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Save Firefox

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Re: Save Firefox

#171

Post by Santosh83 »

maker1138 wrote: post #52

The biggest problem is intellectual property. Copyright lasts life + 70 years and patents last 20 years. That's a long time to have a legal monopoly on something, and is partly why companies are so big and can behave so badly. Innovation comes through competition, not monopoly. Ideally, we'd eliminate patents and copyrights altogether, but as a compromise, I think having terms of 3 years, with no renewals, is fair. T…

I agree although three years seems a bit too short. I would say copyright for 10 years and no software patents altogether. Also copyrighting APIs seems like it warrants a close re-look as well. Then again, none of the "leaders" of any of the nations are listening are they? They are almost unanimously aligning behind big-business interests.

Re: Save Firefox

#172

Post by hyperdunc »

maker1138 wrote: post #52

The biggest problem is intellectual property. Copyright lasts life + 70 years and patents last 20 years. That's a long time to have a legal monopoly on something, and is partly why companies are so big and can behave so badly. Innovation comes through competition, not monopoly. Ideally, we'd eliminate patents and copyrights altogether, but as a compromise, I think having terms of 3 years, with no renewals, is fair. T…

I doubt reducing the monopoly period would stop companies from pushing DRM, but the length of IP protection is ridiculous and has to change.

3 years will never happen, though. 10-15 years for copyright and 5 years for patents is more reasonable.

Re: Save Firefox

#173

Post by myrryr »

Endy wrote: post #151
jgon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. If Firefox had not put it in, nothing would have happened because programmers have (largely) decided to give chrome a majority market-share amongst them, and advocate it to their non-technical peers, increasing its market share amongst that group as well. If programmers actually used firefox and advocated it to the point where it had a majority market share then maybe their refusal would carry some weight.…

I don't understand anyone's desire to support a Google-backed browser.

Speed mostly.

Re: Save Firefox

#174

Post by cpeterso »

serge2k wrote: post #101
cpeterso wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it really true that CDMs are actually browser-specific or are able to enforce a browser whitelist? The EME standard only covers the DOM APIs and the interactions between the video player JavaScript and the CDM. There is no standard browser API or ABI for CDMs like there is for NPAPI.

Does that matter if the CDM is only exposed to sites via a standardized API?

For the site, it doesn't matter. For someone who wants to build a new browser that supports EME, it does matter. There is no standard CDM API, so they must get copy open-source code (from Firefox or Chrome) or rely on documentation from a closed-sourced CDM.

For Firefox, Mozilla has a plugin ABI called GMP (Gecko Media Plugin) similar to NPAPI. Unlike NPAPI, GMPs are not directly instantiated by web content and, AFAIK, the list of supported GMPs is hardcoded in Firefox. Cisco's OpenH264 codec and Adobe's Primetime CDM are GMPs. Google's Widevine CDM has its own API, so Firefox uses a Mozilla-written GMP that wraps Google's Widevine DLL or .so binary.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/GeckoMediaPlugins

Re: Save Firefox

#175

Post by irq-1 »

sounds wrote: post #97
azakai wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be. If consumers stop using EME-supporters' browsers, things can change quickly. We have the power, but sadly not the will.

Actually it's not that hard: 1. Go to https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/ 2. Click on the largest version number (46.0.1 right now) 3. Select "EME-free" under your OS 4. Select your language of choice For the lazy: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/46.0.1/mac-EME-... https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/46.0.1/win64-EM... https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/46.0.1/linux-x8... Thi…

You can turn it off in the options. From https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm

Opt out of CDM playback, uninstall CDMs and stop all CDM downloads

You have the choice to globally opt out of HTML5 DRM playback. Once you opt out, Firefox will delete any downloaded CDMs from your hard drive, cease all future CDM downloads and disable DRM playback. This affects only DRM-controlled HTML5 audio and video. To opt out of HTML5 DRM playback completely, follow these steps:

    Click the menu button  and choose Options.
    Click the Content panel.
    Remove the check mark next to Play DRM content.

Re: Save Firefox

#176

Post by lomnakkus »

rayiner wrote: post #149
pdkl95 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I go to a page with a video on it that uses flash, the rest of the page works just fine if I don't have the flash plugin installed. This is identical behavior to not having the CDM. If the rest of the page also uses flash, that's entirely separate. It is even possible that the rest of the page could be flash, while playing a video with either the native tag or through a CDM. Integration between the video and the r…

If you don't want DRM, don't watch media that requires DRM. Nobody is making you use it. It's something you use because want to use Netflix, etc.

(Not PP.)

> If you don't want DRM, don't watch media that requires DRM.

Well, obviously I don't.

> Nobody is making you use it.

The point is that there are fears that this could change once DRM is entrenched enough -- and getting into browsers is a Big Step along that road. (Hence the talk about changing General Purpose computers into appliances.)

Re: Save Firefox

#177

Post by lomnakkus »

sounds wrote: post #97
azakai wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be. If consumers stop using EME-supporters' browsers, things can change quickly. We have the power, but sadly not the will.

Actually it's not that hard: 1. Go to https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/ 2. Click on the largest version number (46.0.1 right now) 3. Select "EME-free" under your OS 4. Select your language of choice For the lazy: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/46.0.1/mac-EME-... https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/46.0.1/win64-EM... https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/46.0.1/linux-x8... Thi…

Guess which version will be packaged on the popular Linux distros.

Re: Save Firefox

#178

Post by cpeterso »

simoncion wrote: post #136
dasil003 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grant you that the point is largely video, and I probably made a poor choice to reference other things happening on the page, but even within purely the video playback, a CDM is hands down far less proprietary code than a plugin like Flash which not only is poorly optimized for any given browser, but also introduces a whole host of other issues which a CDM doesn't get anywhere near (eg. flash cookies). The rest of…

> ...a CDM is hands down far less proprietary code than a plugin like Flash Sure, but it still relies a binary blob, just like Flash. > ...I am only implementing existing industry-standard DRM as required by studios. I can choose not to do so, in which case I won't get the content I need to build a viable business, and then I will go out of business, but the status quo will not have changed. Don't forget the story of…

Streaming services would most likely move to native desktop applications, like they do with mobile apps, before abandoning DRM. Netflix already has a Windows desktop application, but they don't seem to promote it much.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/netflix/9wzdncrfj...

Re: Save Firefox

#179

Post by gear54rus »

Endy wrote: post #151
jgon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. If Firefox had not put it in, nothing would have happened because programmers have (largely) decided to give chrome a majority market-share amongst them, and advocate it to their non-technical peers, increasing its market share amongst that group as well. If programmers actually used firefox and advocated it to the point where it had a majority market share then maybe their refusal would carry some weight.…

I don't understand anyone's desire to support a Google-backed browser.

I also use FF in day-to-day both due to privacy concerns and general fitness for my style, but chrome's dev tools are objectively superior, you have to face it...

Re: Save Firefox

#180

Post by cpeterso »

Endy wrote: post #151
jgon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. If Firefox had not put it in, nothing would have happened because programmers have (largely) decided to give chrome a majority market-share amongst them, and advocate it to their non-technical peers, increasing its market share amongst that group as well. If programmers actually used firefox and advocated it to the point where it had a majority market share then maybe their refusal would carry some weight.…

I don't understand anyone's desire to support a Google-backed browser.

People might be less likely to use Chrome if it was branded as "the DoubleClick browser". :)
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