Re: On Gitlab's Javascript code

[Thomas Levine]

Dear Andrea,

I was not involved in the assessment of interest, but I offer some
commentary.



The GNU Ethical Repository Criteria are judgements of whether
a repository is acceptable for hosting GNU software, so they
includes criteria that go beyond software licensing.

For most requirements you cannot simply trust the company. For example,
consider requirement C4: "The site's terms of service contain no odious
conditions."



I suspect you are largely interested in the evaluation of software
license, so I add further commentary on that.

It is rather straightforward to check any program's license; check
for licenses in the source code distribution, and confirm that all are
free. If some aren't, then install only the free parts of the program,
and check whether the program works enough without the proprietary
parts.

I don't see how one would really check whether the company has
improperly claimed copyright on works to which the company does not have
the rights. This is one point on which I might personally have faith
in the company, but if we are using the service to host GNU software,
I think it would be good to search briefly for obvious copyright
violations by the company.



Regardless of the license of the GitLab software, the (dis?)-service
available at gitlab.com happens to run proprietary JavaScript.
I will contact GitLab and include you in the correspondence, and
I invite you to participate in the discussion if you please.

Cordially,
Thomas