Re: What is the "open web" ?

On 6/5/2013 7:26 PM, Hugo Roy wrote:
> Le mer. 05/06/13, 16:29, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com>:
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Jun 5, 2013, at 3:19 PM, Hugo Roy <hugo@fsfe.org> wrote:
>>
>>>>>> Since the EME spec doesn't specify the CDMs, someone could certainly
>>>>>> create an open CDM (for whatever definition of open they prefer) and
>>>>>> EME would work with that.
>>>>> This is a dubious statement.
>>>> Why?
>>> I referred to the bit: “for whatever definition of open they
>>> prefer” (I thought it was obvious from the following sentence).
>>> Don't know if "dubious" is really the word I was looking for
>>> though, excuse my French. But I just wanted to emphasise there's
>>> no debate about what's “open source” or not in the context of
>>> software.  This is very much established.
>> The point of my qualification was that my main point is independent of
>> what you think open source means. You can certainly implement EME and
>> a CDM under whatever open source terms you choose.
> There is something strange there. It is not about what *I* think
> open source means. The definition of what is Open Source and Free
> Software is very well established.
>
> We even have legal tools (licenses) to clearly draw the line
> between what's open source/free software, and what is not.
>
>>   You can certainly implement EME and
>> a CDM under whatever open source terms you choose.
> Can you really? You need to define what a CDM is then. Because if
> a CDM can be free software, that means the recipient of the CDM
> can modify the CDM and thus bypass the limitations set forth by
> the CDM.
>
> If the recipient of the CDM cannot get the source code and modify
> it, that means your CDM *is not* by any definition, Free Software
> or open source, regardless of which licenses we are talking about.
>
>>>> There's a trivial existence proof in the clear key CDM. I see no
>>>> reason why there could not be others.
>>>>
>>>> As I said, whether and to whom such CDMs would be useful is a
>>>> different question.
>>> I think the two questions are not that separate. What does EME
>>> solve, what is it designed for? What would clear key systems
>>> really gain from this?
>>>
>>> If clear key CDM in the context of EME are absolutely useless, it
>>> is a strong hint that EME is actually designed for closed-source
>>> CDM
>> It's frequently claimed that DRM goes too far in controlling usage to
>> align with content license terms. So, presumably, some people would
>> like to see other solutions that do not go so far. I don't know what
>> those might be, but EME provides a place to experiential with such
>> things, over time. Maybe that won't work. Maybe there is a
>> mathematical proof that anything short of DRM as it is today is
>> equivalent to clear key for some kind of equivalence accepted by
>> content producers.
>>
>> The point is that whether a useful CDM can be built in open source is
>> clearly not a technical issue. It depends on the ingenuity of people
>> creating CDMs and the requirements of content producers.
> You need to demonstrate how CDM can be “built in open source”
> because the very usefulness of DRM lies in its secrecy,
> obfuscation and restriction of users', all of which are 100% at
> odds with Free Software.

An open source CDM system would be breakable.  If one defines 
"usefulness" to be "unbreakable" then you could not have a useful open 
source CDM system.  Although many argue that even closed CDMs are 
breakable, so breakability might not be a distinction between open and 
closed CDMs.

However, if one defines "usefulness" to mean that "many users will not 
bother breaking the system" due to effort involved or social norms, then 
you could have a useful open source CDM system.

It is possible that the terms of GPLv3 would be violated even with an 
"open source CDM" system, but many other licenses could be consistent 
with such a system.

>

Received on Thursday, 6 June 2013 05:27:46 UTC