11 ms·

If we should train our guns somewhere it should be at the W3C; the guardians of web standards. W3C shouldn't have legitimized this feature by bringing it into s

by jeswin 12y ago

If we should train our guns somewhere it should be at the W3C; the guardians of web standards. W3C shouldn't have legitimized this feature by bringing it into standards discussions. The media companies would have had to comply eventually. They had no future without distribution over the internet. Now of course, they have hope. Mozilla had no chance once Google, MS, Apple and everybody else decided to support EME. Most users don't care if they fought for open standards. They are probably just going to say that Firefox sucks. If you ask me, Mozilla could be the most important software company in the world. The stuff they are building today is fundamental to an open internet for the future. It is important that they stay healthy for what lies ahead.

geitiegg 12y ago
The media companies would have no issues whatsoever with continuing to use outdated, insecure and otherwise broken technologies to ensure that their content is delivered with some form of DRM. Those technologies already exist, and already ensure the media companies have a future of distribution over the web. Creating some form of standard around the use of DRM is the lesser of two evils when compared to the use of a multitude of proprietary decoders.
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  Sadly, I think you're right. Silverlight is effectively dead now, but still in use for a lot of streaming video. Netflix et al will probably only ditch it when it can't even be installed on many computers any more, and will probably go for some other third party framework when they do.
- chriswarbo 12y ago
  > Creating some form of standard around the use of DRM is the lesser of two evils when compared to the use of a multitude of proprietary decoders. I have nothing against the media and proprietary software companies getting together to make a DRM standard. It would have precisely zero impact on my life, since I already avoid all forms of DRM. I don't see what that has to do with Web standards though, since their goals are completely incompatible. EME shouldn't exist.
  - ermintrude 12y ago
    For now. If this spreads to being able to DRM images and text, or they use it on YouTube/whatever other video site, you will be affected. That's the real danger to my eyes.
- jeswin 12y ago
  Open standards (and free software as well) do not directly fight closed distributors (both media and software) or ask them to change their ways. But what they do is give a more open upstart a significant advantage; an advantage that helps them offset some of the other shortcomings they have. So if my company had average content that could reach 2 billion people against Mediaflix's 50m with closed silverlight, I'd still survive. Once I start making better content, Mediaflix is forced to do something or they'll slowly die.
  - twoodfin 12y ago
    So if my company had average content that could reach 2 billion people against Mediaflix's 50m with closed silverlight, I'd still survive. Your company is called YouTube, and it's doing just fine.
    - loup-vaillant 12y ago
      Where are the latest Hollyood hotness on YouTube? I only found teasers, third party fair use, and deleted videos and accounts.
      - twoodfin 12y ago
        Hence "average content". The studios are the reason Netflix has to serve their content with DRM, and they're fairly unanimous about it.
- aragot 12y ago
  We're rather talking about Youtube going under DRM than Netflix. Youtube without DRM was an advantage for a couple of hackers: They could download vids for offline viewing (iPod/iPad and p2p-sharing after takedown). Youtube with DRM could change the game. The impact of a movie being pirated on Youtube is much more contained if users can't download it.
  - jiggy2011 12y ago
    Adding DRM to youtube simply doesn't make sense to me. The majority of content is added to youtube because the publisher wants people to view it and share it as much as possible. They aren't monetising the content directly. It's really only big media companies that are in the weird position of wanting many people to view their content but only under specific constraints.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Some videos on Youtube are already using DRM, in the form of RTMPE.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    But they will. If the video player can decrypt the content, so can any youtube downloader transparently for the user.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  There is no "standard" around DRM. Google, Microsoft and Apple each will have their own different DRM platform. If you're outside of those 3 platforms, tough luck. Their only hope is to have a popular enough 3rd party DRM platform, like from Adobe, to be able to play those videos if their OS isn't from Google, Microsoft or Apple. How will Jolla Sailfish play these DRM'ed videos? They cannot. Unless they implement the Adobe DRM, too, which can only be implemented as a plugin, into these non-Google/Apple/MS solutions. So now instead of just Adobe's flash , and a Silverlight that was dying anyway since Microsoft deprecated it, we'll have at least four different DRM platforms. Yay for the "HTML5 DRM"!
