FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to support DRM
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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.
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.
Huh? I think it is more complex than that.
Larry Page still failed to do a single thing to stop it (that I know of) and he is probably the single person with the most power to oppose this.
While the corporate players involved may just happen to have interests that might align somewhat in this case, Mozilla has made its fair share of mistakes that have driven people away from Firefox. A browser with fewer users results in less influence for its creator and users, obviously.
Phoenix, Firebird and Firefox before version 4 were generally excellent releases. This was back when Mozilla innovated and put out offerings that benefited users. These versions truly made people better off, and much of Firefox's rapid adoption was due to direct word-of-mouth recommendation.
Then around Firefox 4, they decided to imitate Chrome, rather than leading the way. The release schedule changes caused broken add-ons for a very long time. This drove people away. They've also repeatedly made harmful UI changes, to the point where Firefox today is almost visually identical to Chrome. This has driven more people away. Meanwhile, there has only been minimal progress when it comes to improving the performance of Firefox, and reducing its memory usage. This, too, has driven more people away to browsers that manage to perform better, with fewer resources. (Spare us the are-we-fast-yet-style benchmarks that just don't seem to match the actual browsing experience.)
Nobody but Mozilla themselves made Mozilla act in such a manner. Nobody but Mozilla themselves are responsible for driving away so many Firefox users.
And so here we are today, with Firefox at perhaps 15% to 20% of the browser market, if even that. This is a far cry from their peak, when they were above 30%. They no longer offer an appealing product, which causes a decrease in the number of people using it, which directly results in the unfortunate lack of influence that we're seeing in this case.
Whether their choices to 'be more like Chrome' were appropriate responses or not you can debate, but dating their loss of influence or market share to after they decided to 'imitate Chrome' is a mistaken timeline.
Personally, I'd say their loss of market to share from Chrome came from a few things:
* Google's ability to promote Chrome was huge, since so many people look at google every day. This is huge, and perhaps we could just stop there, but...
* Firefox had become bloated and slow and a bit crashy. It's just true. Google had the resources to write a high-quality new browser (which is pretty huge), and their browser was really really fast and really really stable compared to FF. (It is no longer so stark a difference, cause FF has much improved on speed and stability, and Chrome, as it continued to be developed got the inevitable bloat and bugs that software does. Although Google writes pretty good software, and Chrome is no exception).
* FF just wasn't innovating much anymore in features, for users or developers. There wasn't a lot of (non-ideological) reason to use it, if something else came along. Developers matter because they influence other users (in part by designing their sites with certain browsers as their main testing environment), and developers aren't influenced as much by the fact that google.com tells them to download Chrome. But I think FF lost significant dev market/mindshare to Chrome too, in part because Chrome's dev tools were way better than FF's at that time.
Now, if Mozilla made the right or wrong choices to try and recover, we can argue (I think overall they've made a lot of the right choices for the hand they were dealt), but at the point they changed to be 'more like Chrome', it was a reaction to already having lost a huge amount of market share. If they had kept on the course they were on, I think they'd have lost even more by now.
I don't think that the timing is all that relevant, though. This has been a gradual process over several years now.
The main point is that it wasn't so much what the other browsers and their vendors did that reduced Mozilla's influence, but rather that it was what Mozilla did (or didn't) do that has resulted in Firefox's decline.
Mozilla stopped leading, and instead decided to follow Chrome. While doing this, they've bungled major Firefox features, ranging from automatic upgrades to the UI design, time and time again. They've neglected to sufficiently resolve long-standing resource usage problems. They've ignored feedback from disappointed Firefox users for years now. They've ignored that this direction obviously isn't helping to prevent users from leaving Firefox, while at the same time it's driving a lot of users away, and furthermore it isn't really bringing in any new users.
In my opinion, Mozilla has been its own worst enemy these past several years. They've inflicted more harm on their own cause than any external opponent or competitor could have ever hoped to do.
Don't fall for the smokescreen.
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.
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.)
The big catch is that it's an uneven equation because it's illegal to circumvent DRM due to the DMCA. If users could legally undo the DRM, I think you'd have a valid point: media companies are free to use whatever DRM they wish, and end-users and circumvent it if they are able. It would create an arms race which I believe the media companies would quickly lose. Instead, there's no legal weight in favor of the media companies, with no one standing up for end users' rights.
