Free website making
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I've been interested in website making since I was about thirteen years old, but after a little practice my interests changed, and I started all over again one month ago - after more than five years. Now I'm working on the interactive internet-shop, where people could buy some ecologically safe homemade stuff, and I want to make it really convenient. That's why I've bought a book about HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, PHP and CMS. Unfortunately, despite of the fact that the material in this book is well-described, there's nothing about using these web-languages for making free websites - and I mean freedom, not cost. Even examples used in this book have been made for Microsoft Windows operation systems!
Because of this, I want to ask: which internet-technologies and languages (or their versions) can I use freely without any licences and agreements? Which of them have "unexpected proprientary surprises"? I also know that there's something unclear in HTML5 because of the DRM support - can you explain it too (I've already read the FSF article)?
If you have some stories about your experience in this area, please, share them: it will be so interesting to read!
I am a developer for only shops but I don't know all about the licence.
At first PHP is free, so you can use it. Also HTML and CSS, you doesn't have to use HTML5.
For Javascript you should use the ECMAScript so please don't use JQuery or something else and you should make at the bigging the right licence.
As CMS you could use OpenCart, it has the GNU GPL License or you could develop an own shop if you have the right PHP skills.
I hope I could help you a bit.
Thank you for your help, appreciate it! I have several additional questions connected with your answer:
1. What is the difference between JavaScript and ECMAScript, despite of the license? Do they have common code, syntax, comment function etc.? Can I learn JavaScript firstly and then apply all my knowledge in ECMAScript?
2. Do we have any free alternative to jQuery? Do ECMAScript has DOM (Document Object Model) just like JavaScript?
3. Can I license icons, pictures, photos, theme etc. under Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 (or 2.0 version)? Is this obligate to license my products and label under Copyright, or I have a possibility to choose license?
JavaScript is Mozilla's implementation of ECMAScript, and a common name
for it. There is no technical difference.
jQuery is free.
jQuery is a free software JavaScript library under the MIT license. JavaScript is just one of several implementations of formally standardized language called ECMAScript.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript
Point 1: Michał Masłowski say it correct. There are three ECMAScript, Javascript, ActionScript and JSScript. I think the Internet Explorer from Microsoft use ActionScript, but maybe this could be wrong.
Point 2: You can use JQuery, but personally I didn't like it. There are a few alternatives maybe AngularJS it has an MIT License.
Point 3: Sorry but I have only a very small background about license, I hope somebody else could help you.
Any time you make a web page, compose a song, write a poem or draw an image you automatically get copyright to your work, that's the international law. Basically what it means is nobody can do nothing with your creation. "All rights reserved" Unless you say so.
A license is the tool for giving people permission to do something with your work. You can choose any license you want to.
In the free software movement we're interested in software that's made available under a free software license. Similarly the free culture movement is about audio, video and images released under free licenses. The two movements use somewhat different licenses as a song is somewhat different from a computer program.
On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 01:44:33PM +0100, name at domain wrote:
> I've been interested in website making since I was about thirteen
> years old, but after a little practice my interests changed, and I
> started all over again one month ago - after more than five years.
> Now I'm working on the interactive internet-shop, where people could
> buy some ecologically safe homemade stuff, and I want to make it
> really convenient. That's why I've bought a book about HTML5, CSS3,
> JavaScript, PHP and CMS. Unfortunately, despite of the fact that the
> material in this book is well-described, there's nothing about using
> these web-languages for making free websites - and I mean freedom,
> not cost. Even examples used in this book have been made for
> Microsoft Windows operation systems!
>
> Because of this, I want to ask: which internet-technologies and
> languages (or their versions) can I use freely without any licences
> and agreements? Which of them have "unexpected proprientary
> surprises"? I also know that there's something unclear in HTML5
> because of the DRM support - can you explain it too (I've already
> read the FSF article)?
>
> If you have some stories about your experience in this area, please,
> share them: it will be so interesting to read!
>
PHP is Free, Ruby and RoR are Free, Python is Free, and Perl is Free,
all of these languages can be used in creating webpages.
I confess, I'm confused about JS and JQuery licensing, but I think
they're free. None the less, there's this:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html
which I should probably read carefully myself.