- the_ancient 12y ago
  I find this funny... Today there are 2 decoders, Flash and Silverlight with EME we are moving to a minimum of 4, and possibly a crap load more decoders... Adobe DRM, MS PlayReady, Apple FairPlay and Google Widevine. How is that better? Ohh and calling them extensions does not magically make them better than plugins.. they are still binary blobs running closed source code interfacing with the browser using an api. a plugin by another name is still a plugin
  - camus2 12y ago
    sh... brainless devs just want to bash flash... that's why.Most of them didnt live the time when you had to install 60 plugins to read videos.
  - geitiegg 12y ago
    Today, there are two main browser plugins required for watching DRM Video on the web. These plugins are not decoders, they are merely platforms on which the decoders themselves can run, alongside any other code that the site may supply. The problem with this approach, as I see it, is that these platforms create an inherent security risk for the user alongside the current issues regarding free software and ethics. The use of Flash/Silverlight also slows the adoption of other, more open, web standards. By switching to EME, you're switching out the Flash & Silverlight platforms for a set of closed binary blobs which take an encrypted stream from the browser and produce unencrypted video/audio for the browser to display instead of executing arbitrary code. Now, I'll admit I'm not terribly well versed on the issue, but to me that seems to increase user security, promotes the use of other open web standards over Flash/Silverlight and keeps the media companies happy. The only people losing out in this situation are those that find DRM conceptually abhorrent.
    - the_ancient 12y ago
      Functionally, as far as displaying video goes, there is very little difference between a Flash Video player, and a Adobe CDM Video Player. Sure it might have a slightly smaller attack surface because it does not have all the other flash "features" that are not really used any more, but do not fool yourself, it is still executing arbitrary code that is beyond your control, and any attempt to control what this code does could be considered a violation of DMCA. It however in no way promotes the open web, I do not know where you get that from. This is the exact opposite of promoting the open web As to who loses out, it is not just people that find DRM objectionable. Will Adobe DRM work on ARM for the various SBC system like the Raspberry pi? Doubtful.. Will there be a CMD for midori? Ice Weasel? or any of the other less popular browsers? Doubtful. With the Adobe CDM work well, and bug free with out killing system resources under Linux x86? Doubtful (it will probably work, just not well) So we are back to a world where only "approved" platforms are allowed to use the web fully, this is direct opposition to W3C's stated mission.
- guelo 12y ago
  The real fight here is about mobile and all the other platforms like Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Sony, wearables, cars, etc. Netflix and co. don't want to have to develop for all these platforms, they want to hijack the web to do the cross-platform dirty work for them. Especially since Adobe already gave up on running Flash on all the platforms after Apple blocked them on iOS.
couchand 12y ago
Everyone keeps repeating the claim that "most users don't care" but I think the more accurate characterization is "most users don't understand". Teaching people is much harder than blithely complaining about their motives, so I can understand the appeal to HN commenters, but I would have expected Mozilla to see above that.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Without responding to your specific point, many people say "people who disagree with me (just) don't understand," but in reality the people who disagree often have just as good an understanding of the basic facts, yet disagree anyway.
  - npsimons 12y ago
    but in reality the people who disagree often have just as good an understanding of the basic facts, yet disagree anyway. Really? I hate to be the elitist asshole, but if people don't understand that making bits uncopyable is not in the realm of reality, then I would argue they don't understand basic facts. See Schneier's commentary on "making water not wet" and copy protection, eg https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0108.html#7 https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0108.html#7
    - streptomycin 12y ago
      It's impossible to make bits uncopyable, but it's easy to make them less convenient to copy. That's the purpose of DRM.
      - sroerick 12y ago
        It's not easy to make them less convienient to copy. It is easy to outlaw it, though.
