Re: Dependence on nonfree software

[Christopher Dimech]

---------------------
Christopher Dimech
General Administrator - Naiad Informatics - GNU Project (Geocomputation)
- Geophysical Simulation
- Geological Subsurface Mapping
- Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation
- Natural Resource Exploration and Production
- Free Software Advocacy


> Sent: Monday, November 16, 2020 at 10:58 PM
> From: "Svetlana Tkachenko" <svetlana@members.fsf.org>
> To: savannah-hackers@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Dependence on nonfree software
>
> > "A different case is when the program talks across a network with
> > a server running on another machine, and the server is proprietary or
> > has an unknown license; unless the two pieces of software make a
> > single program (for example because they exchange complex data
> > structures intimately), the client does not really depend on the server.
> > In such scenario the user is not required to install nor run any
> > proprietary software on per computer, so there's no dependency of
> > the client on the server, even if the server's responses are needed for
> > the program's main functionalities; said client program is therefore
> > eligible for hosting."
>
> This can become dangerous: the free software ecosystem may begin to
> depend on software that talks with proprietary servers with no
> documentation about how they work, other than the properly licensed
> free source code.
>
> This may become more difficult if the proprietary server API changes
> quickly, nearly every day. This becomes a problem: while it does not
> force the users to run proprietary software, their existing free
> clients for this server may break easily, and not all maintainers will
> be able to resolve this quickly.
>
> Does this seem similar to "service as software substitute"? How to
> quantify this or what barriers would need to be added?

No, because the software installed on the user's computer is free software.
The server must only be used for communication, not as a software substitute.
This means that all the information for running the tasks all all available
to the user an a way that the user can adapt it to run on another server.
Merely using a proprietary server, does not necessarily mean you cannot use
the software.