Re: Reboot: Strategic goals for GNOME

["Lefty (石鏡 )" <lefty shugendo org>]

On 3/4/10 5:46 AM, "Richard Stallman" <rms gnu org> wrote:
> 
> If everything gets done inside or through your browser, it would make
> toolkits such as GTK and desktop environments such as GNOME obsolete,
> except as platforms for a browser.

And if everything gets done on your desktop, it would make browsers and the
web obsolete. Except it wouldn't. I don't believe your statement is any more
accurate than mine, actually.

> "Web technology based application" is a very broad term.  It can
> include applications that are installed into a browser (they can be
> nonfree; see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html), and
> it can include servers.  But if the server substitutes for a program
> you could run on your own machine, that makes it Software as a
> Service, which is equivalent to proprietary software.

So, an open source program running on a server?if it "substitutes for a
program you could run on your own machine"?is (by virtue of running on a
server, I suppose) "Software as a Service" and hence, proprietary....?

I'm not following that reasoning. Surely the open-ness or closed-ness of an
application depends on the terms under which it's made available, not where
it runs.
 
> It is a bad idea to replace a program you can explicitly install on
> your own machine -- and which you can therefore also decide not to
> install -- with a program that either gets installed implicitly or
> remains on a server outside your control.  Perhaps highlighting that
> will show people why they should continue to install and run local
> applications, which would then use GNOME.

This is, again, unfortunately short-sighted and not really in touch with the
way people use computers. There are plenty of good reasons to have an
application on the web and there are plenty of good ones to have an
application on the desktop, but it depends on the application. This "desktop
good/web bad" thinking is terribly broad-brushed.

If one's application lives on a web site, one can just as readily decide to
visit or not to visit that web site. In contrast with a local app, a
web-based app generally makes no changes to your system, and doesn't require
the addition or deletion of anything.

But, just so I'm sure I'm clear here, Mr. Stallman, it's my understanding
that you don't even actually _use_ the web, in any realistic sense, relying
instead on some congerie of email and a back-end rendering server to view
static images of individual web pages.

Would it be correct to imagine that you haven't used anything like a dynamic
web page, or a "Web 2.0"-style AJAX or Ruby application?

If that is indeed the case, as I've been led to understand, it's unclear to
me why one might take cues on how GNOME should or shouldn't interact from
the web from someone with no actual, practical experience there, any more
than I'd expect guidance on how to write an iPhone application from someone
who's never so much as picked up an iPhone.