4 ms·

For people who want DRM there are already enough browser choices. On the other hand for people who refuse DRM there's only one choice - and soon zero.

by wolfgke 13y ago

jgraham 13y ago
That isn't the case. You can choose to not install the CDM component.
- shmerl 13y ago
  Is there a way to disable all related code in Firefox itself? Just for the sake of it. May be Mozilla can produce clean and tainted builds for that purpose.
  - azakai 13y ago
    The code is 100% open source, so even if there isn't a GUI option for it, it would be easy for people to make builds without it. There are already many forked builds of firefox like iceweasel, etc.
    - shmerl 13y ago
      Yes, I expect such thing to surface, but it would be nice if Mozilla could provide such options on their own too. That would be some small positive gesture towards those who don't appreciate their move and see it as a betrayal of Mozilla's core values. It would as well make this issue more apparent. Doesn't Mozilla care about educating the public on such matters? It surely would be a positive thing for the Open Web.
      - azakai 13y ago
        As the blog post mentioned, the EME stuff will be an option that the Firefox user would need to agree to install. That would be an opportunity to educate users on the topic, I think.
        shmerl 13y ago
        I meant it a bit further. Not just disabling the EME external module, but disabling all related code in Firefox itself on the build stage. While functionally it won't make much difference, it would have more of a symbolic nature of making a point. Plus such builds would guarantee that it can't even be enabled at all (without user's knowledge for example). If there would be build switches to disable that, I'm sure Linux distros with similar to Debian policies will ship versions where it will be disabled altogether.
- wolfgke 13y ago
  Apple has for political reasons disabled the possibility to install a Flash plugin on Safari/iOS. Why doesn't Firefox do the same with a CDM component for political reasons?
  - toyg 13y ago
    Mozila will never have the marketing firepower to pull off such a boycott.
  - renata 13y ago
    The cost to the user of switching off Apple hardware is much greater than the cost of switching from Firefox to Chrome.
    - wolfgke 13y ago
      A few years ago there was a cost involved for switching to the iPhone. The only reason why you see this the other way round is that "no Flash" is now established (at least for mobile). On the other hand: no DRM in browser cannot be considered as established - so we are at the same point where the iPhone was some years ago.
  - chc 13y ago
    Apple disabled Flash for "security reasons." You can certainly read in politics, but the reason they gave was that it was the #1 attack vector on Macs and they had no way of securing it. And more importantly, nearly everybody else was on Apple's side in this fight. Other browser makers had problems with Flash too. Mac users largely hated Flash because it had terrible performance on that platform. Even Adobe was cooling off toward Flash as it became more and more clear that it wouldn't work on mobile platforms. Mozilla's position here is not at all similar to Apple's position then, so their options are not the same.
  - jljljl 13y ago
    Apple also did this for performance and usability reasons. And when Apple did it, there were no smartphone alternatives that provided a sufficiently good Flash experience. And before you say Android had Flash, I had an Android device that could run Flash in 2011. It was a pretty useless feature.
wodenokoto 13y ago
no. drm will still be an add-on, just like it is today. The DRM add-on will just change from flash/silverlight. DRM is a very real thing in todays web.
- wolfgke 13y ago
  > no. drm will still be an add-on, just like it is today. Flash is not an add-on, but a plugin. And there is a good reason why plugins have a bad image and browser developers and users prefer to get rid of them.
  - higherpurpose 13y ago
    Watch Netflix, the champion of "HTML5 DRM", go back to a plugin in order to use P2P streaming within the next 18 months.
    - lern_too_spel 13y ago
      P2P streaming can be built on top of WebRTC fairly easily.
nullc 13y ago
I'm not sure that thats quite fair— Firefox won't run the CDM without user consent. You can still say no. Having a choice doesn't magically resolve the issues, it doesn't prevent content providers from making things formerly available unavailable, it doesn't help us (as users) make better more considered decisions rather than clicking yes a lot to get things done, etc. But it does retain the choice to not run this stuff, choice which is not retained in the current closed source alternatives.
- saganus 13y ago
  The problem is that no one can guarantee that the "opt-out" choice will continue to be there in the foreseeable future. What will happen when, suddenly Mozilla starts "feeling the pressure" to remove that option? What then? The problem is the building's foundations, not the decoration.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - kbuck 13y ago
    This seems unlikely, and in fact, Firefox has been moving in the opposite direction with other binary components (Flash, Java, Silverlight). Newer builds of Firefox require you to explicitly confirm that you'd like to allow <site> to execute plugin code. I doubt this will change any time soon. I'd rather have a (albeit stupid) DRM executable that only performs encryption/decryption than Flash, Java, or Silverlight, which are the current solutions for this. All three of these offer APIs for doing things other than decrypting DRM content, and these APIs have been proven time and time again to be vulnerable to attack, no matter how much time is spent trying to sandbox them properly.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    The proposal has an inherent opt-out choice. Content providers provide media within DRM containers, users can choose if they get the media or not. It's not like anybody can force you to watch the last Hollywood stuff.
mmanfrin 13y ago
People don't want DRM, people want content. That content is demanding DRM (via Youtube, Netflix). If Mozilla denied the DRM, Firefox users would be denied Youtube. In response to this, some of you might say 'well then people would go elsewhere for their content', to which I would ask: did people leave Netflix because of Silverlight?
- spacelizard 13y ago
  >did people leave Netflix because of Silverlight? They did, actually. If not by their own doing then by the fact that Netflix is just not available on certain devices and operating systems. As long as Netflix is a DRM platform, this trend will likely continue. The irony here is that Mozilla is apparently being badgered into supporting DRM for "compatibility reasons" when the whole point of DRM is to strictly limit compatibility with whatever arbitrary restrictions the publisher wants.
mongrol 13y ago
Nonsense. http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/

