Re: What is the "open web" ?

On Mon, 2013-06-03 at 18:54 -0700, Mark Watson wrote:
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Jun 3, 2013, at 1:26 PM, Gervase Markham <gerv@mozilla.org> wrote:
> 
> > On 03/06/13 15:54, Mark Watson wrote:
> >> You may be right, but today you need to buy a graphics card containing
> >> non-free software.
> >
> > Depends what you mean by "containing". I believe the free-ness of the
> > drivers for most of the Intel graphics chipsets goes pretty far down
> > these days. Your CPU also runs proprietary microcode, after all.
> >
> > I think the FSF's distinction of "if someone else can modify it, you
> > should have freedom with regard to it" is a useful one here.
> 
> Interesting. So, firmware that is truly burned into ROM is ok, but
> anything stored in memory that is physically modifiable needs to be
> modifiable also by the user. Is that the intended meaning ?

Yes, anything that can be modified at all needs to be modifiable by the
user to be truly free. That being said, if a device is designed with
malicious features such as Digital Restrictions Management, then it
doesn't matter that the firmware is fixed and can't be replaced. It's
flawed by it's very nature.
> >
> >> And you can be sure that the makers of those cards
> >> have been filing patents on what they do for years, so equally
> >> performant free solutions are going to be a challenge.
> >
> > You say that; but we recently managed a patent-free audio codec which
> > outperforms all the others using out-of-patent techniques, at least in
> > part because they didn't have to contort the design to make sure it used
> > at least one patent from everyone in a huge consortium. (OPUS.)
> >
> > Regardless, patents are not global, and patents expire.
> >
> >> Having said that, I don't think many people see this as a huge problem
> >> or a reason why WebGL should not be part of the web platform.
> >
> > WebGL as a spec does not _require_, in and of itself, the use of
> > proprietary technology. Some (or even, for the sake of argument, all)
> > current implementations may do, but that is incidental - it's not
> > written into the spec itself. Emmanuel's distinction is a helpful
> > clarification here, I think - thanks to him for that.
> >
> >>> I think that non-RF patents have no place in any system described as
> >>> open, no.
> >>
> >> Just to check I understand correctly, you would object to inclusion in
> >> the web platform of APIs for any system capability that required
> >> non-free licenses to implement ? Even if that capability is fully
> >> standardized and widely available in commodity hardware modules for
> >> all platforms ? (For example 3G wireless Internet modules.)
> >
> > I would think it very weird if the web platform came up with a
> > capability which _required_ the use of specifically 3G access to the
> > Internet.
> 
> Sure, but one can easily imagine APIs that expose capabilities that
> are only available on 3G/4G wireless networks. Those standards are
> full of stuff that could reasonably be subject to application control.
> Maybe we could take exposing the available mobile networks as an
> example ?
> 
> >
> > I find it hard to answer that question because I can't think of a
> > concrete example. (And a lot of people seem to be keen to ensure that
> > there never is one.)
> >
> >>> You would also be required to buy
> >>> particular DRM-compatible hardware rather than being able to have a free
> >>> choice of hardware.
> >>
> >> For the sake of argument, lets suppose that your choice of hardware
> >> does not restrict the set of services you can access, provided the
> >> hardware supports this capability at all.
> >
> > That rather seems to be "hypothesis contrary to fact". "If the moon were
> > made of green cheese, what effect would that have on the space program?
> > Well..."
> 
> Not at all. Our service supports a small number of different DRMs
> today in order to reach a wide rang if devices. I don't expect that
> set to grow much. I can easily imagine a situation where graphics
> cards generally support one of a small set of DRMs and most or all
> services support all the DRMs in that set.
> 
>  Remember the intention of EME is to *avoid* a proliferation of
> incompatible plugin-based solutions.
They only way for the Digital Restrictions Management to be effective in
these hypothetical graphics cards is with non-free software living
somewhere in the system, or to have it baked into the hardware. Again
that's a malicious feature and it is no better than non-free software.

-- 
/* Free software is a matter of liberty, not price.
   Visit GNU.org * FSF.org * Trisquel.info */

Received on Tuesday, 4 June 2013 05:17:25 UTC