I've built sites with html, css, php, mysql or mariadb, tcl (yes,
you can make webpages with tcl, but you have to run them on a tcl
server or aolserver, so not very common any more), and javascript and
jquery.
My favorite is php.
Now, you ask "which can I use freely without any licenses and
agreements?"
You can use all of the above mentioned languages without signing any
TOS, or signing away any of your rights.
As far as YOUR code, for me, I license all my webdev code under AGPL (Gnu Affero), i
and I think RMS would advise you to do so, just like licensing desktop application
code under GPL. This copyrights your code in your name, while protecting
user rights. We call it "copyleft", really.
I'm not even sure if that answers your questions, but I hope it helps.
Taz
Your commentary answers some of my questions for sure.
Can you recommend me good literature about Ruby, RoR, Python or/and Perl programming language(s)? It could be in English or Russian as well. If there are good examples located in DRM-free Internet-services like the Project Gutenberg, it will be fantastic!
It is fine to use HTML5 and CSS3 (and you should – use the standards mode), as long as you don't use the DRM features.
Try not to require JavaScript whenever possible (some users just don't like running it). JavaScript can however be run in freedom just fine, like most plugins. The use of the Expat (“MIT”) license is very frequent in the Web development world, whereas the GPL is unpopular.
If you write custom JavaScript code, be sure to perform these steps:
- add a license notice at the top of each JavaScript file (pick any free license),
- if your JavaScript is minified, put a link to the non-minified JavaScript in a source code comment. With YUICompressor (a free JavaScript and CSS minifier), you can start a comment with /*! to make it appear in the minified version.
If you are not just learning but setting up a real online shop, I encourage you to use a CMS like opencart (GPL) or prestashop (open source license, if I'm not wrong). They offer all you need: payment gateways, shipping modules, product statistics, etc., and security updates, browser compatibility and so on.
There are also plugins for well-known general CMS (wordpress, joomla, drupal) to set up online shops. A good option if you already have a site made with them or if you are comfortable with their API's.
PrestaShop is free/libre, but uses licenses incompatible with the GPL like the Academic Free License.
Free and "non-free" languages
I've never heard of a non-free computer language, at least in the same sense a computer software can be. Both are very different things. You can use any language as long as there are free programs which understand it. Free web browsers such as Abrowser and IceCat will run JavaScript, HTML and CSS, and that's what you should mainly care about.
Some may consider a language such as C# non-free because of patent issues, but that's a really different thing and not really comparable to non-free software
JavaScript and ECMAScript
ECMAScript is just a different name for JavaScript. When the language was first developed it was named JavaScript. It was name by marketing people because of the popularity of the Java language. When people wanted to make a standard for the language, so it can consistently used between browser, they named it ECMAScript. They used a different name because JavaScript is a trademark.
As I understand, JScript is just the Microsoft name for JavaScript, again because of the trademark issue. The ActionScript language is a completely different thing. It's solely or mainly used bу Adobe Flash programs.
All widely used browsers (free or non-free) use JavaScript/ECMAScript.
HTML, HTML5 and CSS
Labeling things as HTML5 doesn't make sense anymore. It's nothing but a marketing word nowadays (a buzzword) and it only brings confusion and misunderstanding. There's no HTML5 in practice, only historically.
You have various specs (specifications) describing different features which browsers should implement. When a browser implements something you can make websites using those features. There are many specs and new ones are written regularly. For example, some of the major specs are:
- HTML Living Standard: https://whatwg.org/html
- It describes the basics of HTML, along with other more advanced things, such various web APIs used by JavaScript.
- The spec is changed regularly (almost daily) as new features are added and removed - that's why it's called a "living standard".
- CSS2: http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css2/
- It describes the basics of CSS.
- All other CSS specs build upon this one.
Along with those two, there are many separate specifications describing additional web features. Here are for example some of the additional CSS specs:
- http://dev.w3.org/csswg/selectors/
- http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-images/
- http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-color/
- http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-flexbox/
- http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-align/
The DOM and web APIs
JavaScript is scripting/programming language like any other. It's not specific to the web in any way. But when you use JavaScript in a browser you also have additional to web specific features, like being able to interactively change things on the page.
