Re: Clarification

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Alastair Campbell <alastc@gmail.com> wrote:
> It sounds like EME provides some separation, but not enough for a (fully)
> open source browser. I assume Google gets around this by using webkit/blink
> as the rendering engine, but the rest of the browser is not open source.

The Open Source part of Chrome—Chromium—is much broader than just
Blink, but you are correct that the way Google deals with the issue is
by making the Widevine CDM part of Chrome, which is not fully Open
Source, but not part of the Open Source Chromium.

Searching for "'target_name': 'chrome_official_builder'," in
http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/build/all.gyp gives a partial
view of what kind of stuff goes in Chrome but not in Chromium. One of
the differences is the inclusion of the Widevine CDM. (Announcement:
https://plus.google.com/100132233764003563318/posts/6QW8TLtV6q3 As can
be seen from the screenshot, Chrome lists the Widevine CDM as a kind
of plug-in even though it's distributed together with the browser—like
the Pepper version of Flash Player.)

(There are additional differences that are not visible from that file.
For example, Chromium is not built with support for H.264, AAC and
MP3. Chrome also includes the Pepper version of Flash Player that was
previously handled next to the Widevine CDM in that file but
apparently not anymore. There's more Chrome-specific stuff in
http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/ and the Flash Player
inclusion lives there now.)

If you go look at
http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/third_party/widevine/cdm/ , you
won't find the source code for the Widevine CDM there—just like you
won't find the source code for Flash Player in
http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/third_party/adobe/flash/ and you
won't find the file pdf/pdf.gyp for the proprietary PDF renderer under
http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/ because the entire directory
"pdf" is nowhere to be seen.

> I also assume that having the CDM outside of the browser would mean we're
> back in plugin territory?

Yes, but see http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-admin/2013Feb/0178.html

--
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Wednesday, 15 May 2013 07:21:32 UTC