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Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

lists.w3.org

41–50 of 424 posts

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#41
This is all so ridiculous, rtmp for instance is as secure a DRM as its ever gonna get and that never stopped me from downloading a stream. Even things like HDMI/HDCP is broken beyond repair. And all of this should justify damaging the w3c reputation forever, what are they thinking?!

This whole concept of DRM is just idiotic, its enough if one guy breaks the DRM and releases it. Why should I even bother booting a propertary OS (windows) and buying a stream everytime I want to watch something if I can just download a release and watch it, and its not like they can do anything against that either.

Why should I bother and buy HDCP capable new hardware, bother with proprietary NSA-compliant US software I much rather buy the DVD, trash it and just download it in a open and free format (I don't even bother with ripping (and breaking CSS) anymore).

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#42

Can't we just fork the w3? Start using Firefox and forget about these people. Oh I'm sorry your browser is a little slower, but at least it's not Google made.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Mozilla is a W3C member organization.

Perhaps you're thinking of something like the WHATWG? (bad news for you on the Google front if it is)

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#43
I guess, the "another backdoor" proposal will go very well in Europe, where most citizens are just static about americas view on privacy and respect for constitutional rights. Way to go, maybe the W3C will finally get Europe and the rest of the "free" world to create their own web!

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#44
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that Free Software people aren't willing to negotiate? We are very willing to; it's just that every suggestion we've made has been shot down. I think it's very clear who is unwilling to negotiate here. It's true, though, that there's one point on which we aren't willing to negotiate: any W3C-endorsed standard must be implementable by anyone who chooses, without paying royalties or licensing patents. EM…

Free software people aren't willing to negotiate about the right to read and modify code but non-modifiable code is the only way that DRM can work.

Can you even name any other class of software that cannot work unless people are somehow forbidden to modify or even read the code? It sounds like this is a problem with DRM, not with the free software movement.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#46

Can't we just fork the w3? Start using Firefox and forget about these people. Oh I'm sorry your browser is a little slower, but at least it's not Google made.

Fork the W3C? This is pretty much happened with HTML. The W3C membership voted against chartering a group to work on progressive improvements to HTML (v. XHTML2), initially in the form of Web Forms 2.0, and so the WHATWG was born.

The big problem is copyright on all the specs is owned by the W3C. Oh, you want to spec CSS? Well, then you have to do it from scratch. Yes, HTML is now at a point where it is better specified than ever, and more interoperable than ever, but it's been a long, hard journey there. Consider the spec has been worked on for over a decade now. Respecifying, from scratch, large parts of the web platform is an incredibly large undertaking, especially ensuring the spec defines something compatible with almost all web content when browsers frequently disagree in edge-cases with up-until-now unspecified behaviour.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#47
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that Free Software people aren't willing to negotiate? We are very willing to; it's just that every suggestion we've made has been shot down. I think it's very clear who is unwilling to negotiate here. It's true, though, that there's one point on which we aren't willing to negotiate: any W3C-endorsed standard must be implementable by anyone who chooses, without paying royalties or licensing patents. EM…

Free software people aren't willing to negotiate about the right to read and modify code but non-modifiable code is the only way that DRM can work.

Even leaving that issue[1] aside, if the W3C were to endorse EME, then for the first time in its history the Open Web would not be implementable by anyone who chose to do so. That is the real problem here, not incompatibility with any particular software license.

[1] which is pretty much the reason for the existence of the FOSS movement, so I'm sure you'll understand the inflexibility there :)

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#48

Maybe instead of getting everyone to adopt Silverlight, we could just make the web more like Silverlight. Like more closed and stuff, because movies!

Silverlight has nothing to do with DRM. It's a web content runtime similar to flash. Sure, some codecs exposed through the runtime on a windows machine supported DRM. But silverlight itself has as much to do with DRM as http that was used to transport that content.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#49
post #41

This is all so ridiculous, rtmp for instance is as secure a DRM as its ever gonna get and that never stopped me from downloading a stream. Even things like HDMI/HDCP is broken beyond repair. And all of this should justify damaging the w3c reputation forever, what are they thinking?! This whole concept of DRM is just idiotic, its enough if one guy breaks the DRM and releases it. Why should I even bother booting a prop…

What are they thinking? The majority of the W3C membership want this work done, and the W3C is ultimately bound by its membership. Not working on this isn't an option — take the W3C out of the picture and it'll still be done, quite probably behind closed doors, which is even worse for the web; MS, Apple, and Google are all likely going to ship this whether the W3C specifies this or not; for better or for worse, it is likely to become part of the de-facto Web Platform.

And if you read the lists (as opposed to overly emotional hearsay calling them stupid), you'll realize their concern isn't so much piracy in and of itself (they recognize DRM can and will be broken — they aren't blind), but rather "casual piracy", as it were, ripping a disc having had it lent to you, for example. The aim is to make it sufficiently inconvenient to work-around that that doesn't happen, not that it avoids release on P2P networks and the like.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#50

Can't we just fork the w3? Start using Firefox and forget about these people. Oh I'm sorry your browser is a little slower, but at least it's not Google made.

In order to "fork" the w3, you would have to make a new organization that would create a standard replacement, convince people to make browsers for it, convince server operators to support it, and convince people to create content with it. Granted, this is more simplified then it what would actually need to happen, so no, you cannot "just fork" the w3.
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