You may not be aware of the dangers of JavaScript — a problem we've deemed The JavaScript Trap — proprietary software running on your computer, inside your web browser.
Danger! Your very soul is at risk!
This page is even worse: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html
Silently loading and running nonfree programs is one among several issues raised by "web applications". The term "web application" was designed to disregard the fundamental distinction between software delivered to users and software running on the server.
Beware, dear reader. They may be starting with this fundamental distinction... but your children will be next!
the tagline in the link reads like a scary movie trailer: >You may be running nonfree programs on your computer every day without realizing it--through your web browser.
What the FSF doesn't get is that its actually much easier to change proprietary JavaScript than it is to modify a binary running on your system.
Not to mention that should it be licensed under a free model, those security concerns don't just magically vanish. I agree with you summation their stance can be radical and preachy at times much like the Vegan community.
"Further, we've recently seen companies such as Research In Motion (makers of the Blackberry) advising customers to entirely disable JavaScript in the WebKit browser on its devices because of a security problem that was discovered. While free software JavaScript can have security problems too, this example illustrates that we have a real need to be able to see what the code we're running on our computers is actually doing, and change it."
I think the author doesn't understand how client side javascript works. If on the other hand they're referring to server side Javascript, that has nothing to do with the web browser over say, PHP. You don't necessarily get the source to a PHP-based web app when you use it. Why so much Javascript hate?