Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose • Hacker News Board

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#271

Post by vehementi » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:45 AM UTC

CHY872 wrote: post #227

vehementi wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er, you claim Google has power. What if Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple implemented EME but Google didn't want to, and then everyone stopped using Chrome for all of the reasons mentioned in this thread? Then, Google doesn't have power. Contradiction!

No. Google has power because it has influence outside of web browsers. Mozilla have basically no leverage - their product is at best highly competitive with a number of other choices. If Firefox becomes irrelevant, Mozilla as an organisation dies - no money to pay the bills. If Chrome becomes irrelevant, Google's still very much a functioning company.

The organization dying or not is off topic. We're talking about which company has the clout to stop the DRM via not implementing it in their browser. Surely Chrome would die out just like Firefox would if Google decided to Do No Evil here. Chrome/Google would fail to stop the DRM, so Chrome/Google didn't have power.

Or do you think that because of Android or something, Google would be able to stop the DRM when every other browser/device supported it?

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#272

Post by azakai » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:45 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #255

azakai wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla has been different in philosophy. It's the only browser created by a nonprofit, and it fights for open web causes all the time. I think people that care about that are aware of it. But the facts remain that the vast majority of users don't care about the philosophical differences. When Chrome and Internet Explorer started shipping EME, almost no one switched browser. When Snowden's revelations came out, almos…

Anybody taking Snowden's revelations seriously would switch to Chrome or another Chromium build. The leaks contained information on exploited vulnerabilities in Firefox. Chrome's sandboxing makes it a safer browser than Firefox. This is opposite the choice somebody would make if they were philosophically opposed to DRM.

Ok, let's say I agree with you - how many users switched to Chrome or Chromium following those allegations? Practically none. That proves the point, users don't seem to care about this.

(But I don't agree, that was just to make the larger point.)

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#273

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:50 AM UTC

jgraham wrote: post #121

chris_wot wrote: post #42

So time to fork Firefox?

So I've seen this reaction in a few places, and I'm genuinely interested in what people think that it would achieve. You take the code of a browser that allows, but does not require, you to use a DRM system* and change it so that you are no longer able to install a DRM system. What's the value proposition of the new browser? You won't be tempted to install the DRM component when you find yourself wanting to view medi…

This is the only reasonable comment in this thread.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#274

Post by loup-vaillant » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:50 AM UTC

joaren wrote: post #245

jgon wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. Watching people on this site verbally fellate Chrome and Safari on the basis of incredibly trivial things like look and feel and "minimal UI", while ignoring the incredibly important things like the company building the products and it's positions is frustrating, even more so now that they are all crawling out of the woodwork crying alligator tears. The tech community brought this upon itself when it switc…

Oh really? Mozilla brought this on itself when they took the epic lead they had with Firebug and utterly squandered it by thinking real dev tools were not something a browser should include out of the box, in favour of an utterly useless "3D" DOM view that is a made up diagram conveying no useful information about compositing or layering. Mozilla brought this on itself when they treated memory leaks and extension cra…

Still.

Are those problems so bad, that even you stooped as low as using a proprietary browser? Was that a sufficient price for your freedom?

Mozilla made mistakes, but it doesn't excuse the blindness of its users. Reminds me of GNU/Linux vs OSX. Apple made a shiny new OS that "just works" on their own hardware, and a good chunk of the tech community went drooling over this, instead of getting its act together and fixing the Linux desktop. Again, I guess this is the price of freedom.

Freedom sure has come cheap these days.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#275

Post by vehementi » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:50 AM UTC

higherpurpose wrote: post #229

Navarr wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, at least, am saying that keeping their userbase is better than becoming irrelevant.

Just because Mozilla says they will lose users if they don't do this, doesn't make it true. They've shown no evidence of trends that this is happening. They are simply adopting DRM out of fear . Also chasing popularity is like chasing money. It shouldn't be the goal . Those things follow after doing the right thing, and I believe for an organization with the kind of community and userbase Firefox has around it, not i…

Indeed... this is just throwing in the towel completely without putting up a fight. Here are various other ways:

- do the work to implement the DRM thing but keep it disabled ready to hot patch in once evidence shows that they'll be fucked without it

- display "this is bullshit DRM content you shouldn't support, read more HERE, and click HERE if you really don't care and will use another browser to view this anyway" in place of the DRM content initially

etc.