  - bunderbunder 12y ago
    Put me in that camp. I did care about DRM at one time, but that's tapered off quite a bit over the years. A lot of this probably correlates with my having become something of a cord cutter. It's hard to get worked up over concerns that someone might be threatening my "right" to disposable content that I've decided I don't need, usually don't want, and tend to think of as having a net negative impact on my quality of life. Perhaps it's my jaded brand of libertarianism showing: I'm inclined to say that media companies have just as much a right to make it hard for me to give them money as I have a right to continue not giving them money. Ironically enough, we're actually working toward a common cause. (edit: A response would be more edifying than a drive-by downvote, y'all.)
rimantas 12y ago
How would targeting W3C change anything? Browser vendors have a final say, and at the end of the day it matters what they've implemented, not what W3C wrote in some document. Frankly, all those cries that having DRM somehow destroy open web are at the same level as the claims that homosexuals are destroying families.
pornel 12y ago
The HTML working group at W3C has clearly rejected Google/Microsoft/Netflix proposal on both technical and ideological grounds, but the decision has been overridden by group's Chair, and further objections have been bypassed by forming a new, pro-DRM working group out of public view. The EME spec draft has been published almost unchanged, even though it has known significant flaws, e.g. most of the spec is non-normative and it's been acknowledged (without a fix) that the key diagram is factually incorrect (shows that the browser is trusted). It seems like corporate interests within W3C are much stronger than W3C's integrity. I suspect it even goes farther than Google and Netflix using their market share and influence to pass the spec — they've probably been blackmailed by MPAA & co. that would pull the plug on Netflix and Google Play if they didn't do what they've been told to.
- throwaway2048 12y ago
  The W3C and major tech corporations aren't separate entities, the people sitting on the W3C boards WORK for these companies. Don't fall for the smokescreen.
- wfjackson 12y ago
  >I suspect it even goes farther than Google and Netflix using their market share and influence to pass the spec — they've probably been blackmailed by MPAA & co. that would pull the plug on Netflix and Google Play if they didn't do what they've been told to Add to that Youtube being able to now use EME to stop downloader extensions and get more streaming deals and it helps explains why Google pushed Netflix support on Chromebooks as one of the first real world implementations of EME.
- guelo 12y ago
  The W3C doesn't really have any power as was demonstrated by the failure of XHTML and the ultimate triumph of WHATWG. The history of the web has shown since the <blink> days that those who write the code to the popular browsers set the standards. The last 10 years have been a miracle of openness after Mozilla wrestled the web away from Microsoft, but now they are becoming powerless in the face of a Google-Apple-Microsoft industry alliance. Mozilla's desperate attempt to to stay relevant by distributing a closed source blob will fail. The closed source future will be increasingly anti-user. Personally I blame Larry Page, the old idealistic Google would have allied with Mozilla and could have stopped this.
higherpurpose 12y ago
> The stuff they are building today is fundamental to an open internet for the future How exactly and what's the point of Mozilla, if they aren't following through on their principles? If they do whatever Google and Microsoft do, then they are just as bad as them, and not something I can put my hopes in to protect an "open Internet". They proved that yesterday.
- takluyver 12y ago
  Mozilla could stick to their guns on this, but it probably wouldn't have much practical effect, and the users they'd lose give them that much less leverage to fight the next battle. We already have the FSF to make ideological points with no compromise, so I'd much rather Mozilla pick battles where they can make a difference, and compromise to maintain relevance when they can't.
adrianlmm 12y ago
"The stuff they are building today is fundamental to an open internet for the future" Citation needed, what is that fundamental stuff they are building?
- adrianlmm 12y ago
  Why the mod down and not an answer? coward.
- adrianlmm 12y ago
  Well, I suppose there is no fundamental stuff for the web build by Mozilla then.
drdaeman 12y ago
> Mozilla had no chance once Google, MS, Apple and everybody else decided to support EME. Given Mozilla always brags about their mission and openness, that somehow looks like as if someone had a public resolution about staying away from alcohol, but then... well... the circumstances were so unfortunate... and just one shot wasn't such a big deal... and it's not that person's fault - it's his friend who had brought a bottle. That's unfortunate and not respectable. Oh, and it's not like I say alcohol is something bad. (Grabs some ale.)
