing to do something in a slightly different way from other people is "the opposite of freedom". That IS without doubt the stupidest thing I've heard on the internet all week.
And I ventured onto twitter earlier, so you have passed an impressively high bar. Congratulations.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is one of the most bizarre threads I've ever been on.
Do you not understand that:
1. It's your choice whether or not to use LibreJS?
2. You don't have to take its reecommendations even if you do install it?
Failure to run proprietary JavaScript leads to failure to complete a web-based application to prepare and file an individual income tax return. Failing to file your individual income tax return leads to loss of freedom when the feds incarcerate you.
You're claiming that installing LibreJS will send you to prison? That's, well, the other guy in this thread said some pretty off-the-wall stuff but I think you may have topped him!
You could always use LibreJS's whitelist feature on irs.gov (or whatever the site is). Or if you feel REALLY strongly you can file it on paper.
Failure to run proprietary JavaScript leads to failure to complete "I'm not a robot" checks, which leads to failure to submit comments on proposed regulation, which leads to failure "to petition the government for a redress of grievances" (U.S. Const., Amendment I).
I've come to the conclusion that anyone quoting the consitution doesn't understand it. Nothing but nothing in the constitution says you don't have the freedom to not run a javascript blocker if you have it installed.
And you are still allowed to petition your government for redress of grievances by snail mail, email and twitter which I believe still has a JS-free interface.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You could always use LibreJS's whitelist feature on irs.gov (or whatever the site is).
Zealots would claim: "If you've whitelisted one site, you've failed."
And you are still allowed to petition your government for redress of grievances by snail mail, email and twitter which I believe still has a JS-free interface.
During some calls for public comment, the US government has outright stated that it will refuse to consider any comment submitted through snail mail or email. In one case, the US Copyright Office stated, and I quote, that it "cannot allow submission of comments outside the regulations.gov system on the basis of your objection to the use of proprietary software."
TL;DR
Now you're just getting tiresome.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Provide the source code to your "auto-de-obfuscator" and auto-minifier, including any "internal maps" it uses, along with the program in obfuscated form. Once you've done so, the obfuscated form is indeed source code.