[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #22534: Make bundled JavaScript LibreJS compatible

[WordPress Trac]

#22534: Make bundled JavaScript LibreJS compatible
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 Reporter:  micahflee    |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  General      |     Version:
 Severity:  normal       |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  close        |
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Comment (by nacin):

 In May of this year, I offered this private assessment of LibreJS to
 someone who asked. I am posting it here, as I think the points still
 stand:

 > Based on my reading, RMS/FSF essentially want everyone to document in
 the page and script sources the individual licenses of all JavaScript
 running on the page. Only their particular format (which is a few
 paragraphs long and includes @licstart and @licend tags) will pass their
 LibreJS add-on, which I've tried out.
 >
 > In February, they made a push for HTML table markup on every page that
 must be "displayed prominently" to declare the license of the code running
 on it. See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/javascript-labels.html. It is
 rather absurd. You can see Stallman's article, "The JavaScript Trap,"
 here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html. The table markup
 is linked in Appendix B. The chunk of license text is in Appendix A.
 >
 > We clearly meet the language and spirit of the license by declaring the
 entire software as GPLv2 (or later) and by providing a written offer.
 Alas, it seems the FSF is trying to make things difficult for projects
 that are A) clearly properly licensed and B) support the FSF, mainly to
 make a point to everyone running non-free code. The WordPress package is
 free software, but he also wants to ensure that every browser in the world
 only executes free JavaScript too, which is unnecessarily burdensome and
 not very practical for everyone involved -- especially people already
 playing by the rules. I'm not sure I recommend we play along.

 The irony was not lost on me that FSF apparently invented their own format
 (correct me if I'm wrong — I've never seen anything quite like this
 before), rather than, at the very most, encourage some kind of simple,
 standard license marker that many projects were already doing.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/22534#comment:3>
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