- atopal 12y ago
  That is a complete misrepresentation of the situation. This is almost literally a case of "choose your poison" for Mozilla. Abstaining is no way to win. There is no way to win this for Mozilla, damned if they do, damned if they don't. However, at least with Mozilla you get the benefit that the DRM piece is as contained as possible and you are not leaking information to the content providers. Something Mozilla fought for that neither Google nor Microsoft gave anything about. Also, Mozilla doesn't brag about its mission. What does that even mean? That Mozilla is pointing out the difference between itself and the other players in the market? It's vital that people are aware of the fact that Mozilla is a mission driven organization. That is the reason d'etre of Firefox.
  - drdaeman 12y ago
    > Also, Mozilla doesn't brag about its mission. Really? Maybe that's just my perception, but I'd say their homepage is almost all about their mission and principles (and then about their products that are said to be driven by those). And their "about" page is the same. If that's not bragging - I'm not sure what bragging really is. Then, their manifesto is very anti-DRM by nature, all promoting openness and end-user accessibility and control. So, it seems that they had already chosen their position and part of it was to abstain from the consumer restrictions. Now, when their targets (bringing their products to everyone and promoting openness) started to seriously conflict with each other, it was clearly shown that the dark side is more seductive.
    - 12y ago
jestinjoy1 12y ago
If GNU can follow an alternate path, then Mozilla too can
- stinkytaco 12y ago
  There can be multiple alternate paths. I would much rather see Mozilla live to fight another day and GNU and FSF fight the battles. Many important battles are fought with multiple tactics and multiple loosely aligned parties with a common goal.
vfclists 12y ago
Who are exactly are the W3C if not the big three, with Mozilla, Adobe and Yahoo etc tagging along? I can't stand naive comments from those who complain about standards bodies when the standards bodies are the big companies and/or their proxies. It is like Javascript and HTML5. They've both been inadequate from day one, and are still going to be inadequate in their future incarnations, yet every company blames the standards body as though they are not the standards bodies themselves, Mozilla included. This is where Mozilla's disingenuity comes in. Javascript and HTML5 are generally inadequate, and Flash if open and bug free would be a whole lot better. Mozilla then decides to implement Flash in Javascript, which is an underpowered language and difficult for large scale programs. This is the problem with Mozilla. You sit on a board which devises an inadequate Javascript language, then you decide to implement Flash in the same inadequate language, then you go and make an agreement with the original creators of Flash for your EME/DRM implementation, because your implementation doesn't look like it is going to do too well. Why didn't you create your Flash replacement, even a superior superset of Flash, in Nimrod, or even C, then make it the plugin standard, rather than have to go cap in hand to Adobe for some closed implementation, and top it off with some reassuring comments to Adobe's board from your CEO? This what happens when Mozilla executives are beholden to the competition for their income. Expecting Mozilla to take a strong stance is like expecting the SEC and banking regulators to tackle TBTF banks effectively. It ain't gonna happen. It is time to tidy up/clean up/restructure/refactor/rearchitect their code base, document it properly, hand it over to the any interested hackers, then prepare to close down, else go on to make a better browser which will have all the users and content providers flocking to your implementation for those who don't know Nimrod I like to think of it as my favorite language du jour. C and C++ are so meh
- hajile 12y ago
  Flash is written in actionscript. Actionscript is Javascript (ECMAscript) with some additional functions added. Implementing flash on a highly optimized JS JIT is probably better than Adobe's buggy and insecure VM.
  - vfclists 12y ago
    May I ask when the highly optimized JS JIT is going to arrive? My question is why they are implementing a Flash replacement in Javascript when C or C++ would be better. Adobe's problem with Flash is that it is not open source and its bugs can't be tracked down. An open source Flash replacement might as well be written in a faster language. It is the open source nature that matters, not the language it is implemented in.
yarrel 12y ago
But they are not healthy. They have been corrupted by Adobe. We need software freedom to be healthy, not organizations that attack that health.
- lallysingh 12y ago
  They're wearing protection!!