To put it in language that's less easily interpreted as being pro-DRM: If HBO wants to use digital rights management to sink Game of Thrones into a cultural black hole, I'm more than happy to oblige them on that one.
But this freedom is bounded in that it comes with a cost. If you don't consume their output then there is a segment of popular culture which you are excluded from... the social distance between you and friends and family are increased. It might be a black hole from your perspective, but lots and lots of the people around you are opting-in.
There are ways around this— there are many more things that its possible to have in common with others, and its possible to leverage your ignorance to create conversation— I'd rather hear a summary of a TV series from a friend than see the series. But it isn't as simple or free of a choice as you seem to be making it out to be.
Believe it or not, that prospect doesn't actually depress me.
But how will you know? You can't judge the content if you haven't seen it..
Perhaps I lose out on some serendipity, but it's worth it so I don't feel like I've wasted my time.
Which brings us back around to the point about DRM. There's so much I can consume where my rights as an owner are respected that I don't often feel the need to bother with anything else. Hell, I can even get Game of Thrones on DVD if its that important to my social life.
And he didn't say he wouldn't enjoy it, he said he doesn't enjoy talking about it. Probably because he hasn't seen it. But the idea that one's under some obligation to see it in order to engage in conversation probably means one needs new friends.
It's an interesting observation imo, you should watch the entire thing because when it starts out it doesn't seem as if it's relevant to this conversation.
having said that, I haven't watched television or cable in probably a good 15 years. If I find a show I really enjoy, I'll purchase the DVD/Blue-Ray and watch the entire thing mostly ad-free. And I prefer it that way.
In the case of any DRM though, it just so happens that not using their services is probably the only reasonable solution. So you're spot-on in that regard. The very existence of DRM is proof that these companies are on life support anyway.
I'm curios about your use of the term "scary". First of all, is the assumption that ebooks are a more valid form of information transmission or artistic expression than video? If it's purely a question of information, then I'd argue that ebook DRM is largely irrelevant because the Internet has surpassed books as the primary information delivery tool (see: Wikipedia). [side note: I think it's curious that as our access to some content has become more restricted, are access to other content has exploded. A person would never have had access to something like the Wikipedia outside a library 20 years ago, now you can get it on your phone wherever you are].
And it's not like print books have gone away, nor like they will in the near future. Indeed, publishers are desperate to continue to sell them to you because they have more control over the distribution chain. This applies to video as well, for that matter.
Then they DRM'd the music, and I did not speak out— Because I have a nice vinyl collection.
Then they DRM'd the ebooks, and I did not speak out— Because I still use public libraries.
Then they DRM'd the news, and I did not speak out— Because I don't read the news.
Then they DRM'd me.
That would therefore mean that all bad things must be stopped with full force, because "First they $VERBd the $GROUP[i], and I did not speak out" would apply for the union of VERBs, GROUPs, and possible {i}s.
E.g. in this case you literally end with "Then they DRM'd me". Are you seriously trying to claim that the end state of Mozilla supporting EME is that DRM is used to physically hurt people?
Of course not. That last line is clearly meant to be absurd. I wanted break the slippery slope argument.
What I was trying to do was poke fun at the idea that DRM is okay as long it doesn't affect you directly. You should speak out against DRM, not because it is a slippery slope, but because it is wrong and it hurts people. The reason I think you should speak out against interning socialists is because it is wrong, not because of the slippery slope that it entails.
I have yet to meet anyone who disagrees with the theory of evolution through natural selection who actually understands it well. Security, privacy, and cryptography are complicated subjects where the most potent effects are often epiphenomena. I don't have studies to back me up, but my impression from talking to most non technical people, is that they have only a hazy idea of what is involved.
Might be you, might be me. Either way, contradictions are still false.
And here I thought postmodernism was dead.
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
It is easy to outlaw it, though.
Certainly. But look at the people here on HN, who do understand. How many have them have stopped using browsers and OSes that ship EME?
The people that would educate the "average" user, that doesn't yet understand, are HN-type people. But while there is lots of hatred for DRM in the comments here, there simply is not enough interest in actually fighting it. It we did want to fight it, we wouldn't use products with EME and we would get our non-techie friends to do the same.
I think if I tried to do this, I would have way fewer friends. I don't get invited to many parties to begin with.
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.
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
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.
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.
