Re: No policy? Re: Is EME usable regardless of the software/hardware I use ?

> I'm not an attorney, but I agree that the EME draft document may be 
> incompatible with GPLv3.

Definitely, I agree.

Re. the premises you stated I held:

>   * A premise that W3C has a Recommendation in this space.  At the
>     moment there is a draft proposal.

That's correct.  Sloppy language on my part; I was envisaging the state
of affairs should the draft proposal proceed to a recommendation. 

>   * A premise that EME = DRM.

The reason EME is being proposed is to enable DRM.  Netflix, Microsoft
and Google are interested in it for no other purpose.  No-one (to my
knowledge) has proposed that EME might be used for any *other* purpose
than interop with DRM systems.  Therefore, EME is a component of DRM
systems, nothing more, nothing less.

However, note that I didn't mention EME in my premises.  I was quite
specifically talking about CDMs, as they are the reason for the
existence of EME.  I addressed CDMs because they're central to your hope
that movie companies will abandon closed-source, proprietary DRM
systems.

>   * A premise that GPLv2 (which may be consistent with EME) is not a
>     FOSS license.

That's not my opinion.  GPLv2 is definitely a FOSS licence, and an
implementation of EME could be compatible with GPLv2.  I think we're
agreed on that, too.

So, restated, & elaborated:

Consider what will happen if the EME proposal is accepted, and becomes a
recommendation.  Vendors will use this to interop with DRM CDMs (the
sole purpose of EME).

 - major content providers will not implement and release CDMs that can
 be trivially bypassed

 - a CDM released under *any* FOSS license is, by nature, trivial to
 bypass

 - therefore, no major content providers will release CDMs under FOSS
 licenses

This is equivalent to EME being incompatible with any FOSS license.  EME
exists for one purpose, and that purpose is incompatible with FOSS
licenses.

> I hope my response above addresses your question.

Not exactly, but it's facilitated some clarification, which I greatly
appreciate.

-- 
Duncan Bayne
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Received on Friday, 7 June 2013 06:40:23 UTC