5 ms·

Yet you can't actually use Netflix on FreeBSD.

by vezzy-fnord 13y ago

cperciva 13y ago
Between the two, I'd rather use FreeBSD than Netflix.
- donniezazen 13y ago
  That's what I think Netflix is not even a global thing. While projects like FreeBSD and Linux will keep the platform open for next big thing.
  - lstamour 13y ago
    You may be a bit confused. GNU keeps things open. FreeBSD and/or Linux ... well, I don't mean to troll. :)
    - eyko 13y ago
      I don't consider that trolling, just statement of fact. But I guess it depends on what each person considers free. GNU has a concept of freedom that it tries to protect via the GPL. Licenses like the BSD or MIT do not. Personally, I think this licensing difference is what makes companies use code from one but not the other. E.g. Apple's Darwin and it's kernel (XNU) contains code from BSD. While Darwin is "open source", it acts as the core/foundation of a closed source OS. Had they used a GNU kernel like Linux, or GNU libraries (glibc) then they'd have had an issue or two with certain uses in conjunction with closed source software (e.g. statically linking glibc). I reckon that influences decisions on what to use. Perhaps the best example to fit your comment is JunOS, a closed source, FreeBSD based OS. In Netflix's case, it does seem that they modify some of FreeBSD to fit their use case, and they boast about how they will contribute back to the FreeBSD project any changes that they make. The BSD license does _not_ require them to do so, and who are we to know if they're actually contributing everything back. If they used a GPL'd OS, they might be obliged to do it, but I'm not a lawyer. I don't believe, however, that the license played any part in Netflix's choosing of FreeBSD, and I don't believe that what your comment points out should be considered trolling :)
      - cwyers 13y ago
        The GPL wouldn't require Netflix to contribute changes they make to operating systems running on their own servers, either. The GPL says you can't distribute binaries built from modified source without distributing your source modifications, but if you're not distributing binaries, you're really under no obligation to contribute your changes to anyone. If Netflix was using Linux as its server OS, it could keep its changes to itself simply by not distributing Netflix Linux to anyone outside Netflix.
        rakoo 13y ago
        To bring things a little bit further, this specificity (not having to redistribute the code when using it as a service) is precisely why AGPL[0] exists: if Netflix were to use AGPL code, and I were to use Netflix services, then I could claim the source code of the service under AGPL. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License
    - protomyth 13y ago
      GPL is open for a self-selected group of developers, BSD is open for all developers and a self-selected group passes their changes back.
      - chongli 13y ago
        GPL is open for all users. BSD is open for users of a self-selected group of developers.
        protomyth 13y ago
        GPL is only open to users who have a developer willing to distribute the code in a workable form. Given the GPL is often used in the "pay us if you want to ship" mode, I don't see much to recommend it versus BSD. GPL can die just as easily as BSD without developer support.
      - belorn 13y ago
        What is open for all vs open for some will always come down to the definition of the word "open". If we are talking about open as in permission to use, modify and distribute, then both licenses are equally "open". If we are talking about open as in permission to close down the permission for others to modify or distribute newer version, and sue anyone who acts different - Then we do have one license that is more "open". One could also argue that a standard business model of today rely on being able to threaten users with lawsuit if they modify or share the software. The "openness" to use such model is only available for one kind of licenses and not by others. I might not go as far as calling it more open, but then I have a distinct opinion on the word open.
        lstamour 13y ago
        Aw, geez, and here I tried to avoid these debates. I used "open" to try and imply that GNU's license will keep the source code "in the open", as "open" implies something different from "free". I'm not going to argue that one is better than another, or that one gives more rights to derivative users or not. That way lies politics and madness :)
    - X4 13y ago