If Adobe's CDM can run while completely sandboxed from network and file access, then what if it was implemented in asm.js? Then "CDM.js" could be portable across all browser platforms and architectures. I'm not sure how well Firefox's JIT would optimize obfuscated asm.js code generated from obfuscated C++ code. :)
Disclosure: I used to work on Adobe's Flash Player team and I now work at Mozilla, so I have many conflicting personal and professional biases. :)
I'll admit this isn't my area of expertise, but how would this be possible?
In the case of Adobe's CDM and Mozilla, this is one of the points that was explicitly negotiated: the CDM will be running in a sandbox.
That's the silly example used in all of the pro-EME propaganda, but the standard also allows content providers to demand an encrypted path all the way to the video card, IIRC, thus bypassing the browser's ability to save content, and exposing a potentially insecure video driver to the CDM blob.
So either it doesn't work by design, or it's a rootkit's wetdream since all hardware is designed to be able to lock me out.
The goal of making Joe-Average choose between the official channels or some malware laden underground site is a perfectly pragmatic one on the parts of the licensors. They don't need to block the ilicit copying completely to see a benefit...
Especially when the costs of their 'protection' are predominately externalized onto the users (in the form of restricted freedoms, closed software, spyware, etc).
> The goal of making Joe-Average choose between the official channels or some malware laden underground site is a perfectly pragmatic one on the parts of the licensors.
Uh... what? The problem with DRM from a practical standpoint is that the effective technical means serve as an impediment to Mr Joe Average using his computer for perfectly allowed purposes - including at times playing the game. (Look at any major game launch recently for thousands of upset players because the DRM servers are overloaded.)
Secondly, you presented a strawman, since there are lots of non-malware-laden copies available online.
I'm not really against DRM per se, if there were some magic solution. Nor am I arguing that partially effective security measures are meaningless. I'm arguing that having encryption protected computing channels which deny the user override (or inspection) access are dangerous (duh! they go on malware laden websites, as you point out), and that any DRM which doesn't use such hardware level (or even low-level software) is no more effective than just setting a metadata flag saying it's copyrighted.
I get why companies want DRM, but that doesn't mean that I think giving in to their wishes is a good idea, when it both creates worse computer security problems and fails to solve the problem at a technical level.
A lot of people pirate things precisely because DRM is such a hassle.
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"!
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.
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.
Your company is called YouTube, and it's doing just fine.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
Mozilla have added an attack vector on users. They fought for the right to be the people adding the poison. That's not noble or unfortunate.
It means that there is no difference between Mozilla and the other "players in the market". Except that Mozilla are lying to themselves about it.
I wish they found an alternate source of cash that allowed them to get rid of those Google hypocrites.
Disclaimer: I work for the arrogant Google hypocrites.
"We 98% stand by our principles but at the end of the day, if it is important enough, we will cave like we did before"
Is not an inspiring message.
Mozilla should stop the whole "We are Mozilla Doing good is part of our code", "Different by design" shtick because it is no longer true, they are now just another software house that makes a browser.
We need software freedom to be healthy, not organizations that attack that health.
Many important battles are fought with multiple tactics and multiple loosely aligned parties with a common goal.
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
No board devised JavaScript.
> 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.
EME has nothing to do with Shumway.
Shumway has everything to do with EME not on a technical level, but on a business level because a superior Flash replacement games developers and other content providers found more dependable than the original Flash would put them in a stronger bargaining position vis-a-vis the other majors.
Good technical execution is Mozilla's strongest bargaining chip and if they fail at that they make themselves less relevant.
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.
Using JavaScript reduces memory safety problems, and interfacing with the Web APIs from JS is simpler than for C++.
Why does should the announcement of acquiescence to DRM have to mention Adobe? They could have announced that they have capitulated first, and they are sorting out the details later. Oh no, Adobe had to get a mention. Why are some redditors in such denial?
This is really about a deal between Mozilla and Adobe in which Adobe becomes the Mozilla preferred vendor for those who seek to use DRM in Firefox, for whatever Adobe offers in return. It isn't just an announcement of acquiescence to DRM. Quite a few content providers will have to be dealing with Adobe and Mozilla will probably get a share of the income stream. Denial is not a river in Egypt.
I am not concerned about what deals Mozilla does, but they will have to deliver technical superiority faster and better and make their browser the one developers recommend to their clients if they are to survive in the long term.
Instead, whe chose to talk abour EME when we were able to answer that crucial question.
