Did we mention that the EME CFC is closed? (was Re: EME and proprietary plug-ins)

Hi folks,

The CFC is over so we shouldn't be using the public-html-admin list for this discussion any more. If you want to discuss a technical topic of whether EME CDMs should have a defined interface or other technical measures for leveling the playing field, that would be a great topic for public-html-media.

For those who want to discuss the broader questions of principle about the W3C working on DRM-related technologies, then I recommend pursuing that in the AC via your AC rep, or directly addressing the relevant members of the W3C Team (e.g. Philippe) and Cc'ing www-archive.

Continuing discussion here is no longer helpful or productive, since the administrative question of the CFC is closed for the time being.

Thanks,
Maciej


On Feb 13, 2013, at 3:16 PM, Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com> wrote:

> n Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 2:31 PM, Robert O'Callahan <robert@ocallahan.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com> wrote:
> I was responding to the thread of reasoning I thought I heard you making that said "EME would make the playing field less level than it already can be (and is) with Flash/SL."  I don't believe that to be true, other than browsers that don't support EME.
> 
> Apart from licensing, there is the technical issue that Henri raised which has been ignored so far in this thread: there is a publicly defined API, NPAPI, through which any browser can integrate Flash and Silverlight. There is no such thing currently proposed for EME CDMs, so for that reason alone, NPAPI plugins provide a more level playing field across browsers than EME proposes to.
> 
> Heh.  1) If you take on supporting NPAPI. 2) Again, that's presuming that the content playing uses of Flash/SL never browser-test, which isn't true.
> 
> NPAPI could be used for this purpose, I suppose.  But honestly - Flash, at least, is a dog; no, the inevitable product of a dog (I *like* my dog.  Too bad she piddles on the floor so much.  Hey, the analogy works!)  Flash-ripping aside, my point is that NPAPI was, to my knowledge, developed as a content-delivery format.  The fact that, through a beastly plugin that just happens to be installed on an ever-decreasing number of desktop-only systems, be used most of the time to view "protected" content, isn't a real answer to the problem, certainly not going forward.  Perhaps your answer is "don't protect, and then it all just works" - which is fine.
> 
> Again, my opinions.  I don't claim to know the perfect answers here, but I do have a pretty good idea that Flash/SL are a hacked and imperfect solution at best, and they are degrading over time.
> 
> -C