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Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

theguardian.com

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Re: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

#11

Post by quonn »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #9

There is an unintuitive takeaway from this. The reason Firefox is allowing this is that browsers and operating systems produced by nonprofits acting in the public interest don't have enough market share to resist being dictated to by for-profit corporations. Imagine FirefoxOS had the market share of Android and Debian had the market share of Windows. Would we still be having this conversation? The free software peopl…

Firefox has improved a lot, since I switched to Chrome. What I'm waiting for is proper sandboxing using a multi-process architecture (they are working on it) and rubberband scrolling. Recently, Chrome has also improved profiles a lot, and I use that to isolate Facebook. I don't think Firefox has a comparable UI for this.

Re: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

#12

Post by DCKing »

azakai wrote: post #10
DCKing wrote: post #8

I don't understand how this is any worse than Firefox supporting (and reluctantly promoting) closed source plugins for years. In fact, this situation will be far better than Flash, Silverlight and all other plugins ever. Why is supporting EME and limiting closed source crapware to a minimum so bad, while supporting huge closed source, bug ridden application runtimes sort of okay?

I think it's a valid point that EME reduces the amount of closed-source code. This was among the arguments used by Google and Microsoft when promoting EME. However, on the other hand: 1. EME is an actual W3C standard. It feels - and is - wrong for an organization like the W3C to promote an API that is not about openness, but rather about the opposite. 2. While EME proponents - and DRM proponents in general - argue "c…

Just for my context - is the browser plugin DOM interface used for plugins (the tag) a W3C standard as well?

I fully agree with point 2. Even if all browser vendors assumed this point to be true however, I think Netflix and other video content providers would have 'happily' run Flash and Silverlight for years and years. There hasn't been a shortage of browser DRM options for a very long time now. EME is an improvement over the Flash/Silverlight situation, and a realistic option at this point for improving the situation right now.

It's a shame Firefox is being derided for being pragmatic or not being perfectly virtuous here. With implementing EME they are still working on improving the openness of the web.

Re: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

#13

Post by jasonthevillain »

Well, I'm a 1. web developer, 2. independent filmmaker, and 3. work in media full-time, and this doesn't really bother me.

I want to be able to rent any movie for streaming. For better or worse, that means some kind of DRM is inevitable. I'd rather Mozilla and the standards advocates have a seat at the table, where they can be a moderating influence, than pretend the table doesn't exist.

Re: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

#14

Post by pjmlp »

azakai wrote: post #10
DCKing wrote: post #8

I don't understand how this is any worse than Firefox supporting (and reluctantly promoting) closed source plugins for years. In fact, this situation will be far better than Flash, Silverlight and all other plugins ever. Why is supporting EME and limiting closed source crapware to a minimum so bad, while supporting huge closed source, bug ridden application runtimes sort of okay?

I think it's a valid point that EME reduces the amount of closed-source code. This was among the arguments used by Google and Microsoft when promoting EME. However, on the other hand: 1. EME is an actual W3C standard. It feels - and is - wrong for an organization like the W3C to promote an API that is not about openness, but rather about the opposite. 2. While EME proponents - and DRM proponents in general - argue "c…

Well, HN tends to discuss a lot the "UNIX way" and the Open Group is not really that open.

Re: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

#15

Post by charlieflowers »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #9

There is an unintuitive takeaway from this. The reason Firefox is allowing this is that browsers and operating systems produced by nonprofits acting in the public interest don't have enough market share to resist being dictated to by for-profit corporations. Imagine FirefoxOS had the market share of Android and Debian had the market share of Windows. Would we still be having this conversation? The free software peopl…

I'm surprised to realize this: Firefox must be the best browser there is, in order to fulfill its mission.

Shouldn't be so surprising in retrospect (like many things), but I never fully got that before.

Power comes from being chosen by end users. Firefox needs power to be able to resist this kind of crap. In this case, they didn't quite have enough power (probably because they let memory bloat get away from them a few years back, giving Chrome the upper hand which is has done a decent job of holding on to).

Re: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

#17

Post by azakai »

DCKing wrote: post #12
azakai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a valid point that EME reduces the amount of closed-source code. This was among the arguments used by Google and Microsoft when promoting EME. However, on the other hand: 1. EME is an actual W3C standard. It feels - and is - wrong for an organization like the W3C to promote an API that is not about openness, but rather about the opposite. 2. While EME proponents - and DRM proponents in general - argue "c…

Just for my context - is the browser plugin DOM interface used for plugins (the tag) a W3C standard as well? I fully agree with point 2. Even if all browser vendors assumed this point to be true however, I think Netflix and other video content providers would have 'happily' run Flash and Silverlight for years and years. There hasn't been a shortage of browser DRM options for a very long time now. EME is an improvemen…

Browser plugins were never standardized. NPAPI was just done at netscape, later used by some other browsers too, but not all - not by Internet Explorer, in particular, which has its own plugin API.

At some point Google proposed standardizing PPAPI, a new plugin API (and a very large and complex one), but it met with no interest.

Re: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

#18

Post by passwordreset »

azakai wrote: post #5
wmf wrote: post #2

(2014) Although this is relevant again since they also decided to put DRM in Firefox OS for the Matchstick (curiously, the plan is Adobe DRM for desktop Firefox and Microsoft DRM for Matchstick; corrections/clarifications are welcome).

Matchstick isn't a Mozilla project, is it? It happens to be built on Firefox OS code, but anyone can use that code, and Matchstick is made by a third party. Mozilla can't prevent someone from building a Firefox OS product and adding Microsoft DRM to it. So I think the "they" in your statement there might be confusing, as it seems to imply Mozilla is doing something here. (btw, I hadn't heard about this latest develop…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matchstick/matchstick-t...

Update 16. It went out on Friday.

Re: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

#19

Post by azakai »

passwordreset wrote: post #18
azakai wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matchstick isn't a Mozilla project, is it? It happens to be built on Firefox OS code, but anyone can use that code, and Matchstick is made by a third party. Mozilla can't prevent someone from building a Firefox OS product and adding Microsoft DRM to it. So I think the "they" in your statement there might be confusing, as it seems to imply Mozilla is doing something here. (btw, I hadn't heard about this latest develop…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matchstick/matchstick-t... Update 16. It went out on Friday.

Thanks for the link.

This is kind of surprising to me, that Microsoft would license PlayReady for a non-Microsoft platform, in this case Matchstick. I wonder if their policy was always that way, but it just didn't happen, or if it changed?

Re: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart (2014)

#20

Post by geofft »

azakai wrote: post #10
DCKing wrote: post #8

I don't understand how this is any worse than Firefox supporting (and reluctantly promoting) closed source plugins for years. In fact, this situation will be far better than Flash, Silverlight and all other plugins ever. Why is supporting EME and limiting closed source crapware to a minimum so bad, while supporting huge closed source, bug ridden application runtimes sort of okay?

I think it's a valid point that EME reduces the amount of closed-source code. This was among the arguments used by Google and Microsoft when promoting EME. However, on the other hand: 1. EME is an actual W3C standard. It feels - and is - wrong for an organization like the W3C to promote an API that is not about openness, but rather about the opposite. 2. While EME proponents - and DRM proponents in general - argue "c…

The argument at hand is that Firefox shouldn't support it, not that W3C shouldn't. (The argument is conditioned on it having been spec'd and adopted by the W3C, and concerns what Firefox's response should be.) Is it more wrong for Firefox to support an open interface to proprietary plugins, than a proprietary interface to proprietary plugins (the "N" in "NPAPI" literally means Netscape; this is something they deployed unilaterally and other people copied)?
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