by jeswin 12y ago

geitiegg 12y ago

The media companies would have no issues whatsoever with continuing to use outdated, insecure and otherwise broken technologies to ensure that their content is delivered with some form of DRM. Those technologies already exist, and already ensure the media companies have a future of distribution over the web. Creating some form of standard around the use of DRM is the lesser of two evils when compared to the use of a multitude of proprietary decoders.

blueskin_ 12y ago
Sadly, I think you're right. Silverlight is effectively dead now, but still in use for a lot of streaming video. Netflix et al will probably only ditch it when it can't even be installed on many computers any more, and will probably go for some other third party framework when they do.
chriswarbo 12y ago
> Creating some form of standard around the use of DRM is the lesser of two evils when compared to the use of a multitude of proprietary decoders. I have nothing against the media and proprietary software companies getting together to make a DRM standard. It would have precisely zero impact on my life, since I already avoid all forms of DRM. I don't see what that has to do with Web standards though, since their goals are completely incompatible. EME shouldn't exist.
- ermintrude 12y ago
  For now. If this spreads to being able to DRM images and text, or they use it on YouTube/whatever other video site, you will be affected. That's the real danger to my eyes.
jeswin 12y ago
Open standards (and free software as well) do not directly fight closed distributors (both media and software) or ask them to change their ways. But what they do is give a more open upstart a significant advantage; an advantage that helps them offset some of the other shortcomings they have. So if my company had average content that could reach 2 billion people against Mediaflix's 50m with closed silverlight, I'd still survive. Once I start making better content, Mediaflix is forced to do something or they'll slowly die.
- twoodfin 12y ago
  So if my company had average content that could reach 2 billion people against Mediaflix's 50m with closed silverlight, I'd still survive. Your company is called YouTube, and it's doing just fine.
  - loup-vaillant 12y ago
    Where are the latest Hollyood hotness on YouTube? I only found teasers, third party fair use, and deleted videos and accounts.
    - twoodfin 12y ago
      Hence "average content". The studios are the reason Netflix has to serve their content with DRM, and they're fairly unanimous about it.
aragot 12y ago
We're rather talking about Youtube going under DRM than Netflix. Youtube without DRM was an advantage for a couple of hackers: They could download vids for offline viewing (iPod/iPad and p2p-sharing after takedown). Youtube with DRM could change the game. The impact of a movie being pirated on Youtube is much more contained if users can't download it.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  Adding DRM to youtube simply doesn't make sense to me. The majority of content is added to youtube because the publisher wants people to view it and share it as much as possible. They aren't monetising the content directly. It's really only big media companies that are in the weird position of wanting many people to view their content but only under specific constraints.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Some videos on Youtube are already using DRM, in the form of RTMPE.
- icebraining 12y ago
  But they will. If the video player can decrypt the content, so can any youtube downloader transparently for the user.
higherpurpose 12y ago
There is no "standard" around DRM. Google, Microsoft and Apple each will have their own different DRM platform. If you're outside of those 3 platforms, tough luck. Their only hope is to have a popular enough 3rd party DRM platform, like from Adobe, to be able to play those videos if their OS isn't from Google, Microsoft or Apple. How will Jolla Sailfish play these DRM'ed videos? They cannot. Unless they implement the Adobe DRM, too, which can only be implemented as a plugin, into these non-Google/Apple/MS solutions. So now instead of just Adobe's flash , and a Silverlight that was dying anyway since Microsoft deprecated it, we'll have at least four different DRM platforms. Yay for the "HTML5 DRM"!
the_ancient 12y ago
I find this funny... Today there are 2 decoders, Flash and Silverlight with EME we are moving to a minimum of 4, and possibly a crap load more decoders... Adobe DRM, MS PlayReady, Apple FairPlay and Google Widevine. How is that better? Ohh and calling them extensions does not magically make them better than plugins.. they are still binary blobs running closed source code interfacing with the browser using an api. a plugin by another name is still a plugin
- camus2 12y ago
  sh... brainless devs just want to bash flash... that's why.Most of them didnt live the time when you had to install 60 plugins to read videos.
- geitiegg 12y ago
  Today, there are two main browser plugins required for watching DRM Video on the web. These plugins are not decoders, they are merely platforms on which the decoders themselves can run, alongside any other code that the site may supply. The problem with this approach, as I see it, is that these platforms create an inherent security risk for the user alongside the current issues regarding free software and ethics. The use of Flash/Silverlight also slows the adoption of other, more open, web standards. By switching to EME, you're switching out the Flash & Silverlight platforms for a set of closed binary blobs which take an encrypted stream from the browser and produce unencrypted video/audio for the browser to display instead of executing arbitrary code. Now, I'll admit I'm not terribly well versed on the issue, but to me that seems to increase user security, promotes the use of other open web standards over Flash/Silverlight and keeps the media companies happy. The only people losing out in this situation are those that find DRM conceptually abhorrent.
  - the_ancient 12y ago
    Functionally, as far as displaying video goes, there is very little difference between a Flash Video player, and a Adobe CDM Video Player. Sure it might have a slightly smaller attack surface because it does not have all the other flash "features" that are not really used any more, but do not fool yourself, it is still executing arbitrary code that is beyond your control, and any attempt to control what this code does could be considered a violation of DMCA. It however in no way promotes the open web, I do not know where you get that from. This is the exact opposite of promoting the open web As to who loses out, it is not just people that find DRM objectionable. Will Adobe DRM work on ARM for the various SBC system like the Raspberry pi? Doubtful.. Will there be a CMD for midori? Ice Weasel? or any of the other less popular browsers? Doubtful. With the Adobe CDM work well, and bug free with out killing system resources under Linux x86? Doubtful (it will probably work, just not well) So we are back to a world where only "approved" platforms are allowed to use the web fully, this is direct opposition to W3C's stated mission.
guelo 12y ago
The real fight here is about mobile and all the other platforms like Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Sony, wearables, cars, etc. Netflix and co. don't want to have to develop for all these platforms, they want to hijack the web to do the cross-platform dirty work for them. Especially since Adobe already gave up on running Flash on all the platforms after Apple blocked them on iOS.

