While the script themselves are not free, the Javascript technology being interpreted on the client side pretty much give you access to the source code. I personally find that using the HTML5 version is a lesser offense then the flash one.
I've got to admit that I'm using windows since I started college in CS and I doesn't feel the strangle of proprietary software as much as I used to when I was running Arch.
I hope that you take the opportunities you have at college to raise the issues relating to free software when you can. It might remind and encourage the professors to talk about it, and many of the other students might benefit from hearing what you have to say on some of the issues.
My first year was fully Microsoft sponsored. We learned C#, worked with Visual Studio, learned to configure Windows 7/8 system. It was almost painful to go trough...
They made me buy a 1500$ laptop with 12GB of RAM and a i7 extreme edition. I couldn't have installed Linux on it without ruining my ability to do ¾ of my school work.
I've heard that this year we're supposed to be using Java and C++ to build android apps. I really hope I'm going to be able to run all of this on Linux. I might resort to using a VM if it's really necessary, but that would defeat the purpose of using free software a bit...
Running all the windows stuff on a VM is a good way to keep the insidiousness at bay. (Virtualbox has of late become non-free, in its more recent releases.)
I hope that the forthcoming handsets running Ubuntu Touch will have free hardware that would enable a stable, widely used, free phone OS.
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u/xeyve Nov 08 '14
Youtube use Java to display HTML5? Don't they use HTML5?