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An Anonymous Coward writes:

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?

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