couchand 12y ago

Everyone keeps repeating the claim that "most users don't care" but I think the more accurate characterization is "most users don't understand". Teaching people is much harder than blithely complaining about their motives, so I can understand the appeal to HN commenters, but I would have expected Mozilla to see above that.

danielweber 12y ago
Without responding to your specific point, many people say "people who disagree with me (just) don't understand," but in reality the people who disagree often have just as good an understanding of the basic facts, yet disagree anyway.
- npsimons 12y ago
  but in reality the people who disagree often have just as good an understanding of the basic facts, yet disagree anyway. Really? I hate to be the elitist asshole, but if people don't understand that making bits uncopyable is not in the realm of reality, then I would argue they don't understand basic facts. See Schneier's commentary on "making water not wet" and copy protection, eg https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0108.html#7 https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0108.html#7
  - streptomycin 12y ago
    It's impossible to make bits uncopyable, but it's easy to make them less convenient to copy. That's the purpose of DRM.
    - sroerick 12y ago
      It's not easy to make them less convienient to copy. It is easy to outlaw it, though.
- bunderbunder 12y ago
  Put me in that camp. I did care about DRM at one time, but that's tapered off quite a bit over the years. A lot of this probably correlates with my having become something of a cord cutter. It's hard to get worked up over concerns that someone might be threatening my "right" to disposable content that I've decided I don't need, usually don't want, and tend to think of as having a net negative impact on my quality of life. Perhaps it's my jaded brand of libertarianism showing: I'm inclined to say that media companies have just as much a right to make it hard for me to give them money as I have a right to continue not giving them money. Ironically enough, we're actually working toward a common cause. (edit: A response would be more edifying than a drive-by downvote, y'all.)

