In 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.

they can't. Firefox has themselves said so.

they cannot implement eme because they are open source.

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 :)

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.

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.