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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 majo
by 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 agoUm, if PS4 has netflix support and PS4 runs FreeBSD then ... you can, in fact, access Netflix on FreeBSD? ;-)
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoExcept 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 agoHow 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?
- josteink 13y agothey can't. Firefox has themselves said so. they cannot implement eme because they are open source.
- mcpherrinm 13y agoIn the same way Firefox implements Silverlight today: It's still a binary plugin that talks to the OS for some "secure path", but it's only the decryption in the closed path, instead of the entire playback experience. I don't think HTML5/EME will get Linux/BSD et al users watching Netflix any more than they were before. Though breaking EME is probably more interesting for a certain class of developer than implementing all of Silverlight with DRM is.