[LGM] g+ hangouts on air

[Dave Crossland]

On 19 November 2013 20:56, Jon Nordby <jononor at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I guess I will have to explain myself then.


Thanks for taking the time to :)

> The three concerns are valid, but for Google Hangouts and Youtube they
> are only free-as-in-freedom if one uses a very narrow definition of
> "use".
>
> If Google ceases to run, changes, or simply decides to refuses me
> access to the Hangout or Youtube service, which is software running on
> their servers for which I do not have the code, nor any right to
> obtain,

Why would you? :) You don't run these servers, but if you did, you
would have all the code.

> it will be impossible for me to either watch, upload,
> livestream or even record video - the functionality of said software
> system.

It is a software system, but the system is an actual service, not a
'service as software substitute' :)

"Rejecting SaaSS does not mean refusing to use any network servers run
by anyone other than you. Most servers are not SaaSS because the jobs
they do are not the user's own computing."
- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html

> With this in mind, I find it hard to argue that I was not
> "using" that service.

Using SaSS is a problem for software freedom, but using a service is
fine. The videos have to be hosted _somewhere_, and its relatively
expensive to host them yourself since they are large files, so one
naturally wishes to mirror the videos on video mirrors - archive.org,
youtube.com, etc - and youtube's pays the expenses through advertising
which is easy to turn off for those bothered by it.

> I certainly cannot run YouTube or Hangouts for any purpose, study how
> the program works, redistribute copies of YouTube or improved versions
> of it (the four essential freedoms).

What you are saying doesn't make any sense to me. We didn't need the
source to the smtpd or nntpd or ftpd servers we used in the 1980s to
use email or netnews or ftp services in freedom, and we don't need
youtube's source code to use it in freedom either.

> Furthermore, when you are using a website or webapplication which
> requires non-free JavaScript to execute in your browser to function
> you also directly using non-free software. This is a position held
> both by RMS[citation-needed] and Bradley Kuhn[0].

They allow for the trivial javascript needed to watch and upload
videos to youtube if you choose to use a browser to do either activity
in a browser, which is not needed -
http://code.google.com/p/youtube-upload/ and
http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/ - and for live streaming, I'll try to
get my hands on a ChromiumOS machine and see if it works with HoA.

(I know that youtube has some editor features (although they may be
Flash, dunno) that are SaSS, but I'm not talking about them.)