      The morale of the society and demand makes one or the other successful. You and I feel that companies today, that means 2013, have finally decided to try OSS seriously and this is something what other companies imitate. Monkey style, the first adopter's success is giving clue for those afraid of trying new things. The corporate culture is not too big to fail too and I believe that hirings of new or younger managers like Marissa Meyer will help to kill corporate culture to some degree, even if it's not where we would like to have it. To be precise, making corporate culture an open culture. One that shares, despite the cost and risk of monkey style adaption by their opponents. This is what I'm waiting for. (Yes I know what she did, but it's nonetheless getting better for Yahoo, or hopefully so) That means, for developers who build a startup using the XaaS business model, only MIT or BSD works really well. While LGPL and GPL may work, but require legal steps, where there is no money for lawyers and such. These startups cannot compete against the corporate enterprise market, like Google for example. And according to the theory of "The rich get richer", this will not change, unless someone clever enough, uses system theory to subvert and defeat the corporate culture, or the whole society backs this idea, ie. to stop the inevitable destruction of the remaining planetary resources. Guess why SpaceX wants to mine asteroids. It's not that resources are rare or something, they are simply rare, because someone with the budget reserved a large amount for himself, to control the market. Yes this is virtually a power Google also has, it could make the barrier of entry for any startup so hard, that those who want succeed need to be financed by them (through acquiring) or by visionary investors. Please don't get this as Google hate, it's just a logical observation and I am also doing human errors from time to time. When you find a logical flaw, I'm curious to discuss that with you.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Netflix is declining. Their selection of movies available for streaming has been steadily losing mainstream, popular titles. Now it's mostly B movies and kids shows. Probably the main thing keeping it going are the few popular television series that they still have (Breaking Bad, etc.); I can't remember the last time I actually watched one of their movies.
  - EricDeb 13y ago
    The documentaries on both Amazon prime and Netflix instant are awesome though - the only thing I watch instantly that's part of the free collection.
  - warfangle 13y ago
    Their forays into original programming are pretty amazing (House of Cards, et al).
  - km3k 13y ago
    A lot of kids shows had a mass exodus to Amazon a few months ago. So they don't even have those anymore.
smacktoward 13y ago
So much of what is celebrated as "innovation" these days involves taking something open and using it to build something closed that it almost feels unfair to call Netflix out for doing the same. (Almost.)
gwu78 13y ago
This is where you usually see some silly comment like "Because the majority of users cannot use a command line and will never use FreeBSD." Of course that majority will also never be given a choice. Sony PlayStation users are using FreeBSD. I doubt they will complain. Imagine, for the purposes of a thought experiment, a majority of users would be receptive to using FreeBSD. Imagine that instead of staring at a screen that says "Buffering...", the user could transfer files to the her home computer with something as simple as: tnftp -o /home/netflix/nextmovieinqueue.mp4 ftp://netflixftpserverlocatedatisp.netflix.com/requestedmovie.mp4 And when the download completes, the user could serve the video to the devices that are connected to her WiFi router: tcpserver -vRHDl0 192.168.2.0 80 bozohttpd -snX /home/netflix And then she accesses the file as she would any video on the www, by pointing her web browser/http client at http://192.168.2.0/nextmovieinqueue.mp4 http://192.168.2.0/nextmovieinqueue.mp4 In this imaginary scenario, how could "DRM" be implemented without forcing the customer to use a particular OS, browser or video player, or some other closed source program? Could it be done?
- lstamour 13y ago
  Um, if PS4 has netflix support and PS4 runs FreeBSD then ... you can, in fact, access Netflix on FreeBSD? ;-)
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  Except that's just a fantasy scenario and not how Netflix actually works or would work on FreeBSD. The problem is there is no port of Silverlight with the necessary DRM. The latter is unethical in the context of free software. However, from what I've read, Netflix intend on switching fully to HTML5 in the near future. This will make their platform OS-agnostic, while still benefiting from things like Encrypted Media Extensions (EME).
  - chongli 13y ago
    How is an open source browser like Firefox supposed to implement Encrypted Media Extensions without leaking the keys to anyone who decides to grab the source code?
dubcanada 13y ago
They are trying really hard to push HTML5 forward. And that will let them do such things. They are stuck, the movie people want DRM, but nothing really exists on Linux for such. So they had to go with Silvershit.
- josteink 13y ago
  they are pressing for html with drm so Linux and friends will still be left out with no viable legal options.
  - trippy_biscuits 13y ago
    BSD vs GPL was already mentioned. Perhaps now we can discuss how DRM only hurts paying customers of protected content? Oh, you bought access to some licensed content? Great! Thank you. As a reward we will now severely limit how you consume the good or service.

