[nmglug] Speaking of userspace...

[a]

Sam;
I applaud your vigilance,and speaking up for rectitude
In your comment you describe behaviour, I think of as being bereft 
ethically.
They would not be considered guardians of ethics.
one mans view.
a

On 06/25/2015 11:32 AM, Sam Noble wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 08:44:40AM -0600, esque wrote:
>> How about you? ;)
> Right, because if I was going to work on a free software browser, I'd
> pick the one where my paid collaborators say things like:
>
> # 'The fact is that an end user should not care if software downloads a
> # "binary blob" without running it. This is functionally equivalent to
> # downloading anything from the Internet, a JPG file for example. Chromium
> # downloads a bunch of things on startup, and nobody seems to mind. Just
> # because hotword.nexe happens to be an executable blob doesn't really
> # make a difference.'¹
>
> Instead I think I'd prefer to work on the one where the code that they
> silently download and install is free software:
> # Firefox does auto-download an OpenH264 binary on systems without a
> # supported H.264 decoder library (if this feature is enabled, which it
> # isn't currently in Debian's iceweasel packages). But note that OpenH264
> # is free software available under the BSD license:
> # Firefox downloads binaries from Cisco because Cisco can legally
> # distribute this software in binary form in countries where H.264 patents
> # apply, while Mozilla can't do so directly.²
>
> :sigh: (That actually sounds like a neat-ish legal hack for our tricky
> patent law, but) I haven't heard of this before, and it's frustrating if
> it really is silently downloading code in the background. Though as
> someone who lets a lot of unsourced javascript run when browsing the www
> I probably have scarier things than this happening, though still not as
> scary as chromium installing a thingymablob that if the debian devs
> hadn't been wise enough to disable all of NaCL in chromium could be
> happily sending private conversations across the internet.
>