rimantas 12y ago

How would targeting W3C change anything? Browser vendors have a final say, and at the end of the day it matters what they've implemented, not what W3C wrote in some document. Frankly, all those cries that having DRM somehow destroy open web are at the same level as the claims that homosexuals are destroying families.

pornel 12y ago

The HTML working group at W3C has clearly rejected Google/Microsoft/Netflix proposal on both technical and ideological grounds, but the decision has been overridden by group's Chair, and further objections have been bypassed by forming a new, pro-DRM working group out of public view. The EME spec draft has been published almost unchanged, even though it has known significant flaws, e.g. most of the spec is non-normative and it's been acknowledged (without a fix) that the key diagram is factually incorrect (shows that the browser is trusted). It seems like corporate interests within W3C are much stronger than W3C's integrity. I suspect it even goes farther than Google and Netflix using their market share and influence to pass the spec — they've probably been blackmailed by MPAA & co. that would pull the plug on Netflix and Google Play if they didn't do what they've been told to.

throwaway2048 12y ago
The W3C and major tech corporations aren't separate entities, the people sitting on the W3C boards WORK for these companies. Don't fall for the smokescreen.
wfjackson 12y ago
>I suspect it even goes farther than Google and Netflix using their market share and influence to pass the spec — they've probably been blackmailed by MPAA & co. that would pull the plug on Netflix and Google Play if they didn't do what they've been told to Add to that Youtube being able to now use EME to stop downloader extensions and get more streaming deals and it helps explains why Google pushed Netflix support on Chromebooks as one of the first real world implementations of EME.
guelo 12y ago
The W3C doesn't really have any power as was demonstrated by the failure of XHTML and the ultimate triumph of WHATWG. The history of the web has shown since the <blink> days that those who write the code to the popular browsers set the standards. The last 10 years have been a miracle of openness after Mozilla wrestled the web away from Microsoft, but now they are becoming powerless in the face of a Google-Apple-Microsoft industry alliance. Mozilla's desperate attempt to to stay relevant by distributing a closed source blob will fail. The closed source future will be increasingly anti-user. Personally I blame Larry Page, the old idealistic Google would have allied with Mozilla and could have stopped this.

higherpurpose 12y ago

> The stuff they are building today is fundamental to an open internet for the future How exactly and what's the point of Mozilla, if they aren't following through on their principles? If they do whatever Google and Microsoft do, then they are just as bad as them, and not something I can put my hopes in to protect an "open Internet". They proved that yesterday.

takluyver 12y ago
Mozilla could stick to their guns on this, but it probably wouldn't have much practical effect, and the users they'd lose give them that much less leverage to fight the next battle. We already have the FSF to make ideological points with no compromise, so I'd much rather Mozilla pick battles where they can make a difference, and compromise to maintain relevance when they can't.

adrianlmm 12y ago

"The stuff they are building today is fundamental to an open internet for the future" Citation needed, what is that fundamental stuff they are building?

adrianlmm 12y ago
Why the mod down and not an answer? coward.
adrianlmm 12y ago
Well, I suppose there is no fundamental stuff for the web build by Mozilla then.

drdaeman 12y ago

> Mozilla had no chance once Google, MS, Apple and everybody else decided to support EME. Given Mozilla always brags about their mission and openness, that somehow looks like as if someone had a public resolution about staying away from alcohol, but then... well... the circumstances were so unfortunate... and just one shot wasn't such a big deal... and it's not that person's fault - it's his friend who had brought a bottle. That's unfortunate and not respectable. Oh, and it's not like I say alcohol is something bad. (Grabs some ale.)

