jwzJun 22, 2024

Mozilla's Original Sin.

Some will tell you that Mozilla's worst decision was to accept funding from Google, and that may have been the first domino, but I hold that implementing DRM is what doomed them, as it led to their culture of capitulation. It demonstrated that their decisions were the decisions of a *company shipping products*, not those of a non-profit devoted to preserving the open web.

Those are different things and are very much in conflict. [...]
https://jwz.org/b/ykVr

Mozilla's Original Sin

Some will tell you that Mozilla's worst decision was to accept funding from Google, and that may have been the first domino, but I hold that implementing DRM is what doomed them, as it led to their culture of capitulation. It demonstrated that their decisions were the decisions of a company shipping products, not those of a non-profit devoted to preserving the open web. Those are different ...

Show threadNicolás Alvarez
@jwz I'm not convinced that needing a proprietary multipurpose plugin (Flash/Silverlight) is better than EME where the proprietary DRM stuff is contained to only do DRM in its tight sandbox. Though it's an interesting point that someone else would have patched in EME into a fork if Firefox had refused to...
Jun 22, 2024 at 8:57pmWeb
Show threadJob BautistaJun 23, 2024

@nicolas17 The difference is that NPAPI (which Flash and Silverlight use) has free plugins also using it (and there were plenty, like VLC's) and therefore is not antithetical to "Mozilla's mission". If Flash and Silverlight didn't exist in the NPAPI days then there will be others taking its role as proprietary DRM/video player/game engine anyway.

EME is purely for DRM.

@jwz