Yes, and it’s taxable… but… the Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary that serves the non-profit, public benefit goals of its parent, the Mozilla Foundation, and community.
And, it’s guided by these priciples:
Mozilla Foundation Pledge
The Mozilla Foundation pledges to support the Mozilla Manifesto in its activities. Specifically, we will:
• Build and enable open-source technologies and communities that support the Manifesto’s principles;
• Build and deliver great consumer products that support the Manifesto’s principles;
• Use the Mozilla assets (intellectual property such as copyrights and trademarks, infrastructure, funds, and reputation) to keep the Internet an open platform;
• Promote models for creating economic value for the public benefit; and
promote the Mozilla Manifesto principles in public discourse and within the Internet industry.
Yes, obviously, people disagree with whether adding a sandbox technology to allow people to install a DRM plugin is at odds with all of this.
As has been said, people won’t have said plugin by default and can keep it from ever being enabled. It isn’t a great choice but also being the browser that people turn off when they want to use a media site isn’t great either.
it might be easier to just fork each successive release of fuckyouwe’vegotdrmnowfox into drm and non-drm versions. if mozilla was cool, they’d just go ahead and make that process easy, and then anyone who wanted netflix could d/l that version, and anyone who wanted control over their systems would d/l the other, and netflix could just not play to the open version.
Shit, how do i send a suggestion to mozilla to do just that?
What is the point? If you don’t invoke the DRM sandbox and install the DRM plugin, you don’t have DRM. Is there a need to remove the capability of even doing so if you don’t ever actually invoke it? Is its existence an existential threat if never invoked into existence (like Satan)?
I am curious, and this is actual curiosity and not snark (really!), what browser @doctorow and others are going to suggest people to run if Firefox is now considered polluted by this decision.
What is the point? If you don’t invoke the DRM sandbox and install the DRM plugin, you don’t have DRM. Is there a need to remove the capability of even doing so if you don’t ever actually invoke it? Is its existence an existential threat if never invoked into existence (like Satan)?
I wonder if it’ll be easy to remove once you’ve installed it?
With no checking on my part whatsoever, I assume if you go to about:plugins, you will be able to disable the plugin there. That’s how I keep Java from ever running in my browser since I actually need it on my system for other software.
I am curious, and this is actual curiosity and not snark (really!), what browser @doctorow and others are going to suggest people to run if Firefox is now considered polluted by this decision.
I think that’s the crux of Cory’s anger. There isn’t any other practical choice, is there? I think Firefox was the last holdout, AFAIK.
I probably speak for quite a few people here when I say I don’t care whether my browser supports Netflix. I never stream their stuff.
In fact, I don’t listen to audio or view video I can’t download, own, and retain under my control. That already means I go for Creative Commons and public domain material whenever I can. If I really want copyright material, I buy it on CDs and DVDs, which I can own.
And maybe I’m missing something, but I wonder if a non-DRM fork is really necessary. I don’t (yet) see any mention of this crap being included in FF’s cousin, Seamonkey. I don’t know how this “DRM sandbox” is implemented, but unless it’s inseparably joined to the underlying rendering engine, the SM crew - or any other programmers of a Mozilla derivative - can choose to leave it out.
In fact it’s instructive to look at the differences between the two browsers’ homepages. Firefox, in an enormous, perfidious font: “Committed to you, your privacy, and an open web.” Seamonkey, in quiet, modest type: “The SeaMonkey project is a community effort to develop the SeaMonkey all-in-one internet application suite (see below).”
Iceweaseal and a wide variety of other mozilla forks will remove this in a heartbeat. Palemoon, etc. Because mozilla wants to specifically isolate this away so they don’t have liability close to the rest of their source tree (as they’ve said repeatedly), it’ll be easy to rebuild firefox without this.
This is just sensationalist journalism, as is becoming more and more typical of boingboing in general and doctorow in particular.
You could run some special Chromium build or something? I mean, this is leaving aside the fact that I know he (and similar folks) are all on Linux and I don’t think there are any DRM plugins on it anyway.
I know it sounds dismissive but, on a practical level, I don’t really see how not giving users what they ask for (in the best way we can do to limit harm) is a failure on Mozilla’s part. I say this as someone with a Netflix streaming subscription running OS X too.