The thing which enables you to change things on the page is called the DOM. It's an API used by JavaScript in web browsers.
There are many different APIs which enable you to do different things. Some of them are bundled in one spec, some have a separate specs. The APIs do things like reading data from files, saving offline data (similar to cookies), loading fonts from websites, drawing 3D graphics and so on.
Here are some web API specs as an example:
- https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/
- https://whatwg.org/html#webstorage
- http://www.w3.org/TR/IndexedDB/
- http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/FileAPI/
- http://dev.w3.org/html5/webvtt/
Some seem to label all web APIs as "the DOM", but I don't think that's technically correct. The DOM certainly is one of the major web APIs in any case.
PHP, Ruby and Python
If you are contemplating on which language to learn from these three, I would suggest Python. Unlike the other two, Python it's also widely used to write other types of programs too, not just for web sites. A lot of GNU programs are written in Python.
Where to Start
I don't really know where to start from.
I've never read any books on web developments, so I can't recommend any. I've started by reading various HTML, CSS and JavaScript tutorials on the web.
Nowadays I notice that most tutorials are actually wrong in many aspects. They teach bad practices and deprecated features. You should be aware of that.
The most accurate info I find is on https://developer.mozilla.org/ and definitely in the specs. That's what I usually read this days. Although both are kind of hard to understand, if you are a beginner.
Patent issues actually are exactly what Free Software is all about. I think
you're conflating free with no-cost.
On Tue Feb 17 2015 at 6:04:49 AM <name at domain> wrote:
> Free and "non-free" languages
>
> I've never heard of a non-free computer language, at least in the same
> sense
> a computer software can be. Both are very different things. You can use
> any
> language as long as there are free programs which understand it. Free web
> browsers such as Abrowser and IceCat will run JavaScript, HTML and CSS, and
> that's what you should mainly care about.
>
> Some may consider a language such as C# non-free because of patent issues,
> but that's a really different thing and not really comparable to non-free
> software
>
> JavaScript and ECMAScript
>
> ECMAScript is just a different name for JavaScript. When the language was
> first developed it was named JavaScript. It was name by marketing people
> because of the popularity of the Java language. When people wanted to
> make a
> standard for the language, so it can consistently used between browser,
> they
> named it ECMAScript. They used a different name because JavaScript is a
> trademark.
>
> As I understand, JScript is just the Microsoft name for JavaScript, again
> because of the trademark issue. The ActionScript language is a completely
> different thing. It's solely or mainly used bу Adobe Flash programs.
>
> All widely used browsers (free or non-free) use JavaScript/ECMAScript.
>
> HTML, HTML5 and CSS
>
> Labeling things as HTML5 doesn't make sense anymore. It's nothing but a
> marketing word nowadays (a buzzword) and it only brings confusion and
> misunderstanding. There's no HTML5 in practice, only historically.
>
> You have various specs (specifications) describing different features which
> browsers should implement. When a browser implements something you can
> make
> websites using those features. There are many specs and new ones are
> written
> regularly. For example, some of the major specs are:
>
>
> HTML Living Standard: https://whatwg.org/html
>
> It describes the basics of HTML, along with other more advanced
> things,
> such various web APIs used by JavaScript.
> The spec is changed regularly (almost daily) as new features are
> added
> and removed - that's why it's called a "living standard".
>
>
> CSS2: http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css2/
>
> It describes the basics of CSS.
> All other CSS specs build upon this one.
>
>
>
>
> Along with those two, there are many separate specifications describing
> additional web features. Here are for example some of the additional CSS
> specs:
>
>
> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/selectors/
> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-images/
> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-color/
> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-flexbox/
> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-align/
>
>
> The DOM and web APIs
>
> JavaScript is scripting/programming language like any other. It's not
> specific to the web in any way. But when you use JavaScript in a browser
> you
> also have additional to web specific features, like being able to
> interactively change things on the page.
>
> The thing which enables you to change things on the page is called the DOM.
> It's an API used by JavaScript in web browsers.
>
> There are many different APIs which enable you to do different things.
> Some
> of them are bundled in one spec, some have a separate specs. The APIs do
> things like reading data from files, saving offline data (similar to
> cookies), loading fonts from websites, drawing 3D graphics and so on.
