From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Nix Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs Webapp/Plugin Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2012 16:38:16 +0100 Message-ID: <87d336mzvb.fsf@spindle.srvr.nix> References: <878vdv6kei.fsf@catnip.gol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1344094715 12542 80.91.229.3 (4 Aug 2012 15:38:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2012 15:38:35 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Paul Michael Reilly , emacs-devel@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org, Miles Bader To: Lennart Borgman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Aug 04 17:38:34 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SxgQy-0003tE-P4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 04 Aug 2012 17:38:32 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56246 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SxgQy-0000bC-4a for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 04 Aug 2012 11:38:32 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:41611) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SxgQv-0000b7-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Aug 2012 11:38:30 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SxgQt-0008BJ-Th for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Aug 2012 11:38:28 -0400 Original-Received: from icebox.esperi.org.uk ([81.187.191.129]:44778 helo=mail.esperi.org.uk) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SxgQq-0008Ao-Se; Sat, 04 Aug 2012 11:38:25 -0400 Original-Received: from spindle.srvr.nix (nix@spindle.srvr.nix [192.168.14.15]) by mail.esperi.org.uk (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id q74FcGnX001177; Sat, 4 Aug 2012 16:38:16 +0100 Emacs: because Hell was full. In-Reply-To: (Lennart Borgman's message of "Sat, 4 Aug 2012 15:01:54 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.1.50 (gnu/linux) X-DCC-dcc1.aftenposten.no-Metrics: spindle 1215; Body=5 Fuz1=5 Fuz2=5 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 81.187.191.129 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:152173 Archived-At: On 4 Aug 2012, Lennart Borgman uttered the following: > On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 12:06 PM, Miles Bader wrote: >> >> My understanding was that although binary distributed by google wasn't >> free, because it includes various bells and whistles implemented with >> non-free libraries (e.g. video decoding ...?), the guts of the browser >> _is_ actually free software, and a completely free version of it >> exists ("chromium", which is in debian) which simply omits the >> non-free bells and whistles. I've tried both, and didn't notice any >> obvious difference between them, so I'm not really sure what exactly >> the bells-and-whistles consists of... >> >> I don't know how the difference between the free and non-free versions >> affects plugins though... There is a 'more secure' version of Flash in there (using PPAPI rather than NPAPI, so somewhat sandboxed: this happens to be the only Flash implementation still receiving active development on GNU/Linux platforms anymore). That's it. Exciting? Not hardly. The loss of actual useful functionality from Chrome to Chromium is entirely ignorable if you don't care about Flash -- and it is becoming increasingly less worth caring about, thank goodness. > http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/ChromiumBrowserVsGoogleChrome > > (What is "metrics" mentioned there?) It's an anonymous reporting mechanism: a (small) fraction of your more unusual user-interface operations are reported to Google so that they can tell e.g. if UI elements are badly structured, what operations people frequently do, that sort of thing. It sounds really creepy, but is also quite useful -- this was how Google determined that far too many people were just saying 'yeah, go ahead' when it warned about loading of insecure scripts from an SSL page, for instance. I'd say that as long as it remains opt-in, it's not worth worrying about: the code that implements this mechanism *is* IIRC free, so you can look in Chromium to satisfy yourself that it's not doing anything really creepy like reporting the contents of input boxes without permission. (I'm actually mildly annoyed that I can't turn it on in my otherwise-unmodified Chromium install -- why should the fact that I want my browser to be 100% free software prevent me from helping the developers in this way?) -- NULL && (void)