Iceweaseal and a wide variety of other mozilla forks will remove this in a heartbeat. Palemoon, etc. Because mozilla wants to specifically isolate this away so they don’t have liability close to the rest of their source tree (as they’ve said repeatedly), it’ll be easy to rebuild firefox without this.
I hope that happens, but I’m not sure you understand this is about principles.
this is clickbait bullshit …
Cory isn’t the only person upset about this. Even people within the Mozilla Foundation and community are pissed because it’s a matter of principle. Whether or not people can offer non-DRM forks is beside the point in this regard.
Why assume bad faith? What this could be instead of nefarious clickbait is someone who is genuinely pissed off (on principle) and expressing himself on his blog. Just a theory.
Besides, if this is clickbait, what are you even doing here? Surely you’re savvy enough to avoid the supposed bait at this point and you certainly don’t want to support insidious clickbait by participating here? Do you just simply enjoy being unhappy and whining about it?
This is just sensationalist journalism, as is becoming more and more typical of boingboing in general and doctorow in particular.
But, anyway… I’ve got a suggestion, stop derailing this thread and start an exciting, new BBS thread on how much your topic upsets you. This thread’s topic is about DRM in Firefox and the principles of the Mozilla Foundation, not your esoteric criticisms of the Boing Boing format and your assumptions of bad faith in Cory and Boing Boing in general.
You could run some special Chromium build or something? I mean, this is leaving aside the fact that I know he (and similar folks) are all on Linux and I don’t think there are any DRM plugins on it anyway.
Right, but in retrospect, I think I may have misjudged Cory’s train of thought on this. I probably should have taken a clue from the “breaks our hearts” part. I think this is more about the principle of the thing than whether or not there are workarounds, forks, etc.
I know it sounds dismissive but, on a practical level, I don’t really see how not giving users what they ask for (in the best way we can do to limit harm) is a failure on Mozilla’s part. I say this as someone with a Netflix streaming subscription running OS X too.
I don’t think that sounds dismissive. I’m torn on this. While I can understand those being concerned and upset about Mozilla breaking its principles and the slippery slope that situation may or may not portend. – I’m also relieved that Mozilla chose to make it opt-in instead of opt-out or, much worse, mandatory.
I’m also happy to see that Mozilla is currently looking for alternatives to DRM and that this might only be a temporary lapse in its open principles.
Not sure I understand the software/technical points here correctly…
Firefox always allowed (also proprietary) plugins, but now it comes with a “plugin” of it’s own which is a sandbox that can run proprietary DRM software. The reason for that sandbox being, to limit the access of that DRM software to the rest of the browser software and generally the computer itself. If they could come up with a sandbox for most of the other (and very often necessary, since required by many websites) proprietary plugins - like the adobe stuff - the whole thing could be an advantage over other browsers. No idea if such a thing can be done or not…
Politically I think, the difference between allowing proprietary plugins and creating a special sandbox for DRM software is mainly Mozilla saying “you better run this dangerous DRM software in a sandbox to avoid harm, rather than using a proprietary plugin that does whatever it wants on your computer”. It’s more of a warning than a recognition in my view, even though their official communication seems to be more concerned about their demise than about their politics.
So, you’ve opted out of Hollywood and popular television. No blockbusters, no Game of Thrones, etc?
Yep, and I don’t miss them a bit.
We live in a age of unimaginable entertainment wealth, including millions of hours of recorded audio and video that are old enough to be in the public domain. For contemporary media, there’s a surprising amount of material under Creative Commons license. Just browse archive.org and see what’s there. It’s mind-boggling.
And as I said, when I want copyright media, I buy it on CDs and DVDs - preferably used ones.
There’s such a pile of compelling material either not controlled by big media, or available in formats that by US law (thank you First Sale Doctrine) I can own, that I could spend the rest of my life listening and watching, and never even dig down to the mediocre stuff.
So, no, I neither need nor want any DRM browser plugins.
Netflix and other media companies are easy enough to avoid. The real harm is the tidal wave of ordinary websites that will start requiring DRM once it’s ubiquitously available. Government websites, google and gmail will all eventually decide it’s better in their interests to avoid letting users download content.
You won’t be able to save images to files anymore, and copy/paste may even break.
You’ll tell your kids stories about how it was to be able to back up your own data on a flash drive rather than paying megacorps for access to your data.
