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Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and the W3C EME

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Re: Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and the W3C EME

#51
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Improving and defending the open web is not just about fighting the good fight on DRM. The Mozilla mission also calls for us to fight for users right to make choices[0] as well. Mozilla could choose not to implement EME, and draw that line in the sand, but that means denying users the option of continuing to use Firefox to access content they choose to access . My preference (both as a long time Firefox user, and a M…

Sure, the user may want to access DRM-encumbered content, but we shouldn't promote such a thing. You're not denying the users anything by refusing to implement EME, the media companies are denying the users freedom by insisting on using malware to deliver content! Just because users want Netflix in Firefox doesn't mean that it's the right thing to provide.

Is supporting a EME the same thing as promoting it?

Re: Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and the W3C EME

#52
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Improving and defending the open web is not just about fighting the good fight on DRM. The Mozilla mission also calls for us to fight for users right to make choices[0] as well. Mozilla could choose not to implement EME, and draw that line in the sand, but that means denying users the option of continuing to use Firefox to access content they choose to access . My preference (both as a long time Firefox user, and a M…

Sure, the user may want to access DRM-encumbered content, but we shouldn't promote such a thing. You're not denying the users anything by refusing to implement EME, the media companies are denying the users freedom by insisting on using malware to deliver content! Just because users want Netflix in Firefox doesn't mean that it's the right thing to provide.

"Firefox is about empowering users, unless those users should be so bold as to do something that's totally bad for me–I mean, them"

Re: Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and the W3C EME

#53

The writing was on the wall a while ago once Google implemented this into Chrome(Netflix on Chromebooks was the first real world use of this IIRC). Firefox no longer has the market power it once used to have thanks to Chrome being bundled and installed by default with Flash, Acrobat and Java updates etc. Google has been spending massively on pushing Chrome even bundled as default on new machines with OEM agreements t…

> Mozilla is pretty much powerless since users blame FF if it doesn't support something Mozilla is pretty much powerless since users blame FF if it doesn't support something and the bulk of its funding comes from one of those corporate interests (Google). (Both are problems - even if Mozilla had the market share, if it were still funded (almost) solely by Google, these things would still eventually happen, since the…

> even if Mozilla had the market share, if it were still funded (almost) solely by Google, these things would still eventually happen, since the power tends to follow the money in the end.).

This isn't supported by reality. Feel free to offer any evidence at all, however.

You could just as easily postulate that every privacy enhancement that google adds to their search page is because of influence by Mozilla, which Google is massively dependent on for traffic and therefore revenue, since power tends to follow the money in the end.

Depending on your stat source, at least 1/5 of internet users use Firefox, which means that the percentage of Google users on Firefox is probably that percentage or higher. The Mozilla Corporation is wholly owned by the Mozilla Foundation, but Google has shareholders. So who is more important to whom?

Re: Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and the W3C EME

#54
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, so far the EME implementations that content providers have actually been willing to support have been far more tightly locked down than Flash or Silverlight. The Microsoft one supports hardware-level protected playback paths and unlike Silverlight no-one's managed to get it to run under Wine, and the Google one only runs on locked-down official Chromebook hardware which users can't run any non-Google pro…

The major DRM platform out there is Netflix on Silverlight, and it's not particularly locked-down at all. Of course there are others, but they hardly matter at all in terms of marketshare.

Netflix won't run on the Mono implementation of Silverlight because it's dependent on a closed source DRM module. That's a bit locked down.

Re: Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and the W3C EME

#56

So the open source wrapper can receive unencrypted audio/video frames. Does that mean it does the video decoding too or does it get the compressed stream back? Either way it doesn't sound like a very strong protection of the content as you can access it with at most a single generation compression loss. Is it me or are the content providers and the DRM providers realising the limits of DRM and loosening their require…

No, it just means they were ignorant enough about the technology to allow Mozilla to do it this way - for now. Also, Mozilla gets to say now that "look, we're implementing DRM, but it's not so bad".

However, once the content owners see how useless this method is (they all are, but this in particular), they will demand heavily proprietary closed source down to the metal software to protect their content. And since Mozilla has "already" kind of agreed to do this, they'll have no choice but to implement that much worse version of DRM.

Re: Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and the W3C EME

#57

>We have come to the point where Mozilla not implementing the W3C EME specification means that Firefox users have to switch to other browsers to watch content restricted by DRM. Then so be it. If Mozilla's mission is to improve and defend the "open" web, then EME should never have been considered for implementation. They shouldn't sacrifice their goals for the sake of market share.

You think most users will care if it ships EME or no? Like seriously?! I'd love to live in that world.

Basically if Netflix doesn't work with Mozilla who's gonna be blamed? Netflix that works on Chrome? Google, whose browser plays Netflix or Mozilla that doesn't open Netflix? If you answered Mozilla, you live in real world :(

No, this one is squarely on shoulders of those that supported that damned crud of W3C standard.

If Mozilla doesn't back this up, it will be marginalized even more and only Google, Microsoft and Apple will decide on the future of open web. And we all know what that will mean for the open web.

Re: Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and the W3C EME

#58

The writing was on the wall a while ago once Google implemented this into Chrome(Netflix on Chromebooks was the first real world use of this IIRC). Firefox no longer has the market power it once used to have thanks to Chrome being bundled and installed by default with Flash, Acrobat and Java updates etc. Google has been spending massively on pushing Chrome even bundled as default on new machines with OEM agreements t…

> Mozilla is pretty much powerless since users blame FF if it doesn't support something Mozilla is pretty much powerless since users blame FF if it doesn't support something and the bulk of its funding comes from one of those corporate interests (Google). (Both are problems - even if Mozilla had the market share, if it were still funded (almost) solely by Google, these things would still eventually happen, since the…

I really hope Mozilla manages to become financially independent of Google, whether through donations or some other revenue stream.

They announced Directory Tiles a while ago, which is a step in that direction.

Re: Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and the W3C EME

#59
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the user may want to access DRM-encumbered content, but we shouldn't promote such a thing. You're not denying the users anything by refusing to implement EME, the media companies are denying the users freedom by insisting on using malware to deliver content! Just because users want Netflix in Firefox doesn't mean that it's the right thing to provide.

"Firefox is about empowering users, unless those users should be so bold as to do something that's totally bad for me–I mean, them"

Please explain. In what way is it totally bad for davexunit?
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