Posting Videos

by Richard Stallman

You don't need a “free software based streaming platform” to post a video for streaming.

Someone asked me where to upload a video recording on some “free software based streaming platform.” Here's how I responded.

• What software the platform is based on is not crucial, because that has no effect on the people who use that site. They don't run that software. What they do is talk with the site.
• The crucial question for the users' freedom is whether the site requires them, or leads them, to run any nonfree software, including nonfree JavaScript code.
• Any web site can host a file of video in such a way that any browser can view it without any JavaScript. Just put the file of video onto the site, and tell people its URL. Any modern graphical browser, when it encounters a file of video, will stream it.
• The only special thing about “video platform” sites is that they have other auxiliary facilities, such as making accounts, uploading videos, tracking users who watch them, and restricting those users. You don't need those things.
• To distribute the URL of the video and enable users to watch it, all you do need is a site that you can post the file on. It could be your own web site, either running on your own server or hosted elsewhere.

Depending on the rest of that site, it may have other flaws or moral problems, but it will at least avoid directly mistreating users who watch the video.