Really, that's what this is all about... but those companies are already building fully native applications for every platform other than win32+Web. Telling them to go make a native application (or keep dealing with Silverlight/Flash) for that one last platform would be completely appropriate.
The world of software has changed - now we have major companies building applications for multiple different platforms instead of "just windows" or "just web". The web doesn't need to do everything.
It doesn't need to do this.
The W3C maintain web standards. They do not maintain what browsers can and can't do.
That's a common misconception of "W3C DRM". There is no such thing.
The EME spec doesn't define any DRM mechanism. There is a different, closed-source proprietary mechanism in each of the main browsers, by design.
EME is like the `<object>` tag. It doesn't do anything without a plugin (and the plugins are now called CDMs).
Consequently we have to accept that DRM is going to exist whether we (the technical "elite" who understand the issues) want it or not. If we want an internet where DRM isn't entirely pervasive, where video will work without being DRM'd, where it doesn't spill out in to things like only running "signed HTML" or something horrible, we will need a decent standard that people on both sides of the debate agreed to on a pragmatic level if not an ideological one.
I believe that a W3C sanctioned DRM is a hell of a lot saner than Microsoft, Google and Apple coming up with their own systems.
DRM discussion aside, the browser has not been a simple "document viewer" for quite some time, despite its origins.
That's exactly what they did here.
> Push Microsoft to get Silverlight onto every platform.
Why do that when you can get every company to adopt DRM with the pressure of browser competition?
> This does not need to be under the w3c's bailiwick.
Agreed, just pointing out how this benefits Netflix by offloading a development cost onto browser vendors.
The w3c isn't some nameless, faceless entity. What happened is that Google and Microsoft, two influential figures in the w3c, developed and pushed EME with Netflix.
The w3c couldn't have stopped them, EME came from the companies in the w3c.
I thank the FSF and Richard Stallman for being an unwavering wall without compromises, it makes me feel safe and legitimizes me to follow an ideal. It lets me hold such ideal, a target, knowing it's possible to be like them one day.
Every day you don't, every dollar you spend on proprietary software/content, it gets harder. That's why the FSF was created.
If the FSF had come out in support of this, I would have said that they're shirking on their responsibility. The FSF has been known to make compromises for the sake of pragmatism in the past, if and only if such compromises actually promote free software[1]. DRM in the browser is a very different case, though.
It reminds me of the Republican party leader[0] in 2009 who said, on the topic of healthcare, 'It's over. Democrats lost. The people spoke, and they don't want healthcare. They want lower taxes. Democrats need to move on.'[2]
[0] It may have been Eric Cantor, but I can't remember
[1] e.g., using the LGPL instead of the GPL for glibc: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html
[2] It's actually even worse than that, because political parties change their platforms over time, but since healthcare has been the crux of the Democratic party platform for half a century, it's the closest thing to a fixed principle as politics has.
Not having any users is better than that.
For the users.
If I'm going to get binary DRM blobs anyways, I'd rather use the best/fastest browser.
EDIT: Please explain the downvotes! I won't know why you disagree or why I'm wrong if you just downvote and don't reply.
The fact that you so readily admit that you'd rather just use a non-free browser[0] makes me doubt whether you'd actually be using Firefox even if they held out against DRM, rendering an increasing number of websites unviewable in Firefox.
[0] Chrome, unlike Chromium, is not free or open source.
How should we consider Chromium, knowing it is most probably used to serve Google's interests in terms of reporting, orientation, strategy, etc? Does it contain usage tracking code like Chrome?
Opt-in tracking still exists.
If Firefox sucks (I really don't want to rant about it) and doesn't even fight for their user's rights... why shouldn't I just use Chrome/ium[0]?
I'm a switcher. I will stay with whoever offers the best browser or added value. Chrome is blazing fast for me and IMHO has better dev tools, which is why their browser is so popular. Mozilla's added value is their Foundation's goal, which they kind of betrayed accepting downloadable DRM blobs in their browser.
I come back to Firefox from time to time just because I love Mozilla Foundation. DRM would be a great excuse to finally ditch Chrome forever. I'm not even mad about it and completely understand Mozilla's decision. I'm just sad I'm not coming back to Firefox because I'm having DRM blobs anyways.
[0] When I said Chrome I meant Chrome/ium.
It has been made clear that you will be able to choose whether the closed source blob is downloaded and installed.
Chrome's goal is to use your browsing data to make money. I guess we can count on that principle to never be betrayed or compromised...
