Re: [directory-discuss] s/w that requires a middleman to liberate it -- is it free?

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

I'll answer to some argumentations made at:
[[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01/msg00066.html]]

First we must understand what is the goal of free/libre software
movement, although there is no need to tell each part of the definition
again. So, briefely, the free/libre software movement is concerned with
*software freedom* (or to put more specifically, functional data
freedom), in other words: What does the user receives as rights when he
receives the functional data in question? (be it software, documentation,
text fonts, and some other things). This can be seen in the Free
Software Definition: [[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html]].

The section "/Freedom denied/" of the message I referenced earlier does
not correspond to what is defined in the Free Software Definition, not
even the reference to involuntary servitude, I'll keep the list
hierarchy while answering to each list item:

1. This item does not relate to free/libre software movement, it relates
   to privacy advocates, not free/libre software advocates. Although we
   do agree that privacy is impossible without free/libre software,
   privacy isn't a requirement.

   Also, I cannot reproduce this, since I'm not affected by the issue,
   but I have talked with some experts on Tor usage, and it seems that
   both parties (Tor and CloudFlare) are tied in regards to who is the
   responsible for the mess. Tor has part on this because every node has
   to communicate with the target address in order to stablish a
   connection to the requesting node, and CloudFlare has part on this
   because their security measures understand that moultiple connections
   happenning at the same time are possibly denial of service attacks.

2. Now, as a *personal* suggestion, perhaps you can use GNU `wget` to
   download the page where the CAPTCHA is, and try to find ways to make
   character recognition work on the CAPTCHA image everytime it changes,
   or to solve it in some other way. Once you have a minimal testing way
   to do so, use `wget` with both the `--keep-session-cookies` and
   `--save-cookies [Path to cookie file.]` options to save the cookies
   for the session when CloudFlare asks for the CAPTCHA challenge, this
   will provide you with a cookie called "cfduid" which I think holds
   the session responsible for the CAPTCHA challenge. Then use `wget`
   with the `--load-cookies [Path to cookie file.]`, now with your
   testing exampled, to try to bypass it.

Referring to the section "/Traceability of above nonfree documentation
cases to FSF material/" of the message, I cite parts of the very
same article on SaaSS:

"Google Docs shows how complex the evaluation of a single service can
become. It invites people to edit a document by running a large nonfree
JavaScript program, clearly wrong. However, it offers an API for
uploading and downloading documents in standard formats. A free software
editor can do so through this API. This usage scenario is not SaaSS,
because it uses Google Docs as a mere repository. Showing all your data
to a company is bad, but that is a matter of privacy, not SaaSS;
depending on a service for access to your data is bad, but that is a
matter of risk, not SaaSS. On the other hand, using the service for
converting document formats is SaaSS, because it's something you could
have done by running a suitable program (free, one hopes) in your own
computer [...]

Publishing via someone else's repository does not raise privacy issues,
but publishing through Google Docs has a special problem: it is
impossible even to view the text of a Google Docs document in a browser
without running the nonfree JavaScript code. Thus, you should not use
Google Docs to publish anything—but the reason is not a matter of
SaaSS."

With this citation, if we take the first paragraph, we can see that it's
not a real matter of SaaSS. However, if we consider the second
paragraph, then your concerns *are indeed* founded, *but only* based on
the argumentation that CloudFlare forces people to use non-free
software (through JavaScript), not in the privacy argumentation (because
privacy isn't a requirement for the free/libre software movement).

On putting a web interface between and the deliverable artifacts as a
recipe for disaster with regards to user freedom: Not every web
interface is bad, the problem is with non-free software written in
JavaScript, but not all JavaScript programs are bad, only the non-free
ones are.

Also, regarding including the documentation with the software also: As
was pointed out by Ineieve in
[[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01/msg00075.html]],
the source files do include documentation and when the user receives
both, he can see that the documentation is free/libre. Remember that, in
the absense of a licence *notice* in the documentation, the license
notice of the parent directory applies, this is the case only for
not-per-file licenses, this is true for the GNU GPL also, at least from
version 2 and later. Although *it is* good practice (and recommended) to
include the copyright notices in every place possible.

Regarding their copyright notice in the website, as cited by you at
[[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01/msg00090.html]],
I do agree that they should make an improvement to that copyright
notice, so that the license notice is also presented to the
visitor. Perhaps you can help us by asking the GNU Radio project to
change that footer, or even better, make use of the documentation that
was shared by Mr(s) Tkachenko, study how it's done/built, and make a
patch to send to GNU Radio project.
-- 
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* Pretende me enviar arquivos .doc, .ppt, .cdr, ou .mp3? OK, eu
  aceito, mas não repasso. Entrego apenas em formatos favoráveis ao
  software livre. Favor entrar em contato em caso de dúvida.
* "People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the
  world."
                                                 --- Richard Stallman