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From the free software perspective, it's like the government is saying "in order to submit a comment to us, please download this obfuscated Turing complete software and run it on your computer."

That this particular source code is JavaScript on a web page means that it obeys under some more or less correctly implemented sandbox, but you're still obliged to execute minified and unlicensed code.

The FSF views that as unethical. You shouldn't need to load proprietary software onto your computer to communicate with the government.

It's a principled stance that applies even where the current situation is not abusive, so it can seem like exaggeration or even "craziness."

Their comment itself clearly explains their stance.

https://www.fsf.org/licensing/2016-tech-comment-copyright-of...

I assume they're okay with the software on the copyright office's servers being proprietary and closed-source, as well as the software in the word processors and email servers and clients they'll use to banter the topic back and forth internally, right?

It's just the fact that they can't HTTP POST their message to a server using open protocols that sticks in their craw?

I'm curious where they draw the line at coming to terms with the mechanical necessities of interacting with the government to represent their constituency's interests.

I'm not deeply familiar with the exact philosophy of the FSF, but I would guess:

(1) software freedom is mostly about protecting the rights of you as a user of software, and if the government uses proprietary software on their own end to make decisions based on secret rules or whatever then that's basically their business; but on the other hand

(2) there are strong arguments for making the decision making technology of government into free software since government is for and by the people who should have the right to understand the technology that governs them.

So, in a way they do just want to be able to keep their own computers free from proprietary/secret binary blobs; on the other hand, advocating for government transparency goes hand in hand with advocating for software freedom (thus FSF and EFF are allies).

> I assume they're okay with the software on the copyright office's servers being proprietary and closed-source, as well as the software in the word processors and email servers and clients they'll use to banter the topic back and forth internally, right?

Why do you assume that? I don't think the FSF is okay with closed-source software existing at all

The LibreJS browser add-on blocks javascript that is above a certain size/complexity and doesn't have a programatically declared (or manually whitelisted) FOSS license.

The FSF uses LibreJS on the computers in their office. Which makes it excruciating to buy airline tickets, for example.

I was flabbergasted when I found this out. I thought something along the lines of "I've been giving these mad martyrs money!?". :)

...It took a while to sink in, but... They are right.

The reasoning goes like this:

A script embedded in a website is a tiny program that runs on your computer. It is software.

Some software is morally wrong. Some software is morally neutral or good. Software can/has/will change the world, and it's important that it be a force of good, not evil.

You can tell the difference between good and bad software by applying the following metrics. The software is "free" (as in William Wallace) if it provides the user with the following freedoms:

    * The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any
      purpose (freedom 0).
    * The freedom to study how the program works, and change
      it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1).
      Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your
      neighbor (freedom 2).
    * The freedom to distribute copies of your modified
      versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can
      give the whole community a chance to benefit from your
      changes. Access to the source code is a precondition
      for this.
The javascript on government websites (even non-USA) should have those freedoms. Why not?

Another comment here said that the FSF needs to "pick its battles". Actually, don't you think this is a great one to pick? There's no good excuse for a government web-dev to avoid meeting those requirements. And there's no good argument against users demanding them. It's just javascript!

[Edit: wrap "excruciating" in * instead of ".]

> The javascript on government websites (even non-USA) should have those freedoms. Why not?

Among other reasons: because they impose restrictions on the subcontractors the government can employ to do the job that increase the overall cost, therefore perhaps failing to do their fiduciary duty to the taxpayer.

It's still an open question which side this issue should fall on for most people who don't see Four Freedoms as a necessary tenet.

Exactly. Agencies will be licking their lips at the exorbitant fees they can charge to meet 'freedom level 4' standard.
> There's no good excuse for a government web-dev to avoid meeting those requirements.

Arguably, there is a perfectly valid excuse - the four freedoms aren't actually laws, so governments have no reason (or right) to enforce them.

Yet! ;)
How about making it possible to communicate with government offices without JavaScript/ECMAScript at /all/?

What if it worked properly for those with ADA abilities, like say the blind on a text mode TTY with a text-only browser? Those still support basic web forms and the server side is where all data-validation should occur anyway.

Alternatively, as the EFF notes, allowing alternate communications protocols (such as the freely open standard of shudder email) is also a viable secondary channel.

Isn't it their websites that are the alternative protocol? The primary would be snail mail.
> as the EFF notes

I think you mean FSF here.

How do these four freedoms constitute a border between "morally wrong" and "morally neutral or good" software? That seems dubious to me.
I think the general idea is that software will certainly be in the history books, but it is so flexible that we don't know yet if it will be described as plague or panacea.

I recommend reading or re-reading https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html (...remember the part about asteroid mining? It's near this part: "In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the postscarcity world [...]")

And there are in fact a lot of documents on this topic available here: https://www.gnu.org/server/sitemap.html#directory-philosophy

There're already laws about publicly funded research that basically are the same sort of thing.
As usual with FSF stuff, I don't actually disagree, but it blows my mind that they actually care this much. I can't imagine being unwilling to submit a request (that furthers the cause of free software) because it requires going through a proprietary portal.
Their actions seem to be consistent with their principles. I'd be far more surprised if they were willing to sacrifice them out of pragmatism. Rather, perhaps the advice they need is "choose your battles".
The anti-proprietary-js movement seems to be coming from RMS himself (given his complaints to con organizers). And he hasn't used a browser other than emacs in... ever?
Have you seen our tax code lately, or the Internal Revenue Service? Forget proprietary software. Try proprietary documents, forms, and methods of submission!
I was going to say that... I love it when a Government site makes me download a MS Word or Excel file. So I need to either buy a Microsoft product or trust OSS solutions that often mangle the document (through no fault of their own... reverse engineering a proprietary file format is difficult and displaying it the exact same is even harder).
A more egregious example is FinCen Form 114. This is a form that you must file with the Department of Treasury every year if you have a bank account abroad. This form is implemented as a JavaScripty PDF thingy that only works on Acrobat Reader on Windows (and maybe Mac) but not on Linux. The penalties for not filing this form are max($100K, 50% of your account balance), so you don't have much of a choice.
>The Copyright Office is the only agency we have dealt with that refuses to offer any method of submission that doesn't require proprietary software.

