Re: [Repo-criteria-discuss] Ethical hosting means Free Software hosting

[Ian Jackson]

Ian Jackson writes ("Re: [Repo-criteria-discuss] Ethical hosting means Free 
Software hosting"):
> I don't understand why you say these are "different issues from
> software freedom" and then link to an article by RMS which explains
> how proprietary websites make people unfree.  (RMS's article attempts
> to distinguish proprietary services which are for publishing things,
> and proprietary services which are for computation.  I am arguing that
> that distiction doesn't make any practical sense.)

I should point out that this distinction probably made a lot of sense
a few decades ago, when it was first thought of.  There is little harm
to the visitor who downloads a file from a non-free ftp server, or a
non-free http server which simply serves static files.

Even the harm to the visitor who views a website generated by a
non-free CMS, is limited: they are unable to send suggestions for
improvement but most visitors to other people's websites don't care
about that.

But nowadays websites /combine/ the functions of publication and
computation.  Particularly, websites have become communication tools.
The server code shapes and define the possible interactions between
people.  The user interfaces have become complicated, so that users
should be able to customise them.  And website code (and the
associated databases) embed answers to policy questions.

Whether the website code is running on the server or executing in the
browser is an implementation detail.  It's important for security but
makes little practical difference for software (un)freedom.

Ian.