>
> Here are some web API specs as an example:
>
>
> https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/
> https://whatwg.org/html#webstorage
> http://www.w3.org/TR/IndexedDB/
> http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/FileAPI/
> http://dev.w3.org/html5/webvtt/
>
>
> Some seem to label all web APIs as "the DOM", but I don't think that's
> technically correct. The DOM certainly is one of the major web APIs in any
> case.
>
> PHP, Ruby and Python
>
> If you are contemplating on which language to learn from these three, I
> would
> suggest Python. Unlike the other two, Python it's also widely used to
> write
> other types of programs too, not just for web sites. A lot of GNU programs
> are written in Python.
>
> Where to Start
>
> I don't really know where to start from.
>
> I've never read any books on web developments, so I can't recommend any.
> I've started by reading various HTML, CSS and JavaScript tutorials on the
> web.
>
> Nowadays I notice that most tutorials are actually wrong in many aspects.
> They teach bad practices and deprecated features. You should be aware of
> that.
>
> The most accurate info I find is on https://developer.mozilla.org/ and
> definitely in the specs. That's what I usually read this days. Although
> both are kind of hard to understand, if you are a beginner.
>
>
Patents aren't what free software is all about, although they are a part of the issue. In any case, C# isn't non-free in the same sense a non-free program is. In fact, there are free C# programs in the Trisquel repository, although people in the community, including me, will discourage using C#.
See for example: https://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono
I'm actually quite well aware of the distinction between free software and non-cost. :)
if you do use JavaScript please make your website usable
without it
i disable automatically run javascript
as it can be a security issue also
i don’t think that a program libre or not should be run without the users permission.
most of the time websites dont need javascript anyway
if you need a programming language for your website
server side php is a good choice
if you want some examples of websites made only using libre software and with no js i have made 2 of them:
www.loxleyvalleyprotectionsociety.co.uk
http://92.19.232.58:82
if you want to know how to host a website just ask
its very easy and you dont need a powerfull computer to do it
@Neutron - If you want your websites to be globally usable, these links may help.
Dillo web browser - http://www.dillo.org/funding/objectives.html - you can validate code with a built-in W3C and WDG bug meter.
Viewable With Any Browser Campaign
http://anybrowser.org/campaign/
There are several hundred thousand old geeks such as myself who never allow cookies or javascript. A PC is a simple tool for research and communication and is completely under user control... after a fairly steep learning curve.
@tomlukeywood - neither of your websites render in any of my 6 browsers. Check them with Dillo to find the needed corrections. Best wishes to you.
Just loaded gNewSense4 with Icewm and Dillo on a 2001 Dell, and it runs great.
Good luck to all on your journey.
Live Free & Do Good Things!
"@tomlukeywood - neither of your websites render in any of my 6 browsers. Check them with Dillo to find the needed corrections. Best wishes to you."
this is not good
dose it load on firefox?
i only use html5 and css
this is me using lots of diffrent browsers on it:
I use the webdeveloper toolbar to control cookies, javascript, meta redirects, and other code, but even allowing everything thru on Gecko (Mozilla brand) browsers, all I get is a spinning wheel. Dillo is a blank screen.
Seriously, install Dillo from the Trisquel software repository and take at look at your code by clicking the check symbol in the lower right corner. You can easily uninstall afterward, but it is a fast way to do research or test website code.
Icecat, Firefox, Iceweasel, Pale Moon, and Web try to load but nothing is able to render. Hope it is a simple fix. Have you had traffic and comments about your sites lately?
I am a translator!
Visited both Tom's sites using icecat - they render perfectly without javascript
Must be a ghost in my machine... glad the issue is on my side of the pond. :)
Could be your ISP blocking his IP address.
why would a isp block me?
I don't know, but I know that AT&T blocks many of 000webhost's servers, so it's clearly a possibility.
the loxley valley protection society(i host there website) has recived death threats before
and there not liked by some big businesses
can pepole pay isp's to block websites?
I am a translator!
the nsa doesn't like cats - you are on the watchlist!
:)
If I had to choose between a cat and a Bull, I'll preferably choose my local "router"...
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