atopal 12y ago
That is a complete misrepresentation of the situation. This is almost literally a case of "choose your poison" for Mozilla. Abstaining is no way to win. There is no way to win this for Mozilla, damned if they do, damned if they don't. However, at least with Mozilla you get the benefit that the DRM piece is as contained as possible and you are not leaking information to the content providers. Something Mozilla fought for that neither Google nor Microsoft gave anything about. Also, Mozilla doesn't brag about its mission. What does that even mean? That Mozilla is pointing out the difference between itself and the other players in the market? It's vital that people are aware of the fact that Mozilla is a mission driven organization. That is the reason d'etre of Firefox.
- drdaeman 12y ago
  > Also, Mozilla doesn't brag about its mission. Really? Maybe that's just my perception, but I'd say their homepage is almost all about their mission and principles (and then about their products that are said to be driven by those). And their "about" page is the same. If that's not bragging - I'm not sure what bragging really is. Then, their manifesto is very anti-DRM by nature, all promoting openness and end-user accessibility and control. So, it seems that they had already chosen their position and part of it was to abstain from the consumer restrictions. Now, when their targets (bringing their products to everyone and promoting openness) started to seriously conflict with each other, it was clearly shown that the dark side is more seductive.
  - 12y ago

jestinjoy1 12y ago

If GNU can follow an alternate path, then Mozilla too can

stinkytaco 12y ago
There can be multiple alternate paths. I would much rather see Mozilla live to fight another day and GNU and FSF fight the battles. Many important battles are fought with multiple tactics and multiple loosely aligned parties with a common goal.

vfclists 12y ago

Who are exactly are the W3C if not the big three, with Mozilla, Adobe and Yahoo etc tagging along? I can't stand naive comments from those who complain about standards bodies when the standards bodies are the big companies and/or their proxies. It is like Javascript and HTML5. They've both been inadequate from day one, and are still going to be inadequate in their future incarnations, yet every company blames the standards body as though they are not the standards bodies themselves, Mozilla included. This is where Mozilla's disingenuity comes in. Javascript and HTML5 are generally inadequate, and Flash if open and bug free would be a whole lot better. Mozilla then decides to implement Flash in Javascript, which is an underpowered language and difficult for large scale programs. This is the problem with Mozilla. You sit on a board which devises an inadequate Javascript language, then you decide to implement Flash in the same inadequate language, then you go and make an agreement with the original creators of Flash for your EME/DRM implementation, because your implementation doesn't look like it is going to do too well. Why didn't you create your Flash replacement, even a superior superset of Flash, in Nimrod, or even C, then make it the plugin standard, rather than have to go cap in hand to Adobe for some closed implementation, and top it off with some reassuring comments to Adobe's board from your CEO? This what happens when Mozilla executives are beholden to the competition for their income. Expecting Mozilla to take a strong stance is like expecting the SEC and banking regulators to tackle TBTF banks effectively. It ain't gonna happen. It is time to tidy up/clean up/restructure/refactor/rearchitect their code base, document it properly, hand it over to the any interested hackers, then prepare to close down, else go on to make a better browser which will have all the users and content providers flocking to your implementation for those who don't know Nimrod I like to think of it as my favorite language du jour. C and C++ are so meh

hajile 12y ago
Flash is written in actionscript. Actionscript is Javascript (ECMAscript) with some additional functions added. Implementing flash on a highly optimized JS JIT is probably better than Adobe's buggy and insecure VM.
- vfclists 12y ago
  May I ask when the highly optimized JS JIT is going to arrive? My question is why they are implementing a Flash replacement in Javascript when C or C++ would be better. Adobe's problem with Flash is that it is not open source and its bugs can't be tracked down. An open source Flash replacement might as well be written in a faster language. It is the open source nature that matters, not the language it is implemented in.

yarrel 12y ago

But they are not healthy. They have been corrupted by Adobe. We need software freedom to be healthy, not organizations that attack that health.

lallysingh 12y ago
They're wearing protection!!