Is EME supposed to work with open source browsers in practice?

Assuming that a particular browser does implement the EME
specification, is it expected that real-world CDMs will work with it?

It has been suggested that this spec will improve the situation of
open source browsers by allowing them to integrate with the small
proprietary DRM modules easier than it currently does (with e.g.
flash, silverlight, etc.). This sounds great in theory, but looking at
what is actually happening, I'm wondering, was that the actual plan?

Right now on Linux we have two browsers that support EME (that I'm
aware of; please correct me if there are more). One of them is the
open source Chromium browser and the other is the proprietary /
closed-source Chrome browser, which is based on Chromium and adds a
few extra bits. One of these extra bits is a CDM that is actually
useful for something, that being Widevine for playing Netflix content.

Interestingly (or perhaps as expected?) the open source version
(Chromium), while fully supporting the EME spec and otherwise being
able to run the same plugins that Chrome can (including proprietary
plugins like Flash), cannot run the Widevine CDM. At first, it may
seem that there may be some technical incompatibility that would be
resolved in the near future, but upon further inspection, it appears
that the CDM is actively refusing to load on the open source version
of the browser. And, to my knowledge, all other browsers on other
platforms supporting Netflix-compatible CDMs are also completely
proprietary.

Is that a temporary state, or is it what we have to look forward to?
And if this is the future, was it the plan all along to only allow
actually useful CDMs to run only on fully-closed browsers and not on
open-source browsers that implement the EME interface (and are thus
willing to interface with closed CDMs)?

Received on Tuesday, 9 December 2014 14:00:13 UTC