If I'm going to get non-free blobs in my browser anyways, I'd rather use the best one.
If I remember correctly, Mozilla was very careful not to promise never to implement H.264, for this very reason.
Anyway, if you really want a browser that has promised never to be non-free in anyway, and which you can count on to keep that promise, just use Iceweasel. It's essentially the same as Firefox with no proprietary blobs (Flash, DRM, etc.).
I had always thought Iceweasel was about Firefox branding (i.e. trademark, not copyright) issue. Mozilla had issues with some custom Firefox builds, so they asked to not call "Firefox" anything that wasn't build by them.
Maybe I'm unaware of something, but at least I hadn't seen any Flash or DRM blobs in Firefox packaging. Blobs are Chrome/Chromium distinction.
Oh, well, but if they're adding DRM to Firefox, guess that would be a new distinction between it and Iceweasel.
Anyone know a better option?
If you, as a user, want to decide what freedom means for other people, then that is a different story.
Even though non-profit organizations like Mozilla do not seek to maximize financial gain (by definition), they often seek to maximize their relevance in the world. As a result, they ARE susceptible to corruption: most if not all are willing to "compromise" -- that is, sacrifice their mission and values -- in order to remain "important" in the eyes of society.
The folks running Mozilla are sacrificing the organization's mission and values because they're afraid of losing market share. They do not want Firefox to become a niche platform.
It's a slippery slope.
This was their moment. They have the second largest audience of desktop users. They have their leverage, and chose not to use it.
You act as if the audience is tied for Firefox. It's not. As soon as a user opens up another browser instead of Firefox to get access to the content, they are no longer leverage. And when you look at the audience as those with just Firefox alone, and those with a second browser, that audience dwindles to very few indeed.
You could make the argument that they then don't need to support the DRM because users can easily get around that. But then the problem there is that suddenly users are being punished. The content producers aren't suffering, just the users who are forced to switch browsers.
Mozilla has decided to use their leverage to make DRM more private and secure.
What is your theory as to why they chose to not use their leverage, as you put it? Greed, vanity?
This is a move from the Mozilla Corporation, not the Mozilla Foundation. Losing users would be a threat to their bottom line. However putting the bottom line above their supposed principles certainly reduces their credibility.`
That's correct -- you can implement it. But you have to pay for its usage. See http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsS...
EDIT: guess who is paying for this?
The most annoying part of this is that Abobe is providing the plugin. Much rather Mozilla do their own thing.
Blocking third-party cookies by default on the other hand is a good start.
It's all possible, but it'd be a pretty big difference from what Mozilla does normally and I'm not sure they'd be very good at it. So outsourcing that stuff makes a good bit of sense.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
People have the freedom to disagree with you, FSF. Just because they do doesn't make them misguided, especially on a future prediction.
How is this any different from flash/silverlight plugins we already have?
If Joe Sixpack or Aunt Tilly uses firefox, wants to watch Netflix, and can't because of this, they're going to switch to Chrome. They won't understand why, and won't care even if they did. I'd have thought the FSF would be more concerned about them potentially switching to Chrome in that use case...
How is Chrome(/Chromium) worse than Firefox, if the latter starts encouraging DRM?
If the FSF should compromise their principles for this, should they have also encouraged everyone to use KDE back when Qt was proprietary?
How about admitting that GIF, despite being patent-encumbered, was OK to use because there it was on so many Geocities sites?
Shoud we all give in and sign patent licenses, so that we can access all of those Bzip1 files?
Maybe we should stop improving our Javascript engines, since clearly Flash won the battle for Web multimedia.
Heck, we could increase the average level of user Freedom if we stopped all of this distracting GNU/Linux/BSD busy-work and concentrated all development effort on developing our Windows and Mac builds.
Clearly no. The FSF have been playing this game for 30 years; they're in it for the long haul.
Because chrome will too for exactly the same reason Firefox has, but chrome comes with the bonus of tracking the user's activity, creating profiles, and sending pseudonymised data back to google, which with google's analytics and profiles, is as good as personally identifiable to them as they can just link it to maps, gmail, youtube, etc to get a full profile.
Don't you think it's a bit odd that the premise is to "trick" users into using Firefox by luring them in with promises of Netflix support? What's the point of this, and what precedent does it set? These are the issues we need to think about, rather than just saying things like "oh no Mozilla is losing all it's users" and other silly doomsday predictions.
