Comments on: Free your web: Part 1 – Intro http://cuttingfree.blogsome.com/2007/03/01/free-your-web-part1-intro/ Free Software at the cutting edge Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:48:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: Reader of the Free World http://cuttingfree.blogsome.com/2007/03/01/free-your-web-part1-intro/#comment-53 Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:33:10 +0000 http://cuttingfree.blogsome.com/2007/03/01/free-your-web-part1-intro/#comment-53 it may sounds weird, but meanwhile there is a GPL-licensed free Alternative to Google Analytics. It is called piwik and can be found at the website piwik.org. Found it at a german website called kontrolausschluss.de or so, which seems to have privacy and free software topics. I am against collecting visitors information, but of course its your choice - I just gave you the info. it may sounds weird, but meanwhile there is a GPL-licensed free Alternative to Google Analytics. It is called piwik and can be found at the website piwik.org.

Found it at a german website called kontrolausschluss.de or so, which seems to have privacy and free software topics.
I am against collecting visitors information, but of course its your choice - I just gave you the info.

]]> by: Michael J Kaye http://cuttingfree.blogsome.com/2007/03/01/free-your-web-part1-intro/#comment-21 Wed, 07 Mar 2007 18:09:10 +0000 http://cuttingfree.blogsome.com/2007/03/01/free-your-web-part1-intro/#comment-21 Thank you for that link. It's a good speech. :-) Essentially, he rules out using any web applications, because they all retain your data, and you can't control them. I'm not talking about static web sites here. I accept what he says about becoming tied to the likes of word processing web service, if they hold your documents on their server. If I was to use such a service, I would want to process documents on my local machine (if that application is Free Software, I can, of course, add that feature and submit it for other users to enjoy). However, I don't think we can ignore web applications. This is the direction in which software is moving; and it is right for Free Software to be at the cutting edge of that movement. I believe we can also do this in freedom. If we can find web applications that have acceptable policies regarding our data, I think that most ordinary users will be in the same position they are with desktop applications. They don't have the programming skills to change their software, and so have to rely on that application's developers to add their requested features. Even those of us who do have the skill, normally have to rely in the same way, because of time restraints. Besides, if it came to it, and I really needed that control, I could download a Free web app and run it on my machine, with my desired modifications, or create my own web service. Perhaps we should move towards having web apps that are designed to work with local modifications. I disagree with the distinction for search engines. Web search, to quote <a href="http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia">search.wikia.com</a>, is broken. The ranking algorithms, upon which we rely every day, are proprietary, and therefore cannot be trusted. In fact, we already know that high rankings are bought. Free Software can fix this, and make web search a more fair, reliable, and productive experience. Hopefully, we can also assert the “group control” that RMS talked about. Thank you, Guy, for raising those points. They have already changed some of what will be in the next post. You should find some more answers there. You may find that the posts about web search are also quite relevant. Michael. Thank you for that link. It’s a good speech. :-)

Essentially, he rules out using any web applications, because they all retain your data, and you can’t control them. I’m not talking about static web sites here. I accept what he says about becoming tied to the likes of word processing web service, if they hold your documents on their server. If I was to use such a service, I would want to process documents on my local machine (if that application is Free Software, I can, of course, add that feature and submit it for other users to enjoy). However, I don’t think we can ignore web applications. This is the direction in which software is moving; and it is right for Free Software to be at the cutting edge of that movement. I believe we can also do this in freedom.

If we can find web applications that have acceptable policies regarding our data, I think that most ordinary users will be in the same position they are with desktop applications. They don’t have the programming skills to change their software, and so have to rely on that application’s developers to add their requested features. Even those of us who do have the skill, normally have to rely in the same way, because of time restraints. Besides, if it came to it, and I really needed that control, I could download a Free web app and run it on my machine, with my desired modifications, or create my own web service. Perhaps we should move towards having web apps that are designed to work with local modifications.

I disagree with the distinction for search engines. Web search, to quote search.wikia.com, is broken. The ranking algorithms, upon which we rely every day, are proprietary, and therefore cannot be trusted. In fact, we already know that high rankings are bought. Free Software can fix this, and make web search a more fair, reliable, and productive experience. Hopefully, we can also assert the “group control” that RMS talked about.

Thank you, Guy, for raising those points. They have already changed some of what will be in the next post. You should find some more answers there. You may find that the posts about web search are also quite relevant.

Michael.

]]> by: Guy Johnston http://cuttingfree.blogsome.com/2007/03/01/free-your-web-part1-intro/#comment-20 Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:28:43 +0000 http://cuttingfree.blogsome.com/2007/03/01/free-your-web-part1-intro/#comment-20 Hi, it's good to see how committed you are to software freedom. I was listening to a recent speech by Richard Stallman the other day (<a href="http://www.hosef.org/media/audio/PFOSSCON-RichardStallman-2007.01.20.ogg">http://www.hosef.org/media/audio/PFOSSCON-RichardStallman-2007.01.20.ogg</a>), and he had a very interesting response to a question about this subject. He said that in order to have freedom over your own computing, you shouldn't use anyone else's copy of any software to do it, because you can't control what it does, whether the software is free or proprietary. He said that even if the software is free, and the person gives you a copy, you still can't change what their copy does, and rightly so. He said that you therefore shouldn't use any webmail, web office applications or any other software like that for your own computing, if you want complete control over it. However, he said he didn't see anything wrong with something like a search engine, because that's a group's computing, not just yours individually, which you can't do on your own computer anyway. I think these are very good arguements which you should take into account with your articles on this subject. Thanks, Guy Hi, it’s good to see how committed you are to software freedom. I was listening to a recent speech by Richard Stallman the other day (http://www.hosef.org/media/audio/PFOSSCON-RichardStallman-2007.01.20.ogg), and he had a very interesting response to a question about this subject. He said that in order to have freedom over your own computing, you shouldn’t use anyone else’s copy of any software to do it, because you can’t control what it does, whether the software is free or proprietary. He said that even if the software is free, and the person gives you a copy, you still can’t change what their copy does, and rightly so.

He said that you therefore shouldn’t use any webmail, web office applications or any other software like that for your own computing, if you want complete control over it. However, he said he didn’t see anything wrong with something like a search engine, because that’s a group’s computing, not just yours individually, which you can’t do on your own computer anyway.

I think these are very good arguements which you should take into account with your articles on this subject.

Thanks,

Guy

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