Yet you can't actually use Netflix on FreeBSD.

cperciva 13y ago

Between the two, I'd rather use FreeBSD than Netflix.

donniezazen 13y ago
That's what I think Netflix is not even a global thing. While projects like FreeBSD and Linux will keep the platform open for next big thing.
- lstamour 13y ago
  You may be a bit confused. GNU keeps things open. FreeBSD and/or Linux ... well, I don't mean to troll. :)
  - eyko 13y ago
    I don't consider that trolling, just statement of fact. But I guess it depends on what each person considers free. GNU has a concept of freedom that it tries to protect via the GPL. Licenses like the BSD or MIT do not. Personally, I think this licensing difference is what makes companies use code from one but not the other. E.g. Apple's Darwin and it's kernel (XNU) contains code from BSD. While Darwin is "open source", it acts as the core/foundation of a closed source OS. Had they used a GNU kernel like Linux, or GNU libraries (glibc) then they'd have had an issue or two with certain uses in conjunction with closed source software (e.g. statically linking glibc). I reckon that influences decisions on what to use. Perhaps the best example to fit your comment is JunOS, a closed source, FreeBSD based OS. In Netflix's case, it does seem that they modify some of FreeBSD to fit their use case, and they boast about how they will contribute back to the FreeBSD project any changes that they make. The BSD license does _not_ require them to do so, and who are we to know if they're actually contributing everything back. If they used a GPL'd OS, they might be obliged to do it, but I'm not a lawyer. I don't believe, however, that the license played any part in Netflix's choosing of FreeBSD, and I don't believe that what your comment points out should be considered trolling :)
    - cwyers 13y ago
      The GPL wouldn't require Netflix to contribute changes they make to operating systems running on their own servers, either. The GPL says you can't distribute binaries built from modified source without distributing your source modifications, but if you're not distributing binaries, you're really under no obligation to contribute your changes to anyone. If Netflix was using Linux as its server OS, it could keep its changes to itself simply by not distributing Netflix Linux to anyone outside Netflix.
      - rakoo 13y ago
        To bring things a little bit further, this specificity (not having to redistribute the code when using it as a service) is precisely why AGPL[0] exists: if Netflix were to use AGPL code, and I were to use Netflix services, then I could claim the source code of the service under AGPL. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License
  - protomyth 13y ago
    GPL is open for a self-selected group of developers, BSD is open for all developers and a self-selected group passes their changes back.
    - chongli 13y ago
      GPL is open for all users. BSD is open for users of a self-selected group of developers.
      - protomyth 13y ago
        GPL is only open to users who have a developer willing to distribute the code in a workable form. Given the GPL is often used in the "pay us if you want to ship" mode, I don't see much to recommend it versus BSD. GPL can die just as easily as BSD without developer support.
    - belorn 13y ago
      What is open for all vs open for some will always come down to the definition of the word "open". If we are talking about open as in permission to use, modify and distribute, then both licenses are equally "open". If we are talking about open as in permission to close down the permission for others to modify or distribute newer version, and sue anyone who acts different - Then we do have one license that is more "open". One could also argue that a standard business model of today rely on being able to threaten users with lawsuit if they modify or share the software. The "openness" to use such model is only available for one kind of licenses and not by others. I might not go as far as calling it more open, but then I have a distinct opinion on the word open.
      - lstamour 13y ago
        Aw, geez, and here I tried to avoid these debates. I used "open" to try and imply that GNU's license will keep the source code "in the open", as "open" implies something different from "free". I'm not going to argue that one is better than another, or that one gives more rights to derivative users or not. That way lies politics and madness :)
  - X4 13y ago
    The morale of the society and demand makes one or the other successful. You and I feel that companies today, that means 2013, have finally decided to try OSS seriously and this is something what other companies imitate. Monkey style, the first adopter's success is giving clue for those afraid of trying new things. The corporate culture is not too big to fail too and I believe that hirings of new or younger managers like Marissa Meyer will help to kill corporate culture to some degree, even if it's not where we would like to have it. To be precise, making corporate culture an open culture. One that shares, despite the cost and risk of monkey style adaption by their opponents. This is what I'm waiting for. (Yes I know what she did, but it's nonetheless getting better for Yahoo, or hopefully so) That means, for developers who build a startup using the XaaS business model, only MIT or BSD works really well. While LGPL and GPL may work, but require legal steps, where there is no money for lawyers and such. These startups cannot compete against the corporate enterprise market, like Google for example. And according to the theory of "The rich get richer", this will not change, unless someone clever enough, uses system theory to subvert and defeat the corporate culture, or the whole society backs this idea, ie. to stop the inevitable destruction of the remaining planetary resources. Guess why SpaceX wants to mine asteroids. It's not that resources are rare or something, they are simply rare, because someone with the budget reserved a large amount for himself, to control the market. Yes this is virtually a power Google also has, it could make the barrier of entry for any startup so hard, that those who want succeed need to be financed by them (through acquiring) or by visionary investors. Please don't get this as Google hate, it's just a logical observation and I am also doing human errors from time to time. When you find a logical flaw, I'm curious to discuss that with you.
ams6110 13y ago
Netflix is declining. Their selection of movies available for streaming has been steadily losing mainstream, popular titles. Now it's mostly B movies and kids shows. Probably the main thing keeping it going are the few popular television series that they still have (Breaking Bad, etc.); I can't remember the last time I actually watched one of their movies.
- EricDeb 13y ago
  The documentaries on both Amazon prime and Netflix instant are awesome though - the only thing I watch instantly that's part of the free collection.
- warfangle 13y ago
  Their forays into original programming are pretty amazing (House of Cards, et al).
- km3k 13y ago
  A lot of kids shows had a mass exodus to Amazon a few months ago. So they don't even have those anymore.