If you have some magic trick for doing it, go ahead.
A majority of people are stupid. They don't care about their privacy, they use chrome because google advertise it, they leak data everywhere they go, and either don't care, or are imbecilic enough to believe "If you've got nothing to hide, it doesn't matter".
In a way, HN acts as a reality distortion field if you get the bulk of your news from here, because people here are likely to make well researched comments with thought behind them; which makes it easy to forget that a lot of the world's population is very stupid and/or apathetic about most issues.
They won't switch because they are already using Chrome.
Most Firefox users I know (perhaps I'm biased?) do so not because it's the best browser (it is absolutely not!) but because of Mozilla Foundation's values.
Nope. Most people don't care about that or in fact prefer Chrome's non-customizable UI.
> and better privacy (separate search bar and URL bar, keystrokes not sent to Google as "partial searches" by default)?
That's what I meant with "Mozilla Foundation's values".
Increased privacy is very much a direct benefit for a user and it is a real factor that contributes to the utility of FF.
Although TBH there aren't many alternatives (open source, doesn't support DRM), other than a fork of Firefox itself without the DRM bits.
I think the EFF put it right https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/mozilla-and-drm "Baker may think that Mozilla cannot change the industry on its own (despite it having done so many years ago). Sadly, it changes the industry by accepting DRM."
Mozilla just told all its users to install IE, Chrome or Safari.
To your second point: If you install IE or Chrome the DRM system will be part of your browser and you have something out of your control running on your system whether you want to watch DRMed content or not.
With Firefox you can just keep using the web, and as long as you never want to watch any DRMed content, nothing changes for you. Only if you want to watch DRMed content will you be asked to download a plugin. As the cherry on top, Firefox will not leak identfiable data about your video usage to DRM or content providers.
Unfortunately Mozilla alone can't stand against the power of Google, Apple, Mircrosoft, Amazon, Netflix and others united in their desire to push DRM through, but if you can't see the difference between Mozilla and the others, I don't think there is anything I can say to change your mind.
It's a W3C standard, for one. Whereas Flash/Silverlight are completely third-party, EME can be argued to be "browser-endorsed" or "web standards-endorsed" to a degree.
More for concerned citizens.
There is a difference between add-on code for particular proprietary content platforms, and writing DRM support into the web standard. Not implementing a Flash plugin doesn't break compliance with the 'official' browser standards - not bunging in the EME stuff will, presuming it gets fully adopted.
That, as I understand it, is the real point of controversy in this whole thing - whether DRM belongs in web standards. Mozilla was fighting it, uniquely among major browser vendors so far as I know; this move means that they've basically given in.
Whether they are right or wrong to do so is another matter.
When I click play on a movie in Chrome, I don't know (or care) whether it's using Chrome's embedded Flash or an "open" HTML5 video tag or some crazy proprietary thing. I only care when it doesn't work.
Are not the hundreds of people who responded to this thread citizens of somewhere or other?
Are they not concerned?
If video support is so important, why don't they prioritize that over this DRM thing?
In the absence of evidence, I don't see how claiming those fears are misguided is any less valid than claiming that they are well founded. I'm not really sure what argument you're making here.
Not everything needs to be GPL to respect people's rights to do what they want with something they bought, not everything needs to be open source just because they like it that way, and above all, people should have a right to choose to install whatever they want, and distros should have the same right to choose to tell the user about closed source software when it would be helpful to them. If the end user didn't want to hear that, they can either ignore it, or use a FSF-endorsed linux distro like Trisquel. The fact that so few people do shows to me how most people are completely fine with having the ability to install what they want.
Freedom may include giving others freedom to do things you personally don't like, but the FSF tends to think a single, ironically restricted set of freedoms to match their philosophy are all that everyone needs.
>not everything has or needs to be open source to treat its users ethically
The FSF's entire raison d'etre is to disagree with that statement, and they do so eloquently. If you have a different view, that's fine, but you need to engage with their arguments a bit more deeply than just contradicting the premise.
>some people do need to make a living from their software
People make a living selling all sorts of things. This has no bearing on the ethics of doing so.
>most people are completely fine with having the ability to install what they want
...which is typically the first thing to go in closed ecosystems.
>a single, ironically restricted set of freedoms
Freedom of the sort we're talking about here is zero-sum. Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my face. Would you call that "ironically restricted"? The FSF argues not unreasonably that your freedom to run private software ends at other people's computers.
