Re: Campaign for position of chair and mandate to close this community group

On 2014-01-10 09:57 Mark Watson wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 7:32 AM, cobaco <cobaco@freemen.be> wrote:
> > On 2014-01-10 07:11 Mark Watson wrote:
> > > FWIW, EME *can* be fully implemented under a copyleft open source
> > > license on platforms that expose the necessary capabilities. That is
> > > presently only Windows, but nontheless.

> > we've been over this...
> > 
> > EME is only half the system,
> > the other half is an unspecified black box by design
> > 
> > so, no, it can not be fully implemented, half the implementation depends
> > on the blessing/help from the CDM-manufacturer, which automatically means
> > anything non-mainstream can forget about it

> Please re-read what I said more carefully. 

> When the CDM component is included in the platform and available through
> public APIs,

in other words :
*if* half the system is already implemented as a black box by your platform 
vendor

> then a complete working implementation of client-side content protection
> using EME can be supported in a FOSS browser. I believe this is the case (or
> soon will be) for Windows.

the entire point of standards is that it lets small players play ball,
without having to justify the economics of support to the big players, and 
without having to go hat in hand to beg if they would please, pretty please, 
play nice and allow them to inter-operate

EME+CDM completely prevents that, as the CDM part is a black box, 
as such it is yet another lock-in tool that unfairly advantages incumbent 
(already mainstream) platforms, and consequently makes it that much harder for 
any new or currently non-mainstream platform to break through and get a non-
negligible piece of the pie.

In other words it spells 'innovation killer', 'DRM-tax' and 'screw the little 
guy'.

If W3C ends up approving a 'standard' that unlevels the playing field that way, 
then W3C's credibility as a neutral party will be gone, over and done with.
The credibility of W3C as standards organization will go with it.

I would hate to see that happen, but sadly that is currently looking all to 
likely.
-- 
Cheers

Received on Friday, 10 January 2014 19:16:55 UTC