Group talk: FSF/Tasks/ModifyNoScript

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I have a number of ideas of how best to accomplish this task. NoScript operates by blocking the execution of any script not served from a user-defined white-list of sites. I am still not entirely sure how deeply it inspects a script before allowing its execution, but I do not believe that it currently has the ability to determine whether a script is trivial or non-trivial.

What is needed, I believe, is a method of identifying JavaScript that is Free Software and allowing its execution. To that end I am currently working on a Firefox Extension that can detect and display uncompressed source code and license information for embedded JavaScript. In addition, the extension can be set to block the execution of non-free JavaScript (though it is yet unable to detect trivial vs non-trivial scripts). I'm still ironing out the details, but I am quite close to creating a standards-compliant method of easily embedding license and source code information for browser JavaScript.

NoScript does not yet have in-built support for subscribing to externally updated lists of permitted sites, however it is relatively easy to emulate this functionality using additional Firefox Extensions. The lead developer of NoScript has stated that he is hesitant to add this functionality to NoScript itself, as a master list of blocked domains would require political decisions as to which sites should be allowed. For the Free Software community, this is not an issue as the litmus test for a site is simply whether it serves Free JavaScript or not.

With a community maintained NoScript white-list of websites that use properly licensed and sourced Free JavaScript and an extension that can display the license and source information (such as the one I am working on), I believe that we can create an effective way of protecting the user's software freedom within the web browser.

I will have a fully working prototype of this idea relatively soon and will post further details at that time.

Thoughts, questions, comments?

-Caz

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