smacktoward 13y ago

So much of what is celebrated as "innovation" these days involves taking something open and using it to build something closed that it almost feels unfair to call Netflix out for doing the same. (Almost.)

gwu78 13y ago

This is where you usually see some silly comment like "Because the majority of users cannot use a command line and will never use FreeBSD." Of course that majority will also never be given a choice. Sony PlayStation users are using FreeBSD. I doubt they will complain. Imagine, for the purposes of a thought experiment, a majority of users would be receptive to using FreeBSD. Imagine that instead of staring at a screen that says "Buffering...", the user could transfer files to the her home computer with something as simple as: tnftp -o /home/netflix/nextmovieinqueue.mp4 ftp://netflixftpserverlocatedatisp.netflix.com/requestedmovie.mp4 And when the download completes, the user could serve the video to the devices that are connected to her WiFi router: tcpserver -vRHDl0 192.168.2.0 80 bozohttpd -snX /home/netflix And then she accesses the file as she would any video on the www, by pointing her web browser/http client at http://192.168.2.0/nextmovieinqueue.mp4 http://192.168.2.0/nextmovieinqueue.mp4 In this imaginary scenario, how could "DRM" be implemented without forcing the customer to use a particular OS, browser or video player, or some other closed source program? Could it be done?

lstamour 13y ago
Um, if PS4 has netflix support and PS4 runs FreeBSD then ... you can, in fact, access Netflix on FreeBSD? ;-)
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Except that's just a fantasy scenario and not how Netflix actually works or would work on FreeBSD. The problem is there is no port of Silverlight with the necessary DRM. The latter is unethical in the context of free software. However, from what I've read, Netflix intend on switching fully to HTML5 in the near future. This will make their platform OS-agnostic, while still benefiting from things like Encrypted Media Extensions (EME).
- chongli 13y ago
  How is an open source browser like Firefox supposed to implement Encrypted Media Extensions without leaking the keys to anyone who decides to grab the source code?

dubcanada 13y ago

They are trying really hard to push HTML5 forward. And that will let them do such things. They are stuck, the movie people want DRM, but nothing really exists on Linux for such. So they had to go with Silvershit.

josteink 13y ago
they are pressing for html with drm so Linux and friends will still be left out with no viable legal options.
- trippy_biscuits 13y ago
  BSD vs GPL was already mentioned. Perhaps now we can discuss how DRM only hurts paying customers of protected content? Oh, you bought access to some licensed content? Great! Thank you. As a reward we will now severely limit how you consume the good or service.