HookTube appears to be free code
I've seen a number of people claiming that HookTube is not free code, for example:
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/we-need-simple-youtube-solution
According to the license file, all its components are free code under either GPLv3+ or "MIT":
https://hooktube.com/licenses
Is HookTube really non-free, and if so, what makes it non-free?
You seem to be pointing to the JavaScript that gets sent and run on your own computer. Where is the server software that powers HookTube itself and what is the license of that?
> "You seem to be pointing to the JavaScript that gets sent and run on your own computer."
I've seen it argued elsewhere on this forum that we are only responsible for the code that runs on our own computer, not on computers administrated by other people. If all the JS involved in watching YT videos through HookTube was free code, this would be an improvement on using youtube.com to watch them, would it not?
That said, it was pointed out to me that HookTube no longer works without allowing JS from YT (https://nu.federati.net/notice/2062226), and having tested it with YT disallowed in NoScript, I can confirm this. Bugger. As cybermonk says, for now invidio.us seems to be the best way to watch YT video in the browser without allowing their JS. I tested this too and it works fine.
Obviously, in the long-term, we need to convince the majority of video creators to upload their videos to instance of PeerTube, MediaGoblin etc instead of YT. That way we can watch video without any proprietary software being involved.
"I've seen it argued elsewhere on this forum that we are only responsible for the code that runs on our own computer, not on computers administrated by other people. If all the JS involved in watching YT videos through HookTube was free code, this would be an improvement on using youtube.com to watch them, would it not?"
Different people apply different standards here. I would submit that, in order to answer your original question of why people called it non-free, that those people were not using your standard but a different one where the availability and free-ness of the code that runs on the server is a factor. In fact, the AGPL was designed to address this, for example. Which helps to show that there are indeed people interested in the code running on the server. And, objectively speaking, there are arguments in favor of that by not being dependent on whoever is running the server software because you can get access to the source code and run your own.
Whether its free or non-free, at this point it's dead code.
The most recent post from the hooktube changelog:
>"rest in pieces
>It was a good run, 1.5 years. Started as a quickly made addition to the norbot project, and within long the server had to be upgraded several times. Of course YouTube Legal was an inevitability at >that point.
>Special thanks to the many people who created plugins and extensions for hooktube, /g/, the five people who donated anonymously, and BitChute for working hard on a real YouTube alternative. HookTube >will remain operational in the present state for those who only needed it for performance reasons. See you in the next project."
And from the July 16th changelog:
>"YouTube api features are back but mp4 video is replaced with the standard YT video embed. HookTube is now effectively just a light-weight version of youtube and useless to the 90% of you primarily concerned with denying Google data and seeing videos blocked by your governments."
So if you are on hooktube, then you are in essence on youtube. And even that may not be available for long.
Consider Invidious[1][2] instead (or gtk-youtube-viewer[3] if you prefer a desktop client over a web client).
[1] https://www.invidio.us/
[2] https://trisquel.info/en/forum/invidious-youtube-redirect-site-agplv3-no-js-required
[3] https://github.com/trizen/youtube-viewer