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Mozilla Firefox 38 has been released. It adds the <picture> element, Ruby annotation support, and Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), a form of digital rights management for HTML5 video. It also automatically downloads Adobe's Primetime Content Decryption Module (CDM) on 32-bit versions of Firefox on Windows Vista and newer Windows systems. The Register reports:
The nonprofit grudgingly agreed to add EME support to Firefox last year, despite the vocal objections of both Mozilla's then-CTO Brendan Eich and the Free Software Foundation. "Nearly everyone who implements DRM says they are forced to do it" the FSF said at the time, "and this lack of accountability is how the practice sustains itself."
Nonetheless, Mozilla promoted Firefox 38 to the Release channel on Tuesday, complete with EME enabled – although it said it's still doing so reluctantly. "We don't believe DRM is a desirable market solution, but it's currently the only way to watch a sought-after segment of content," Mozilla senior veep of legal affairs Danielle Dixon-Thayer said in a blog post.
The first firm to leap at the chance to shovel its DRM into Firefox was Adobe, whose Primetime Content Delivery Module for decoding encrypted content shipped with Firefox 38 on Tuesday. Thayer said various companies, including Netflix, are already evaluating Adobe's tech to see if it meets their requirements. Mozilla says that because Adobe's CDM is proprietary "black box" software, it has made certain to wrap it in a sandbox within Firefox so that its code can't interfere with the rest of the browser. (Maybe that's why it took a year to get it integrated.)
The CDM will issue an alert when it's on a site that uses DRM-wrapped content, so people who don't want to use it will have the option of bowing out. If you don't want your browser tainted by DRM at all, you still have options. You can disable the Adobe Primetime CDM so it never activates. If that's not good enough, there's a menu option in Firefox that lets you opt out of DRM altogether, after which you can delete the Primetime CDM (or any future CDMs from other vendors) from your hard drive. Finally, if you don't want DRM in your browser and you don't want to bother with any of the above, Mozilla has made available a separate download that doesn't include the Primetime CDM and has DRM disabled by default.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:54PM
At first glance having access to all source code sounds like a great idea, but certain things just wouldn't work out. Why would I pay $50 for the next installation of Civilization, if I could get it for free? Handing out the source code to a game is essentially giving the game away for free for anyone and everyone. Perhaps there should be some sort of required after X years you must provide the source code to your software. Software becomes obsolete rather quickly, but then I would almost guarantee that some companies would find ways to work around it. Sure we'll give you the source code, but we'll make sure to scramble that code up something good. Having the source code to everything isn't "The" answer. In some cases the source may have even been lost by now. Which may be a very good case to require a source code release after a certain period of time.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.computer.ultima-dragons/b9wF43xJxog/ [google.com]
" Bill Armintrout
11/20/96
char...@ihug.co.nz (Andrew D. Charlton) wrote:
>bi...@2ni.com (Bill Armintrout) wrote:
>>I don't know if it was archived.
>I find it hard to believe that anyone would just throw it out...
Believe it or not: At the end of Serpent Isle (with add-on), the
company forgot to archive the game. There is no source code. It's
gone.
- Bill"
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 15 2015, @01:17AM
You're confusing free as in beer with free as in speech. According to the terms the GPL they needn't provide the source free to anyone who wants it (seriously, go look it up). They can charge you money to buy the game, then send you the source as a part of the deal.
There is, of course, the problem of somebody just posting the source after buying the game.
You're right--having source code isn't *the* answer. It is however a pretty big one.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday May 15 2015, @05:35PM
from the very start Richard said it was OK to sell free software; I don't recall clearly but that may have even been in the GNU manifesto.
Again IIRC the source code only need be made available to those who have the binaries. In GPLv2 at least, it is insufficient to make it available over the Internet; Richard once made the point that someone with the binary might not have Internet access.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday May 15 2015, @05:39PM
I don't have a clue what happened. I've always been good about backups.
In one case my company was acquired. The new owners couldn't find my source. As best they could tell, someone taped over the backups.
In the case of the code used for my senior thesis, it disappeared however I expect I could rewrite it from scratch. I may even know where a backup is.
Apple lost the source code to the daisywheel printer driver. "But there's no Mac daisywheel printer driver!" you protest. Well that's because they lost its source.
Acius hired a consultant to write a word processor as a companion to its lucrative 4D database. There was some dispute, the consultant kept the only copy of the source.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]