I'm not sure whether that's ironic or expected.

I wonder if the FSF should start their own religion. It would be easier to argue that the government should allow receiving comments by letter if not allowing them goes against their moral code. I don't think it would be stretching the definition of a religion, either.
They already have the Church of Emacs, and Richard Stallman is deemed Saint IGNUcius.
It's interesting that when it comes to FOIA, the government will deliver documents in the most inconvenient way possible, but when soliciting input from the public, they only accept documents in whatever way is convenient for them.
Wtf? Am I missing something here? People have problems with running propriety javascript?

I don't get it. You don't have to install anything and if you're concerned about what could be in the javascript, then use incognito mode, tor, a proxy, etc.

You're going to increase the cost of web software products exponentially if devs can't use propriety javascript.

This is largely a philosophical and moral issue as opposed to a practical one. It would be something akin to a conscientious objector drafted for military service or an Amish person required to apply for a horse and buggy operator's license via a government website.
I think the thing you missed is the existence of people like the Free Software Foundation. There are indeed people who are generally opposed to proprietary software on a philosophical/ethical/moral level.
The older I get, and the more software work I do, the more I come in parity to FSF's platform as a whole.

IoT is a mess right now, purely because of rent-seeking anti-standards, treacherous computing. Do you own your devices? Hardly! Phillips shut down all 3rd party bulbs, and 'graciously' fixed that after a bad 1 day campaign... but retains the ability to do it again.

Google destroyed the Revolv servers for no good reason. It trashed all the devices that relied the purely webAPI implemented hardware.

I can go on... In the end, I just get sick and tired of being pulled in 1000 different directions, with as many 'cloud providers', doing that many different bad implementations of the same thing (but as their serf in their castle).

Open Source is a way out of local computing problems. Open Standards allows me to bring my business elsewhere when I'm alienated. Open Protocols allows me to communicate with other networks and computers. All are essential.

"You're going to increase the cost of web software products exponentially if devs can't use propriety javascript."

Why?

Something something minified.

Minifying the Javascript files admittedly reduces the bandwidth of a server, however providing source code for compiled/minified code can still be handled separately, and remove the argument of bandwidth since a small fraction of users care to look at the source itself.

No one should have to use proprietary software. Period.
And yet almost everyone is willing to vote using e-voting machines and either drive to that voting location with a car that has an onboard computer or take some form of mass-transit with a location GPS and money transaction system...
I have been an FSF supporter for decades, but the JavaScript issue is one thing I don't totally agree with.

That said, there should be nothing "fancy" on government web sites, and they should be compatible,with all operating systems and common web browsers.

Does the following solution solve the FSF's problems with "proprietary javascript" (which just seems to mean that it has been minified)? Allow the browser to request un-minified javascript, at the cost of a larger payload.
I think a (machine-readable) reference to the unobfuscated version is all that's needed.
Most code is compiled. Their code is compiled, minified, not licensed, and not attributed.
What a JOKE! There's NO control on how and where the government chooses to store your data, even if the javascript is GPL-ed. So, what gives?

I had to double check if this was a buzzfeed clickbait or real FSF article. Travesty!

I don't understand what they are objecting to here. What is "Proprietary JavaScript"? JavaScript is a part of the web, arguably the least proprietary technology platform in existence.
> What is "Proprietary JavaScript"? JavaScript is a part of the web, arguably the least proprietary technology platform in existence.

They're not arguing the language is proprietary, they're taking issue that the code embedded in websites is often under a proprietary license. See https://fsf.org/campaigns/freejs

The Javascript Trap

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.en.html

What about java software running in the browser with unsecure certificates and full access to the system harddrive? because that's what we have in Portugal to fill taxes.
Wolf again?
The irony being that every damned time the boy cried wolf in the past, there was indeed a damned wolf stalking nearby, but the idiot villangers refused to acknolwledge that, and then they wonder where their damned sheep might be.

Maybe we should rename the story as The girl that cried wolf instead... a girl that goes by the name of Cassandra.

"Should." Huh.
Somehow I thought this was from the EFF and my immediate reaction was that they were going crazy. Then I realized it was the FSF instead and it all made sense. Closed tab.
I wish these guys worked on sounding less crazy. I agree with their point here: software does stuff we don't like and dot-gov has a responsibility to review third-party code. Linking that to an 'all software must be FOSS' argument starts to get nutty.

I make money by selling software. Does that make me a pariah to the FSF? I've never been sure. I still want to donate money to preserve their unique voice, so maybe the answer is that you have to be a little crazy to do their job.

> I make money by selling software. Does that make me a pariah to the FSF? I've never been sure.

FSF encourages people to make money by selling software, but their view is that it is unethical to arrange for a user of software not to enjoy the four freedoms with respect to that software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition#T...

If you've arranged for users of your software not to have those four freedoms, FSF finds what you do objectionable and wants you to stop doing it (I don't think "pariah" would be fair).