For people who want DRM there are already enough browser choices. On the other hand for people who refuse DRM there's only one choice - and soon zero.

by wolfgke 13y ago

For people who want DRM there are already enough browser choices. On the other hand for people who refuse DRM there's only one choice - and soon zero.

jgraham 13y ago

That isn't the case. You can choose to not install the CDM component.

shmerl 13y ago
Is there a way to disable all related code in Firefox itself? Just for the sake of it. May be Mozilla can produce clean and tainted builds for that purpose.
- azakai 13y ago
  The code is 100% open source, so even if there isn't a GUI option for it, it would be easy for people to make builds without it. There are already many forked builds of firefox like iceweasel, etc.
  - shmerl 13y ago
    Yes, I expect such thing to surface, but it would be nice if Mozilla could provide such options on their own too. That would be some small positive gesture towards those who don't appreciate their move and see it as a betrayal of Mozilla's core values. It would as well make this issue more apparent. Doesn't Mozilla care about educating the public on such matters? It surely would be a positive thing for the Open Web.
    - azakai 13y ago
      As the blog post mentioned, the EME stuff will be an option that the Firefox user would need to agree to install. That would be an opportunity to educate users on the topic, I think.
      - shmerl 13y ago
        I meant it a bit further. Not just disabling the EME external module, but disabling all related code in Firefox itself on the build stage. While functionally it won't make much difference, it would have more of a symbolic nature of making a point. Plus such builds would guarantee that it can't even be enabled at all (without user's knowledge for example). If there would be build switches to disable that, I'm sure Linux distros with similar to Debian policies will ship versions where it will be disabled altogether.
wolfgke 13y ago
Apple has for political reasons disabled the possibility to install a Flash plugin on Safari/iOS. Why doesn't Firefox do the same with a CDM component for political reasons?
- toyg 13y ago
  Mozila will never have the marketing firepower to pull off such a boycott.
- renata 13y ago
  The cost to the user of switching off Apple hardware is much greater than the cost of switching from Firefox to Chrome.
  - wolfgke 13y ago
    A few years ago there was a cost involved for switching to the iPhone. The only reason why you see this the other way round is that "no Flash" is now established (at least for mobile). On the other hand: no DRM in browser cannot be considered as established - so we are at the same point where the iPhone was some years ago.
- chc 13y ago
  Apple disabled Flash for "security reasons." You can certainly read in politics, but the reason they gave was that it was the #1 attack vector on Macs and they had no way of securing it. And more importantly, nearly everybody else was on Apple's side in this fight. Other browser makers had problems with Flash too. Mac users largely hated Flash because it had terrible performance on that platform. Even Adobe was cooling off toward Flash as it became more and more clear that it wouldn't work on mobile platforms. Mozilla's position here is not at all similar to Apple's position then, so their options are not the same.
- jljljl 13y ago
  Apple also did this for performance and usability reasons. And when Apple did it, there were no smartphone alternatives that provided a sufficiently good Flash experience. And before you say Android had Flash, I had an Android device that could run Flash in 2011. It was a pretty useless feature.

