Free Software Directory:Free software evaluation

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Evaluates if suspected software is nonfree so we can remove them from the Directory or avoid to add them.

Team Captain: David Hedlund

Participants:

Unapproved software

Entries here should be Protected with the following settings: [Edit=Allow only administrators] (indefinite) [Move=Allow only administrators] (indefinite)

Nonfree

Non-Free Network Services

Promotes or depends entirely on a non-libre network service.

1 listed:

 Name
LanguageToolLanguageTool

Trademark

"Trademarks and FOSS are not incompatible" - https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/licensing/2020/FOSSmarksv2.pdf

6 listed:

 Name
Bugzilla
IceCat/Lightbeam
Iceape
Pale Moon
Scratch
SeaMonkey

Free variants that tries to keep synchronization with upstream development:

Anti-features that are incompatible with the GNU FSDG

NonFreeDep

Definition: the application depends on a non-free application (e.g. Google Maps) - i.e. it requires it to be installed on the device, but does not include it.

NonFreeAdd

Definition: the application promotes non-free add-ons, such that the app is effectively an advert for other non-free software.

NonFreeAssets

Definition: the application contains and makes use of non-free assets. The most common case is apps using artwork - images, sounds, music, etc - under a non-commercial license.

Tracking

Definition: the application tracks and reports your activity to somewhere without your consent. It’s commonly used for when developers obtain crash logs without the user’s consent, or when an app is useless without some kind of authentication

Software evaluation

See also: Project Team Free software evaluation

4 listed:

 License
Brave Browser
Chromium
Iridium Browser
Signal

Discussed

Chromium-based browsers and software

See also [1].

Electron[2]

Qt WebEngine[1][2]

  1. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-12/msg00008.html
  2. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreplanet-discuss/2017-01/msg00001.html
Telegram (desktop client)
  • NonFreeNet, UpstreamNonFree - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.telegram.messenger/
  • Has delayed availability of source files compared to the binary release. See the numbered items below for more information.
    • Investigate if, after a binary release, the software has a license notice available somewhere and a place telling how to contact the copyright holders for the complete corresponding source.
  • Free/libre software philosophy related issue: lacks federation with XMPP. See the whole parent thread of the references from the enumerated list below, and also the page on XMPP in LibrePlanet wiki.
  1. https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/private/android/2017-December/001049.html (requires subscription)
  2. https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/private/android/2017-December/001075.html (requires subscription)
Investigate if these can be built and run entirely in free/libre system distributions
  • Rufus: claims to build and run only on Windows.
EME

Tor Browser - https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/16285

Nonfree JS

Every JavaScript file in every software for each new version release should be evaluated with command line tool that has the same capabilities as LibreJS. Unfortunate there's no such tool yet.

Proprietary tethers

"Tethering a product or program means designing it to work only by communicating with a specific server." - https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary-tethers.en.html

Currently the integration server is not configurable in this client.

  • Riot.im
IRC clients
Software Evaluation link Issue
Native browser IRC client irc://web.libera.chat/#fsf IceCat: Free web-based IRC client replacement for Mibbit needed
Gamja https://web.libera.chat/gamja/ ?
Kiwi IRC https://web.libera.chat/#fsf, https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/#irc://web.libera.chat/#fsf LibreJS feature request
The Lounge https://demo.thelounge.chat/ LibreJS feature request
qwebirc http://webchat.quakenet.org/?channels=fsf LibreJS feature request

We're using irc:// in Template:Print_entry (used on the entry pages like IceCat) and Template:IRC_text (used on the Main Page).

Parabola blacklisted software

Somebody should ask the developers to remove proprietary code/fonts, etc, from the software listed below.

Blacklisted Parabola software that is approved in the Directory Note: these programs are considered to be non-free as published by their respective upstreams; but many of them have known liberation procedures and are available in Parabola and other FSDG distros in modified form.

About

This project page is for heightened scrutiny, packages that need a second pass essentially.

Software should be considered non-free until proven otherwise - the burdon of proof should be on the developers to prove their code is 100% freely distributable.

Script

[See https://git.parabola.nu/blacklist.git/tree/?h=development for more scripts] 

#!/bin/bash

readonly WIKI_BASE_URL=https://directory.fsf.org/wiki
readonly BLACKLIST_URL=https://git.parabola.nu/blacklist.git/plain
readonly BLACKLIST_FILE=blacklist.txt


wget $BLACKLIST_URL/$BLACKLIST_FILE
[ ! -f ./$BLACKLIST_FILE ] && echo "download failed" && exit 1


readonly PACKAGES=$(grep '^\s*[^:#]*:.*' ./$BLACKLIST_FILE                           | \
                    sed 's/^\s*\([^:#]*\):.*/\1/ ; s/^./\U&/g ; s/-./\U&/g ; s/-/_/g')

for package in $PACKAGES
do status=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" $WIKI_BASE_URL/$package)
   if   [ "$status" == '200' ]
   then echo "$package entry exists"
   elif [ "$status" == '404' -o "$status" == '301' ]
   then echo "$package entry not found"
   else echo "$package unknown response"
   fi
done

License verification

All pages in license pages should have the correct version of the GPL. "The ones I looked at were pretty old, so I'm guessing they're mostly gplv2, but we should get it fixed." (Donald) "It's either the project which inserted the name without version, or the person who added the entry which did it that way." (Adfeno)

See also


Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the page “GNU Free Documentation License”.

The copyright and license notices on this page only apply to the text on this page. Any software or copyright-licenses or other similar notices described in this text has its own copyright notice and license, which can usually be found in the distribution or license text itself.

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