[Assist] Fwd: Re: Telegram & Non-Free SaaSS

[Brett Gilio]

bill-auger writes:
> ring is working on offline messages for their next release - i 
> have
> not asked how it will be implememted - maybe on the blockchain?

I am not aware of the specifics, either. But I was under the 
impression
that even XMPP has an asynchronous messaging feature. Maybe I am 
mistaken.

> the main issue with a mediator is of course, privacy more than 
> freedom
> - as for the FSDG, the more important concern is the issue of 
> the
> server sending scripts willy-nilly to clients - that is a trend 
> that
> is likely to continue and grow in the future - a practice that 
> it is
> probably safe to say the original creators of the good 'ol IRC, 
> email,
> XMPP protocols would have considered as insideous

The orthogonal point to this could be made for youtube-dl. 
Although the
FSF has corrected their former statement of youtube-dl fetching 
and
executing non-free JS to fetching and parsing non-free JS, the 
case of
Telegram here is sort of under the same umbrella.

If Telegram works to communicate with a server that runs software 
that
is freedom restricting by the nature of the service (although, I 
will
concede that RMS is correct in stating that a service should not 
be
judged by the ability of a user to audit its contents), I wonder 
if
Telegram falls under the guidelines of what the FSF would consider
ethical.

In an alternate dimension, the point here would be moot because 
Telegram
would not work in such a way.

-- 
Brett M. Gilio
Free Software Foundation, Member
https://parabola.nu | https://emacs.org