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

On Thursday 16 January 2014 09:15:17 Jeff Jaffe wrote:
> The precedent for having such (non-normative) dependencies is that we
> began to standardize HTML5 video at a time when the dominant codec
> (H.264) did not comply with our RF insistence for Web standards.  Our
> approach has been to standardize that which we can make RF to reduce the
> proprietary footprint and work over time to remove the proprietary pieces.

The EME proposal is certainly a further escalation in regard to the RF 
requirement.  There are fundamental differences in the circumstances and legal 
situations.  H.264 did not fulfil the RF requirement.  But at least it is an 
open standard which can be licensed under FRAND terms and free software 
implementations of it exist.  There is no CDM which is an open standard or 
free software.  In fact I'm not even aware of a potential CDM which can be 
licensed under FRAND terms.

And even if H.264 does not fulfil the RF requirements there are video codecs 
which do and are available as free software (Theora, WebM, Dalaa, ...).  
Therefore there is a reasonable expectation that the proprietary footprint can 
be reduced in the future.  However such a situation does not exist for CDMs 
and is unlikely to ever exist because of the secrecy required by DRM.  
Therefore there is no hope that the proprietary footprint of EME could be ever 
reduced.

It is noteworthy that providing a CDM compatible to another CDM could also be 
a criminal offence.  DRM is protected by law in many countries!

> You conclude that it is unlikely that another CDM can succeed.  I
> appreciate your skepticism, but I don't have your certainty on that point.

I don't see how another CDM could be successful when three of four major 
browser vendors are also CDM vendors and not required to accept any other CDM.  
When compared to the <video> situation at least two of the four major browser 
vendors are actively developing free open standard video codecs under the RF 
requirements.

Regards,
Rüdiger

Received on Thursday, 16 January 2014 15:21:55 UTC