wodenokoto 13y ago

no. drm will still be an add-on, just like it is today. The DRM add-on will just change from flash/silverlight. DRM is a very real thing in todays web.

wolfgke 13y ago
> no. drm will still be an add-on, just like it is today. Flash is not an add-on, but a plugin. And there is a good reason why plugins have a bad image and browser developers and users prefer to get rid of them.
- higherpurpose 13y ago
  Watch Netflix, the champion of "HTML5 DRM", go back to a plugin in order to use P2P streaming within the next 18 months.
  - lern_too_spel 13y ago
    P2P streaming can be built on top of WebRTC fairly easily.

nullc 13y ago

I'm not sure that thats quite fair— Firefox won't run the CDM without user consent. You can still say no. Having a choice doesn't magically resolve the issues, it doesn't prevent content providers from making things formerly available unavailable, it doesn't help us (as users) make better more considered decisions rather than clicking yes a lot to get things done, etc. But it does retain the choice to not run this stuff, choice which is not retained in the current closed source alternatives.

saganus 13y ago
The problem is that no one can guarantee that the "opt-out" choice will continue to be there in the foreseeable future. What will happen when, suddenly Mozilla starts "feeling the pressure" to remove that option? What then? The problem is the building's foundations, not the decoration.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- kbuck 13y ago
  This seems unlikely, and in fact, Firefox has been moving in the opposite direction with other binary components (Flash, Java, Silverlight). Newer builds of Firefox require you to explicitly confirm that you'd like to allow <site> to execute plugin code. I doubt this will change any time soon. I'd rather have a (albeit stupid) DRM executable that only performs encryption/decryption than Flash, Java, or Silverlight, which are the current solutions for this. All three of these offer APIs for doing things other than decrypting DRM content, and these APIs have been proven time and time again to be vulnerable to attack, no matter how much time is spent trying to sandbox them properly.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  The proposal has an inherent opt-out choice. Content providers provide media within DRM containers, users can choose if they get the media or not. It's not like anybody can force you to watch the last Hollywood stuff.

mmanfrin 13y ago

People don't want DRM, people want content. That content is demanding DRM (via Youtube, Netflix). If Mozilla denied the DRM, Firefox users would be denied Youtube. In response to this, some of you might say 'well then people would go elsewhere for their content', to which I would ask: did people leave Netflix because of Silverlight?

spacelizard 13y ago
>did people leave Netflix because of Silverlight? They did, actually. If not by their own doing then by the fact that Netflix is just not available on certain devices and operating systems. As long as Netflix is a DRM platform, this trend will likely continue. The irony here is that Mozilla is apparently being badgered into supporting DRM for "compatibility reasons" when the whole point of DRM is to strictly limit compatibility with whatever arbitrary restrictions the publisher wants.

mongrol 13y ago

Nonsense. http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/