Proprietary software is obviously not a requirement to make a living off software, unless you think Mozilla had been starving until now and that's why they have to put proprietary software in Firefox.
As it is, Mozilla's relationship with Google is looking shakier every day, as from Google's perspective it's undercutting their own business with Chrome, while from Mozilla's perspective, they promote firefox as being a browser that respects privacy, and partnering with an organisation as fundamentally anti-privacy as Google undermines that.
Yes, Mozilla needs funding, but I'd rather pay a one off fee to purchase firefox if it really became necessary. Firefox could then come with no bundled search engines[1], and by default direct the user to the mozilla addons page to select which they would like to add, perhaps with a predefined list of popular choices given prominence similarly to the microsoft browser choice screen that gave prominence to Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE and Safari, then had others listed if you cared to look further. I guess that whole argument is getting into the question of whether firefox is for power users or the drooling masses who wouldn't want to configure their search engines though.
[1] I'd like to see it bundled with duckduckgo included, but I know that even if it came without any, many users would want to add google themselves. I respect their choice to in that case.
Note that this alone would not make Firefox proprietary software. It'd still be free, just not gratis, provided redistribution and modification rights are still present.
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Google will make more (indirect) money off the average chrome user than the average firefox user, simply because they get far more metrics, analytics and data from them to make a profile for advertising. Obviously, the average firefox user is likely to have higher technical skill so possibly go to some lengths to confound tracking attempts, but that is beside the point, especially since comparable privacy addons are generally available for chrome too, with the primary exception of NoScript. (Edit: NoScript itself for chrome may not exist, but there are still comparable addons).
Back when google signed the Mozilla deal, they didn't have a browser, and the stream of data they get from directing firefox users' searches through google was and still is more profitable to them than letting mozilla pick another default and denying them that data.
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Wonderful! So you don't even have to wait - you can do almost exactly what you're describing right now! Just do the following:
1. Donate to the Mozilla Foundation[0]
2. Download IceWeasel, a version of Firefox that comes with no non-free software by default (but which allows you to install non-free plugins later on if you desire)[1]
So is the Mozilla version, and that will even still be true after EME gets added.
Open source is very easy to misunderstand, as well. A lot of companies have been abusing the term by giving (limited) source code access without any actual rights to the code itself, and then calling their products "open source".
I know the FSF disapproves of that usage, but it seems convenient to me, it's one of the most common descriptions I see, and the alternatives are primarily acronym-based like FOSS, FLOSS, etc. and don't roll off the tongue as easily.
It's funny, because "convenience over ethics" is one of the major points that the FSF opposes. And there is a smooth and unequivocal alternative: libre.
Prior to its adoption by the Free Software community to resolve the distinction, it was obsolete and virtually unused in English; while it was used in English with that meaning, it was no longer current at the time, and in some of the languages where the word is current -- and where people it in fact has the same "zero-cost" vs. "having the quality of liberty" ambiguity as "free" has in English.
Using current, widely used, and idiomatic English terms that address the distinction -- "complimentary" vs. "unencumbered" rather than "gratis" vs. "libre", for instance -- would probably be more clear to people outside the movement than adopting terms that had fallen into general disuse in English. Specialized and unfamiliar-to-the-general-public language can be good for jargon intended to make technical distinctions in a closed community, but its a barrier to communicating with the wider public.
I suspect the vast majority of literate English speakers could tell you what libre meant and wouldn't think of it having any connection with software at all. It's an English word borrowed from the French, not computer jargon.
Of course they should. That's why they have that right, and are using it. The FSF isn't stopping them; in fact, by supporting development of GNU, they're indirectly helping such distros.
What point are you trying to make, that the Free Software Foundation should not complain about encroachments on Software Freedom?
"Yes, pollution is bad, but not everything has or needs to be pollution-free to treat the environment fairly, and some products need be cheap enough to produce revenue.
Not everything needs to be green to treat the environment fairly with stuff people have bought, not everything needs to be pollution-free just because they like it that way, and above all, people should have a right to choose to run whatever car they want! The fact that so few people do run pollution-free cars shows to me how most people are completely fine with driving the car they want."
(btw, the FSF philosophy is the freedom to do anything except restricting other people freedom. If you want to define freedom as the right to restrict others then go ahead, but I don't).
