Published at LXer:

The Mozilla Foundation appears to be capable of blowing hot and cold when it suits them. On Wednesday, it announced that it would be including digital restrictions (or rights, if you prefer) management in Firefox via code from Adobe.

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I can imagine all the Firefox users bailing the second that their Facebook apps didn't work in Firefox anymore, or PDF's from their banks, or Youtube movies -- But firefox is the one that's being a hypocrite?

Everyone else had already implemented the DRM ransom ware for adobe. To remain competitive and keep their customer base, they had to do it. Whats the point in fighting for the community when only 10 people are left to use your product? They would have went broke and closed up shop.

99% of Sam Varghese's editorials (and he writes editorials, not news) are idiotic, hyperbole-filled, spittle-flecked, prejudiced, uninformed screeds. IMHO. (Adding an IMHO in case he finds this, so that I can't be accused of libel. ) Yes, this one is part of the 99%.

That's not what happened.

Also "the man invented Javascript" is not a commendation. Javascript is a horribly designed language. Yes, it has been widely adopted... for reasons that have nothing to do with quality. There's some background here: https://tech.dropbox.com/2012/09/dro...-coffeescript/

Yea, when I see the name, my eyes leave the page and the tab gets closed immediately.

On topic: This means that whatever my last non-DRM'd Firefox version happens to be will have to last forever I guess.

This really illustrates that the Open Source poison pill has triumphed over Freedom for all who swallowed it.

If you havent Read Cory Doctorow's article on it do so now. In so many words, and more eloquently than this, he said, "It is Open Source without any of the freedom."

So we can all watch Netflix as we descend into the dark ages...

Well, I agree, but there was a reason I said 99% and not 100%. You know what they say about stopped clocks: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4671861

I'm two paragraphs into the Cory Doctorow article, and it's already much better than the one linked in the top post.

The DRM components aren't available on Linux.

OK, credit where due... but I think your stopped clock analogy is the right one where he is concerned.

From the good Cory Doctorow editorial:

Really?

Hmm... confirmed here: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/0...serving-users/

Well, I look forward to watching HTML5 Netflix in Linux then.

This is roughly how I feel about it. I lose track of the number of times I've mentioned Netflix (and other video on demand) not working on Linux only to be told by somebody else that I can run Pipelight (ie. install a bunch of MS DRM) on my system to do so. I don't see any difference between doing that (or, indeed having Flash installed) and Firefox including DRM other than the latter being a lot more convenient and less likely to break my system on every upgrade due to dodgy PPAs.
I do hope though that the DRM component, if/when it comes to Linux, will be optional so that those who haven't installed any binary blobs get to keep things that way.

Yep that's pretty much the official firefox line as well.

Well the way they're going, the browser will eventually be much the same thing as chrome anyway - then in a few years "blah blah blah we're switching to chromium/blink/webkit blah blah" - at which point they may as well "close up shop"...

Let's suppose they had no choice... it's worrying when what was supposed to be a free and open source project is seemingly railroaded into including proprietary shitware in the form of Adobe DRM. It's bad enough that Mozilla have bent over and greased up for this, it's even worse when numerous apologists make excuses for it.

I think Google wants this. Donate to Mozilla, make Firefox like Chrome, extinguish Firefox. Embrace, enhance, extinguish. The evil empire way, I think Google may even be sued by M$ for adopting their patented method of destruction.

Note also that Chrome comes with Flash player bulit-in and DRM ready.

The result of this will be that Firefox will be able to natively play Netflix in Linux, and Chrome won't. Therefore, I highly doubt that Google is behind this.

I agree.

As Doctorow said (paraphrase), "Open source stripped of all the freedoms...".

This was always the inevitable end once people began to shy away from FREE software and took up the marketing term "open source" as being the goal. The goal post was moved and the game was lost... all is lost.

google are just happy to 'own' the two major non MS browsers and also opera, so I don't believe they're out to extinguish Mozilla. You will have "freedom of choice" but all the choices are google choices.
google's widevine cdm is available in windows, mac and android, so it's just a matter of time.

Depends on what you call "Linux".

http://www.muktware.com/2013/02/goog...chrome-os/4024
https://plus.google.com/+chrome/posts/GNsoSDLRRY6

Chrome OS and Chromebooks have full DRM and Netflix support. I don't use Chrome myself, so I don't know if the Linux version has this support, but technically Chrome OS runs the Linux kernel. It's not GNU/Linux.

EDIT:
Here is some more on that:
http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/04/...t-netflix.html

So, you are clearly wrong. Both Firefox and Chrome will support it in the very near future. Maybe by pure coincidence at the very same time.

Yeah, I'm not counting Chrome OS as Linux. Google's DRM implementation is available on ChromeOS but not on Linux, and no plans to change that have been announced.

Therefore, at least in this discussion, the two really need to be treated as separate.

I see it differently. Google's Widevine CDM is available for Windows, Mac and Android, so if they thought it was both possible and desirable to bring it to Linux then they would have done it by now.