Mozilla, DRM and removing 'plugin'

As Andras Gal points out, Mozilla like to include W3C's EME into Firefox
to support DRM and the like ..
   <https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-and-w3c-eme/>

Mozilla likes adding support for DRM to suite a minority and to fight
an assumed loss of market share due to competition.

They claim, the user has a choice to not allow
this build-in functionality to be activated.
However, such capability already accepts and honors W3C's decision
for a walled garden and non-free web [accepting EME].
They bow down to the film industry.

They plan to include a simple mechanism allowing
to activate a binary blob which side-effects are unknown,
even though Mozilla's claims to 'hide it in a sanbox' (snake oil).

This is a very political move by the W3C and all EME
provider (sadly including Mozilla), by favoring control of media consumption
over freedom [speech, access and consumption].
Once used to DRM technology, websites my gain more control over your identity
and consumption - hence 'don't track' becomes an even bigger illusion
compared to the current situation.
Giving companies and governments even more tools to restrict and control
access could not seriously be considered as a good thing.

+++

Further more Andreas writes:
  "There is also a silver lining to the W3C EME specification becoming
ubiquitous. With direct support for DRM we are eliminating a major use case of
plugins on the Web, and in the near future this should allow us to retire
plugins altogether."

In short: Mozilla likes to replace 'Plugins' in favor of a
'W3C EME build-in plugin', where the latter for sure is
far less flexible and does not allow users to add functionality.

Even if 'Plugins' allows creating a walled garden
in the first place, it gives users _equal_ opportunity to do the same.

The 'Plugin' gives everybody equal power to create added functionality
to the web experience and hence emphasizes freedom and levels the
playground with the browser vendors [Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, ..].

+++

You may like to follow the FSF campaign:

<https://fsf.org/news/fsf-condemns-partnership-between-mozilla-and-adobe-to-support-digital-restrictions-management>

Cheers, Sven

Sent to Dr. Andread Gal, including the original post and forum link.

Sven Gothel wrote

Hello Dr. Andreas Gal,

I have sent my sentiment regarding your adoption
of the W3C's EME 'standard' in Firefox to our JogAmp ML.

<http://forum.jogamp.org/Mozilla-DRM-and-removing-plugin-td4032354.html>
I hope, and probably most of our user base,
that you reconsider this move!

At the very least, I hope that you will _not_
include the DRM binary blob in the Firefox release
and hence make it optionally to not only activate it
but to download it in the first place.

Further more, please consider that in regards
to a leveled playground and freedom,
the 'DRM build-in plugin' cannot replace 'Plugin'
since only the latter allows all users to created added functionality
to the browser and web experience.

Without 'Plugin' only the browser vendors have influence.

Best regards, Sven

PS: This post it public, i.e. a copy will be posted to above forum.

Hi

I'm not surprised by Mozilla's move, going closer to corporations and going away from end users who care about freedom:

I don't think we will ship with *any* plugins
and will not offer any way for plugins to be installed into the OS.

Anything that is in a plugin is not "the Open Web", as a plugin is a
proprietary backbox inside the web page.

http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.b2g/browse_thread/thread/fe2b44dee98274f7#

Mozilla seems to consider that a closed source Adobe plugin is a part of the Open Web but a plugin based on an open source project (OpenJDK) without the support of the film industry is considered as an intruder in the Open Web. It seems to show that the definition of the Open Web depends on the interest of private corporations and has nothing to do with the rights and the freedoms of the end users.