* bill-auger <[email protected]> [2021-04-12 14:58]: > i have changed he subject, to reflect that is discussion is > not about SaaSS - we had long discussion of this this week - > there are ample details on the parabola bug tracker
I have brought back the subject, as discussion is about: - FSF's stance on surveillance, PRISM and decentralization; - FSDG not having enough guidance on that above stance; - FSF endorses distributions which contain packages promoting networks that are known for surveillance, PRISM and centralization; such as Skype or Telegram; - Developers of free FSF endorsed OSes, do not follow the FSF statements; as they only stick to FSDG and consider it as final document, though it says it is not final or all encompassing document. Thus discussion is about proposal for FSDG to be modified to give guidance to FSF endorsed distribution in such manner how I have explained, let me repeat: - That client software packages that serve the sole purpose to promote relationship to vendor, which sole purpose is to interact with vendor's proprietary server side and centralized communication platform or other SaaSS shall be excluded from FSF endorsed distributions; Unless there is server side software that users can establish their own networks, such software should not be in FSF endorsed distributions as they promote Internet centralization. Because FSF and people want to promote decentralized Internet, without surveillance. > for brevity, i believe that i can condense jean's main concern On Parabola it is how it started Bill, then it developed with more research to this issue, as back then I did not find all about Telegram really. I did not know what it is, until I have researched it. Issue is not a single one that you can summarize it now, and is not same as how it started on Parabola. Issue concern is with inclusion of packages in FSF endorsed distribution which do not conform to FSF politics. > jean is concerned that the author could still make some other > proprietary claim against people who make derivative > implementations of the client, or new, incompatible servers I am not concerned. We have discussed it, reviewed GPL3 together with you, and we ignore further restrictions. That is however not the real issue, but decision making in FSF endorsed distributions which propagate software that serve vendors' purposes, not users' purposes in terms of users' computing freedom. Telegram is a smart company. They are using GPL for the sole purpose to create vendor lock-in. What we have to look into is the intention of vendor, in this case Telegram, but it applies to any other similar by principle, like software connecting solely to proprietary server side software by vendors such as Skype or Signal. Good for reading: How to Achieve Vendor Lock-in with a Legit Open Source License – Affero GPL https://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2014/09/how-to-achieve-vendor-lock-in-with-a-legit-open-source-license-affero-gpl/ Where author explains in plain how free software may be used to achieve vendor lock-ins. Quote: "Clever company founders figured out how to “have their cake and eat it too”. Here is the strategy. First take VC money and develop some new piece of software. Divide the software into two parts – (a) the part that looks nice but is missing major functionality and (b) the super-awesome add-ons to that software that really rock. You license (a) using the AGPL3 and license (b) as all rights reserved and never release that source code." That is exactly the case with Telegram Desktop software. Telegram company figured it out that they can use trending terms in the industry such as free software, Github, etc. to promote their network, but they never had intention to release (b) the server side source code, and sole purpose of such software is vendor-lock in, centralization to Telegram and we may also say quite a lot of surveillance. According to my research Telegram Desktop does not encrypt any messages and does not support secure chat like mobile clients do. But privacy issues are is not related to this discussion. There is good analysis by Free Software Foundation of India: https://fsf.org.in/article/better-than-whatsapp/ They analyse Telegram and Signal in the context of users' freedom. Comparison of different apps and services Non-free software client and server + centralization (Example WhatsApp): does not respect user's freedom and creates vendor lock-in. Free Software client but non-free server + centralization (Example Telegram): client software respects freedom, server software does not respect freedom and creates vendor lock-in. Free Software client and server + centralization (Example Signal): respect user's freedom but creates vendor lock-in. Free Software client and server + federation (Example Matrix and Quicksy/XMPP): respects users' freedom (as a user or as a community) and no vendor lock-in. Free software client + peer to peer design (Example Briar, Tox): respects users' freedom and no vendor lock-in. Jean
