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Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

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Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#131

Post by andrepd »

Karunamon wrote: post #32
hoopd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I'm sick of people making such a big deal just becasue Mozilla lost its CEO in such an awful way that he didn't even return to his CTO role. Just because he literally wrote JavaScript, co-founded Mozilla and worked on Firefox since it was called Netscape Navigator it doesn't mean he should be able to take part in America's political process in a way that some find offensive.

*most find offensive. It is possible for someone to be a brilliant technologist and an otherwise awful person. And before someone takes me to task for the words "awful person" - sorry, that's my evaluation of someone who'd rather lose their job than say sorry for the prejudice.

>*most

Can you give me some data to support your claim? Or do you abide by the motto "The louder I speak the righter I am?"

Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#132

Post by Karunamon »

contravariant wrote: post #109
callahad wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Pew Research Center's polling, most Americans are in favor of marriage equality, and have been since 2011: http://www.pewforum.org/2014/09/24/graphics-slideshow-changi...

There's a difference between being in favour of something and being offended by anyone who disagrees.

There's a difference between being offended at disagreement and being offended at someone who took action to remove your rights.

Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#133

Post by MichaelGG »

Karunamon wrote: post #32
hoopd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I'm sick of people making such a big deal just becasue Mozilla lost its CEO in such an awful way that he didn't even return to his CTO role. Just because he literally wrote JavaScript, co-founded Mozilla and worked on Firefox since it was called Netscape Navigator it doesn't mean he should be able to take part in America's political process in a way that some find offensive.

*most find offensive. It is possible for someone to be a brilliant technologist and an otherwise awful person. And before someone takes me to task for the words "awful person" - sorry, that's my evaluation of someone who'd rather lose their job than say sorry for the prejudice.

It's terrible if it was for being offensive. What it should have been about was a lack of elegance and logic. Marriage should be a legal/tax/etc contract between 2 or more consenting entities that can legally enter into contracts. Anything else is a hack, and en engineer should know better.

(There's also the minor issue of running an org with policies directly against your own. While not technically a blocking issue, one must wonder about a person's commitment to something when they are actively against it in their personal life.)

Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#134

Post by andrepd »

callahad wrote: post #91
eps wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*some. Being vocal/hysterical about something doesn't imply it's a dominant opinion.

According to the Pew Research Center's polling, most Americans are in favor of marriage equality, and have been since 2011: http://www.pewforum.org/2014/09/24/graphics-slideshow-changi...

Which doesn't mean in the slightest that whomever disagrees with the majority deserves to be kicked out of the company he founded.

Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#135

Post by andrepd »

Karunamon wrote: post #97
hoopd wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing in Mozilla's mission statement[0][1] incompatible with Eich's personal beliefs. > You personally, the guy typing the letters into this box, what do you think the outcome of such a "negotiation" would be if it were as successful as humanly possible? I think it would have been adults acting like adults and accepting you don't have to agree with somebody in order to work with them. Eich already demonstra…

The question here is not "Did Eich's presence cause an exclusionary atmosphere at Mozilla?", which is what you appear to be arguing. As you mention, the answer is no. The question is actually "Is it appropriate for someone who takes active steps to treat some people as undeserving of basic rights[1] to take the ultimate leadership role in a diversity focused company?" That answer is no. Going back to your "negotiatio…

>He could repudiate the donation and this would have evaporated overnight. Those views were apparently important enough to him to prevent such an option.

So for you the best course of action would be to hypocritically pretend to be sorry in order to appease the clamour of the crows? And as he didn't, as he stayed true to his positions not flipping like a coward because he was pressured to do so, he deserves what he got?

Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#136

Post by MichaelGG »

shmerl wrote: post #86

Netflix are hypocrites (and all this is primarily their fault). They claimed that this DRM garbage in the standard wasn't their desire, and they did it to oblige obsessed publishers. Yet, where is their own content DRM-free?

Yes, it's important to keep in mind that while Netflix is fighting bad people and we like them for that, many things they do are against consumer interests. Like Steam. It's just that the alternatives are so worse, we give them a pass.

You're right: Someone should corner them on why "Netflix Original" content isn't DRM free. (Or why they still restrict access and subtitles based on region, for "Netflix Original" titles.)

DRM for Netflix is about putting up barriers. Just like Amazon convinced publishers to go with Kindle DRM, giving Amazon the power in the end. By encouraging DRM, it's harder to compete as it is one more thing to do that Netflix already has. It's not as powerful as Kindle's lockin - content licensing is a bigger deal. Apart from that? Well, Popcorn Time provides a much better experience than Netflix. (Proper subs, force HD, use better player to normalize audio ("night mode") or otherwise tweak viewing, no messing with proxies, etc.) My wife and kids are already starting to use PT, even when the same content is on Netflix. Yikes. (Torrents + put.io was already pretty slick, but slightly more difficult (2 apps, one extra click).)

Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#137

Post by byuu »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #18

And here is the end result of people leaving Firefox for Chrome. You neutered Mozilla. There is no longer a browser vendor which has both your interests in heart and sufficient power to direct the evolution of the web. Who now gets to choose which features are built into the majority of desktop and mobile browsers? Advertising companies.

> And here is the end result of people leaving Firefox for Chrome.

Mozilla brought that on themselves by racing as fast as possible to become Chrome. If I'm going to be forced to use the Chrome UI, why would I settle for an inferior copy of it named Australis?

Then there was the Awesomebar, Hello, mandatory signed extensions, ads on your newtab page, forcing the retention of download history, and on and on. DRM is just the next step in a long, sad succession. Mozilla has been trying as hard as possible since 4.x to get us to stop using their browser. No surprise it's working.

Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#138

Post by notsony »

Karunamon wrote: post #108
notsony wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue Mozilla was quite purist when they ejected Brendan Eich because his personal beliefs were not shared by fellow employees... but more on that later. Perhaps the real reason Brendan Eich was thrown out of Mozilla was because he didn't embrace DRM and EME? Given his stature as founder of Mozilla and creator of Javascript, he could have posed a significant roadblock if he had decided to reject EME's inclu…

This is an interesting theory and given what we know how how hollywood works in the backroom, plausible, but there are no facts to support it. Eich was not "thrown out of mozilla". The board knew about his donation and appointed him anyways - the pressure for him to resign came from the community and Mozilla employees. Hollywood is great at fomenting outrage, but not that much and not in that way :)

If only company boards listened to their employees and "community" all the time!

I think it's about opportunism. A situation developed and by simply stoking the fires of social media outrage, a major obstacle to adoption of DRM in a popular browser could be eliminated.

Consider the Mozilla position as soon as Brendan had been forced out - coincidence?

>"With most competing browsers and the content industry embracing the W3C EME specification, Mozilla has little choice but to implement EME as well so our users can continue to access all content they want to enjoy. Read on for some background on how we got here, and details of our implementation." - Mozilla CTO Andreas Gal, 14 May 2014

"Mozilla will be adding a way to integrate Adobe Access DRM technology for video and audio into Firefox, via a common specification called Encrypted Media Extensions (EME)." - The Mozilla Blog, 14 May 2014

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-brendan-eich-had-to-g...

Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#139

Post by Karunamon »

wbillingsley wrote: post #126
Karunamon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does donating to a thing imply anything other than support for the thing? Does someone who donates to a presidential campaign envision any other outcome than election of the donate-ee? Does someone who donates to a political lobbying group envision any other outcome other than fulfillment of the lobbying group's goals? It's not like he donated to someone who just happened to have an odious belief, he donated to a gro…

Speaking generally, rather than about Prop 8, I suspect the answer to your question is "actually, yes a donation to a campaign could imply any number of alternatives". We like to think of politics as a simple matter of supporters and opponents for the cause at hand. But in practice it seems people can be prompted by all sorts of things -- being irked by some aspect of the other campaign, a tangential issue (such as i…

Fair enough on the general statement, but in this specific case, if any of these options were true, it makes his decision to not dismiss the donation and throw another $1000 at GLAAD or some other group be all the more questionable.

I absolutely guarantee, had he said something like:

"That was 6 years ago, I did it for $rational_sounding_reason, I don't hate gay people, I'm donating to $LGBT_charity as a token of good will"

..then this entire issue would have been discarded in minutes.

Believe me, I don't want to believe that the guy who wrote JavaScript simultaneously holds backwards beliefs like this. That alone is hard to reconcile, given how inclusive the tech community generally is. But every time I approach this issue, I can't arrive at any other sensible conclusion. The confluence of:

* The donation

* His refusal to repudiate the donation 6 years later

* His refusal to directly address the issue

..does not lend itself well to any other explanation.

Re: Mozilla Launches a New Firefox Version Without DRM Support

#140

Post by npinguy »

pikzen wrote: post #116
DanBC wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That DVD you bought? The one from a different region? It won't play and the reason it won't play is because of DRM. You think you can just put it in your laptop and use VLC, but you forget that your laptop DVD drive is probably region-locked in firmware, so although yes VLC ignores region coding the drive doesn't, and will enforce the region coding and refuse to play your DVD. I can fix it for you. Here's the list o…

The amount of people buying off-region DVDs is awfully low. There are a thousand betters reasons to reject DRM such as not owning your product anymore ("That iTunes music ? Yeah, they can revoke your access at any time.").

The ability to do something does not hold any weight with the people you're trying to convince. "Oh sure, Apple can revoke my access time, but they never would!"

It's the same thing as "Oh I'm sure the government COULD access all my data, but why would they want to?"

Region-locking affects more people than you might think, just not with DVDs anymore. Most of the world using reddit/hackernews/the internet is constantly faced with the frustration of clicking on a youtube link and seeing the copyright notice that says the content is restricted to US-only.

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