Re: [Repo-criteria-discuss] Libreoffice SpreadSheet Template for Evaluating Repos

[Ian Jackson]

Aaron Wolf writes ("Re: [Repo-criteria-discuss] Libreoffice SpreadSheet 
Template for Evaluating Repos"):
> On 06/04/2018 12:55 AM, Félix Brezo (Personal) wrote:
> > Launchpad's evaluation according to the report we did in 2016 was
> > a C with just one thing to promote to B:
> > 
> > B0 | All code sent to the user's browser must be free software and
> > labeled for LibreJS or other suitable free automatic license
> > analyzer, regardless of whether the site functions when the user
> > disables this code. (B0) | Failed | No. At least 13 scripts
> > detected by LibreJS as inline, nonfree.
> 
> Reference to LibreJS should always say "not identified as free/libre" or
> similar. LibreJS failing to identify positively as free is not the same
> thing as being nonfree.

Indeed.

AIUI Launchpad is Free Software, and that includes the Javascript it
sends to users browsers.

If I may go off on a tangent:

I had a quick chat with a Launchpad developer about LibreJS tagging
and they said that LibreJS was quite awkward to work with in a system
like Launchpad, which dynamically assembles appropriate JavaScript
snippets and/or includes, according to whatever page is being
generated.

LibreJS seems to want the site to either (i) tag every individual
inline Javascript snippet or (ii) put a large boilerplate in every
HTML document.  (ii) is not good for performance because it can
increase the size substantially and (i) is obviously hard to work
with.

Would it be possible to add a feature to the LibreJS spec, for a web
page to contain a brief licence comment referring to an external
licence file, which is taken to apply to all inline script elements ?

For example, could the special comment magnet link syntax which is
supported for external javascript files, be supported for HTML
documents too ?

In more detail, looking at this
  https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.html#step3
and thinking specifically about inline script fragments which are
dynamically calculated by the web application:

3.1 "JavaScript Web Labels" is not sufficient because it does not
handle inline scripts.

3.2.1 "JavaScript embedded on your page" involves adding the actual
licence text to each HTML page.  This is undesirable because the data
is rather large.

3.2.2 "Specific license information for each script" involves a
licence tag in each <script> element.  This is absurdly cumbersome to
implement and also bloats the page.

For external Javascript files, even ones which are dynamically
generated, the "magnet link" form is permitted.

With my proposed extension, the Launchpad developers just have to
make Launchpad put

  <script>
  // @license magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0b31508aeb0634b347b8270c7bee4d411b5d4109 
AGPL-3.0+
  </script>

near the top of each HTML file (before the first <script> element),
and

  <script>
  // @license-end
  </script>

at the end; and also have it put the those //-tags in the external
script files sent by Launchpad (the latter AIUI being already
supported by LP).

Thanks,
Ian.