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   Caesar Wirth (cjwirth@mas.to)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jun-2025 23:13:14 JST Caesar Wirth

   uBlock Origin on Bluesky vs Mastodon

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     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 08:20:27 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙
     • Abhiseck Paira
     it is released as free software AFAIK.
     
     the important question is who controls the code that a third party's server sends to your browser?
     
     is it free software for you, in this setting?
     
     CC: @sally@freesoftwareextremist.com @cjwirth@mas.to
     
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     Abhiseck Paira (redstarfish@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 08:20:28 JST Abhiseck Paira

     in reply to

     • 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙

     @sally @cjwirth Mastodon is free software, no?

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     𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙 (sally@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 08:20:29 JST 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙

     in reply to

     • Abhiseck Paira
     @redstarfish @cjwirth
     
     Both are delivering proprietary javascript, unless the instance is yours.
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     Abhiseck Paira (redstarfish@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 08:20:30 JST Abhiseck Paira

     in reply to

     @cjwirth Not to mention, bluesky is most probably sending proprietary javascript.

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     𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙 (sally@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 08:50:48 JST 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva
     • Abhiseck Paira
     @lxo @redstarfish @cjwirth
     
     Bluesky is built on a massive pile of lies and it's as free as Discord or Telegram which is not at all.
     
     They'll start preaching about how Bluesky is federated, and the evidence will be "trust me bro".
     
     Then you dig a bit and see how the whole stack works, and you see that indeed you could host your own instance, the problem is however that the relays which is the muscle of the network require a shitload of CPU power to route the whole traffic in real time, we're talking datacenter levels of CPU power, it's unfeasible for individuals to host these relays unless you're a capitalist.
     
     In practice who controls these relays? You guessed it, the corporate lapdogs from Bluesky own the hundred percent of relays in the whole network, and controlling relays means they can unplug any instance from the whole network at any given time, this is also why nobody even bothers hosting a Bluesky instance, it's a waste of time and resources given you do not really federate if everything has to pipe through their servers anyway.
     Alexandre Oliva likes this.
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     𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙 (sally@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 08:53:33 JST 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙

     in reply to

     • Abhiseck Paira
     @redstarfish @cjwirth
     
     Irrelevant given how javascript is dynamically served by a remote machine, unless you control that machine it's trivial to modify the javascript being sent to you which means the code you're getting is non-free and potentially malicious, and given how much javascript is more successful at wasting your power, time and CPU cycles than anything else it's safe to assume 99% of it is malicious.
     
     This is why free software enjoyers will often recommend to disable javascript entirely.
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     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 09:33:14 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙
     • Abhiseck Paira
     you're right, of course, but unless I`m very mistaken about how bluesky server software is released, it's probably useful to make a distinction instead of treating them exactly the same.
     
     bluesky AFAIK offers no expectation whatsoever that the server-supplied javascript serves the client-side user
     
     mastodon is released as free software, and the javascript it supplies can conceivably be compared with that in mastodon releases, so you can tell what's going on, and decide whether or not to allow that to run on your computer, using such tools as GNU LibreJS. that's essentially equivalent to "replacing" the server-supplied scripts with local (identical) versions thereof under your control, which would be nearly fine, freedom-wise. (I say nearly because the server can still decide whether/when to attempt to run any of the scripts you've so-approved, which may be a point of concern)
     
     so, if you decide to allow mastodon scripts to run on your browser, it doesn't quite bring those scripts under your control, but it seems misleading to equate that to allowing any random piece of javascrapt provided by a third-party javascrippled server to run on your browser. we're talking about different orders of magnitude.
     
     but still, in the end, if you refuse to grant software that you don't control permission to do your computing or to run on your computer, the effect is the same: neither mastodon nor bluesky web servers will work at all. it sucks that neither degrades gracefully, deviating from recommendations by relevant W3C standards.
     
     CC: @redstarfish@freesoftwareextremist.com @cjwirth@mas.to
     
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     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 13:38:29 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Abhiseck Paira
     it's more subtle than that. it's like Tivoization: it's possible for the software to be free in other contexts, but not free for you in the context in which it is intended to run. servers expect browsers to run programs under the servers' control, and browsers often enable that remote control, so unless the server is under your control, or your browser enables you to take over control from the remote controller, the software pushed by the server onto your browser is nonfree for you in that context, even if it is otherwise free software.
     
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     Abhiseck Paira (redstarfish@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 13:38:30 JST Abhiseck Paira

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva

     @lxo I had assumed that, since the 3rd party distributor has not changed the software, it's the same version that mastodon released. So, if I wanted to exercise my four freedoms, I can always get Mastodon's source code, and change it according to my needs.

     But if the 3rd party distributor can easily change it, and I can't, then it's a problem since I'll never get that modified copy of the source code.

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     Liam @ GamingOnLinux 🐧🎮 (gamingonlinux@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 22:37:54 JST Liam @ GamingOnLinux 🐧🎮

     in reply to

     @cjwirth Okay, but what are they? Doesn't instantly mean they're a bad thing. A lot of it is likely analytics (that's normal), video, gifs and so on.