>>> "RS" == Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

>> With the solution used by Kmail, Thunderbird and others, when a
>> user adds a Google account to [per] mail client, a Google login
>> page is opened in a browser, on which [person indicates per]
>> login and password.  This page is the https://accounts.google.com
>> page, and it uses nonfree JavaScript code.

> Thank you for posting this information.  About use of Google services
> I know only what people tell me.

> Let's look at the implications of this for the situation we are in.

> First, a question: does creating a Gmail account go through some
> Google page (perhaps the same one) that also requires nonfree
> JavaScript code?

> If so, then anyone who starts using Gmail in the future will have had
> to run that same nonfree software to start.  It would be wrong to
> steer anyone in that direction, but when users do so on their own
> initiative it is not our responsibility.  (If someone decides to use
> Gmail, that won't be because we suggested it.)

> So I think it would be acceptable for GNUS to have an app key such
> that, IF a user does these things with Gmail, per Gmail account works
> with GNUS.  But it would not be acceptable for the code of GNUS or the
> documentation of GNUS to steer users towards doing those operations
> with Gmail.

> I have a hunch there may be a bounded but perhaps large set of people
> who started using Gmail at a time when it did not require running
> nonfree software to make the account.  It looks like Google is going
> to force them to run nonfree software at least once or else stop using
> Gmail.  That is injustice, and too bad, but it's Google's injustice,
> not ours.  It does not rasie an ethical issue about our conduct.

> I've made a number of suppositions here.  Are any of them mistaken?

Mistaken not, but I should add one scenario that you did not cover.
Users of academic institutions[1] found them self from one day to the
other, with their email accounts transferred to G-Suite (that this the
professional Gmail service), without doing anything at all.

This is the issue which bothers me most, because free, personal
GMail accounts give me the freedom to change or abort them. Official
workplace email do not give me that freedom.



Footnotes:
[1]  unfortunately I don't know how many