Immediately giving in is hardly "dragged kicking and screaming".

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#276

Post by hughw » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:52 AM UTC

DRM just won't be that useful in a web browser. I can share a link with you, but it won't work for you. If Mozilla omitted this feature, users would just fire up the Netflix app. I honestly doubt it would cause users to switch away.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#277

Post by cliffbean » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:53 AM UTC

jasonwocky wrote: post #214

jgon wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, Mozilla had power right up until the tech community sold out the future of the web in favor of sparkly things given to us by our benevolent corporate masters. Every time we installed Chrome for our parents because it was so minimal , every time we fired up safari because zomg the user interface was "lickable", we were working towards this point. We gave Google and Apple this power because we decided that smo…

> We gave Google and Apple this power because we decided that smooth animations and per process tabs were a fair trade for the future of a global information network not controlled by corporate interests. Actually, I decided that hellacious startup times weren't worth it. All of your hyperbole is a spin-master's way of saying that Chome and Safari beat out Mozilla because, for a significant amount of time, Firefox su…

Perhaps, but how important is DRM, with Chrome shipping it and even promoting it, to you, personally? Less important than having a nice startup time? Whatever floats your boat, but that seems to be a significant reason why we're here today.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#278

Post by wyager » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:53 AM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #187

wyager wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to compromise every chip. You just need to compromise one. That's not particularly hard. You can use some fancy equipment to extract the private key, and then you can decode any video the chip could decode. Or, if you want to be lazy, just hook a VGA cable up to a transcoder.

But a particular chip will only have the keys for a small number of videos. When you buy a movie, you download that movie encrypted with a unique key, and the unique key is encrypted with your device key. So compromising one chip won't give you any kind of "master key" or anything especially valuable. The movie can be stored anywhere, when you need to play it you will pass the encrypted key to the device and the devi…

Someone already has to buy a movie to rip and upload it. One organization can buy lots of movies at a time and upload them all.

And the analog hole can't be closed. If the video is encrypted on the wire, you can just jack into the TV's DSP hardware (at worst).

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#279

Post by yourad_io » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:55 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #88

barrkel wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the wrong choice. It's the same BS I remember reading on slides from graphics card vendors excusing some other way of selling the user down the river. Content can adapt to reach their customers. Bend here and the web itself is under threat. Mozilla needs a social contract like Debian, since it seems clear they can't rely on leadership for backbone.

Did you seriously just equate closed source graphics drivers to slavery?

TIL "sells down the river"'s origins.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/326500.html

Damn. Thanks for that, had no idea and have probably used it once or twice. Back into passive vocabulary you go. (Non-native english yada yada)

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#280

Post by throwwit » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:55 AM UTC

evv wrote: post #72

farresito wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really worries me is the fact that now it's going to be way easier to implement something with DRM. A lot of users nowadays are not willing to install some third party plugin. The fact that it comes with the browser means that it's extremely easy to implement something with that DRM. I might be wrong, since I haven't read much about it.

I doubt netflix looses much business because they require silverlight to watch. On the contrary, making DRM tech more accessible to developers will only help young startups build platforms that are "content provider friendly". This will promote competition in the online entertainment space and ultimately drive prices down. I'm no fan of DRM but I see the value it serves. Just like advertising. I don't see why everybo…

>... will only help young startups build platforms that are "content provider friendly". This will promote competition...

That is anathema to their business model dynamic; licenses are stringently kept to stretch exclusivity. Platforms!? (plural?), the DRM tech debate is about monopolizing/standardizing THE platform.

>I'm no fan of DRM but I see the value it serves. Just like advertising.

You must have never had a VCR... smh... With this DRM, and Sisyphean-esque copyright term-limit laws... I'm wary of how much influence the content industry will have on tech.