Don’t simply call people trolls or strawman-slayers, use good arguments to counter bad ones. Otherwise we get bad arguments countering bad arguments, followed by meta-arguments, tone arguments, etc – don’t let it happen. See this comment for example; Is this comment not better with the second paragraph than without it?
Eich helped found Mozilla back when it was just contributions to Netscape, and then helped break off as a fully-fledged project. My guess is that he understood the loss here. On the other hand, Gal wrote PDF.js which replaced the proprietary PDF reader, so you'd expect him to get it, too.
The writing has been on the wall for a while - as soon as Mozilla realized that Google was going to renege on their promise to remove H.264, Firefox was bound to include it (since H.264 wasn't going anywhere). As soon as the W3C enshrined DRM in the HTML standard, it was a matter of when, not if, Firefox would be forced to, assuming the media industry adopted it (which they will).
The only alternative would be for Firefox to hold out and refuse to adopt it, watching their userbase shift away to all the other browsers that did support it.
[0] http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/11/bre...
Meanwhile users abandoning Firefox for not supporting DRM in the browser is not at all a foregone conclusion. More likely is years of content providers forced to support other browsers, giving more leverage to those seeking other solutions.
They even spell out the case when they should adopt the lesser License[0], despite the fact that it goes against the FSF's core values and they advise not using it[1].
At the end of the day, I see this as Mozilla's LGPL.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html 0. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. 1. But we should not listen to these temptations, because we can achieve much more if we stand together.
You could already watch DRM netflix in firefox. If they were going from no-DRM plugin policy to allowing DRM in plugins, that would be cause for uproar. But Mozilla has always allowed DRM via plugins.
Yes, they are accepting a web standard that can only be implemented in a closed-source and patent-encumbered way, which should be something that both Mozilla and the W3C bitterly opposed.
Write to Mozilla CTO Andreas Gal and let him know that you oppose DRM.
They are not like the fsf. They care about user share, market and all that. Idealists cannot afford to think that way.
However, there is admittedly a big caveat here. I don't know of a workable way to know that DRM is "what it says on the tin." Big business and governments could place back doors into such mechanisms, which would put us in an even worse position than where we are now.
Also, the imbalance of power between companies and individuals is so great that I don't think any amount of DRM can overcome it. Companies can afford to not negotiate with individuals.
I don't understand why Adobe has to be used here? Why didn't Mozilla partner with Apple, Google, and Opera on a standard implementation code for this? After that's done, then Mozilla can try to sneak in one last question for all partners, can we do it better than this?
Build a (much simpler) GPL browser for this new "HTML" syntax and implement compatibility plugins for legacy browsers (perhaps server-side fallback solutions to simple HTML). Put the FSF and EFF in a strong position for future development to ensure we can keep this technology isolated from the corporate interests and patent trolls.
Any takers?
Fun fact, if you have used Youtube, you have probably consumed DRMed content via Flash's RTMPE support.
These two things are 100% contradictory, and the fact that they are so is the entire point of the discussion of adding EME/CDM support. You might want to try to understand the situation before you make comments as "Mozilla has lost my support over this decision."
Its not even a revolutionary concept, as they are already requiring a click-to-accept with self-signed certificates. It puts the responsibility to the website if the black box called DRM causes problems, locks up, or cause some general havoc on the user. It highlights that the website is demanding to take control over the users device, and gives the user an option to say no.
It is easy to speak about fundamental principles in PR announcements, but code speak louder. The only bright spot is if Mozilla don't do more for the users, add-ons and forks will try to carry the principles for them.
misguided, as in, Firefox wants people to actually use its browser? I'm seriously surprised at some of these idealists failing to understand that normal people just want to watch House of Cards (or whatever) and that's pretty much it. Mozilla can't turn their back on those users.
I think being overly reasonable and keeping it simple is probably the right approach, so pointing out that a video is tied to a specific system and will likely stop working is preferable to stuff that heads in the direction of $15 purchases harming freedom.
People don't mind DRM on things like Netflix because the cost is so low and the model is clearly communicated in all of Netflix'x marketing.
In contrast, DRM inspires significant outrage when people are told that they “own” something but are restricted from using it normally. Even people who don't normally care about technical issues know it's not right when they're told e.g. they have to pay a second time to watch a movie on their iPad after paying $50 for a Blu-Ray copy.
If anything is going to change the DRM trend, it'll be increased unwillingness to pay high prices for restricted content.