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As part of a Free Software Foundation internship, developer Alyssa Rosenzweig has released a python3 script intended to allow users to make PayPal payments without using the proprietary ECMAScript normally associated with its usage. From the FSF's blog:
My third and final project was still more ambitious. As you may know from my work with Panfrost, the free software driver for modern Mali GPUs, I enjoy liberating critical proprietary software by decoding its internal protocols and reimplementing them in freedom. So, we looked around for latent proprietary software involved with FSF operations. Although we eat our own dog food, there was one proprietary system that could not be ignored: PayPal, which recently began requiring nonfree JavaScript. Pah. Enter Pagamigo. (In Calculus, this is formally known as a p-series.)
Pagamigo liberates the proprietary software required to donate to organizations like the FSF or the Debian Project via PayPal. Soon, the FSF Web pages that take online payments will include instructions for using Pagamigo.
Usage is straightforward, however your password may be stored in cleartext in your command history:
Use an online shop and opt to pay with Paypal. You will be redirected to a URL like:
https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_express-checkout&token=EC-CAFEBABE123456789
Copy that URL to your clipboard. Then, from the command line run:
$ pagamigo redirect
Follow the directions on-screen prompting you to enter your PayPal credentials and to paste this URL.
...
For peer-to-peer money transfer ("Send money"), instead use:
$ pagamigo send-money
Pagamigo, while interactive by default, is entirely configurable by arguments as well. For instance:
$ pagamigo send-money --to sunset@chs.eq --amount 10.00 --username scitwi@chs.earth --password hunter2 --debug
While many people dislike PayPal for numerous reasons, it is ubiquitous and has few stable alternatives. This should at least allow the anti-ECMAScript and FOSS crowds a less-compromised option. Perhaps a SoylentNews subscription?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 09 2018, @12:36PM (4 children)
Got me totally confused now, is this about that Ajit Pai-pal we use for our daily 5 minutes of hate or what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Friday November 09 2018, @12:44PM
Reclabritaing unencsesray, was not a prolbem for redaing.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @01:29PM (2 children)
My apologies, I had to retpye it several times because my connection kept dropping out when I tried to submit the story. Why I type directly into the textbox instead of in a proper editor is the fatal flaw of sloth.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 09 2018, @02:12PM (1 child)
That's why we have editors, I s'ppose. Or do we?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by martyb on Friday November 09 2018, @03:11PM
(1) Yes, the typos got past me; story has been updated and the corrected version should make it out of the site caches within a few minutes.
(2) Ordinarily, we strive to have a second editor review a story after it has been pushed into the story queue and before it goes live. As we are all volunteers on this site and have outside responsibilities, it seems the other editors were otherwise pre-disposed and the 2nd-edit did not happen, unfortunately.
(3) Thanks for calling it to our attention and keeping us on our toes!
Wit is intellect, dancing.