Already lost? Not really. [LWN.net]

Already lost? Not really.

Posted Mar 26, 2009 6:14 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Accessible? Yeah, right. by TRS-80
Parent article: Stallman: the JavaScript trap

That's where Stallman should be focusing his efforts, rather than worrying about those who use hosted systems - they've already lost.

I beg your pardon. I can pull all data from GMail via IMAP - and this is a lot better then just to have some "free JavaScript"! I can take my data and go elsewhere - I don't need any "free JavaScript" for that. Yes, I can not easily change the interface, but that's secondary grief. I can pull my data - and that's enough for me. As for Google Docs - I'm avoiding them not because the JavaScript is not free, but because their export capabilities suck: exported .ods often has broken macros and you can not be even export Presentation to .odp! This is much bigger grief to me then freeness of JavaScript.

I care about my data first, about code availability second. And even if you care about availability of code to discuss availability of code for server and client parts make no sense: they are tied more tightly than Siamese twins!

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Already lost? Not really.

Posted Mar 26, 2009 7:48 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses)

I care about my data first, about code availability second. And even if you care about availability of code to discuss availability of code for server and client parts make no sense: they are tied more tightly than Siamese twins!

The sentence previous to the one you quoted was "Of course, none of this is necessary if you have direct access to the data in question because you're running it on your own server." IMAP is direct access to the data in question, I'm not sure why you think we disagree on the uselessness of replacing the client-side JavaScript.

I've talked about cloud...

Posted Mar 26, 2009 12:04 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

The sentence previous to the one you quoted was "Of course, none of this is necessary if you have direct access to the data in question because you're running it on your own server."

Yes, but I'm not running GMail on my own server! This was side-note about cloud. Even if you are NOT using "your own server" your data is not always held hostage: it's trivial to pull all data from GMail via IMAP (and it's probably good idea to do this from time to time - who knows when Google will declare you nasty spamer and remove your account?). So it's not true that people who are using hosted systems "already lost". But it's much better to use sane protocol (IMAP) for that rather then try to pull the data via "free JavaScript".

IMAP is direct access to the data in question, I'm not sure why you think we disagree on the uselessness of replacing the client-side JavaScript.

This is not about client-side JavaScript. This is about cloud: as long as my data can be pulled out of cloud I don't particularry care if cloud server is free software or not (I don't have resources to run my own replacement anyway): it's acceptable situation (of course free software is better... but it's only one factor out of many). If my data is held hostage on server and can only be accessed by JavaScript client - I don't really care if it's free software or not: I'll try to avoid such service as much as possible.