Mozilla's Original Sin

https://mastodon.social/@jwz/112662062948208951

by MzHN • 2 years ago

23 25 2 years ago

_cenw2• 2 years ago

Normal people use Netflix (especially when DRM was first introduced) and watch YouTube.

The reason Mozilla can even still hold 10% market share in places like Germany is that they're much more compatible with the monopolist than you'd assume, given the circumstances.

Principled stances land you where the GNU operating system is. In obscurity, where people reference you as ethical, but with few actual users outside of versions that are ideologically watered down (but without your control).

pyeri• 2 years ago

I'd wager that stalling of GNU OS is as much due to inherent product engineering or design complexities as folks attribute to its principled stand. There are other operating systems like Debian, Mint and Fedora which work pragmatically on your laptops despite having a principled stance.

_cenw2• 2 years ago

The "true" GNU Operating System is essentially every distro that's fully free software - to the point where you're excluding things needed for basic functionality like firmware blobs, with the proposed solution of "just use hardware that doesn't need that software". Only about half a dozen distros go the mile to get that stamp of approval, and most of them are forks.

You might think that Debian fits that criteria, but offering to enable the nonfree repo (and likely the nonfree repo itself existing) disqualifies it as an endorsed GNU system. That's the comparison.

veeti• 2 years ago

They don't have a principled stance from a GNU point of view. Debian installation media includes non-free software [1]. The killer feature of Ubuntu and its derivatives was always built-in support for proprietary codecs and drivers that actual regular people aside from Richard Stallman expect to work.

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware#Debian_12_.28bookworm.29_an...

infotainment• 2 years ago

Yeah, while I think Mozilla has made a lot of bad decisions over the years (looking at you, Pocket integration), supporting Netflix was not one of them.

Stubbornly clinging to principles at the expense of the user experience will alienate all but the most hardcore users.

karma_pharmer• 2 years ago

To use the Mastodon web application, please enable JavaScript. Alternatively, try one of the native apps for Mastodon for your platform.

LeoPanthera• 2 years ago

Quick reminder, in case anyone is tempted, jwz.org detects referers from HN and redirects to an “unpleasant” image.

whyoh• 2 years ago

Yes. Which is another reason to disable referers in the browser. (There are extensions to toggle them on/off quickly, in the rare event that a website doesn't work properly.)

unwind• 2 years ago

Meta: I would have appreciated a "jwz:" source in the title. I didn't know he was on there, nor that he still posts about tech.

KwanEsq• 2 years ago

Ah, I assume this is linking to the Mastodon post advertising the article instead of the actual article due to jwz.org's response to requests with HN in the Referer header?

wodenokoto2• 2 years ago

Direct link to those who want to see that response: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozillas-original-sin/

htthbjk• 2 years ago

Freedom also means being free to use DRM if you want to.

Nobody is holding a gun to your head to open a Netflix account.

coretx2• 2 years ago

You are right, it's not a gun, it's Widevine they hold against your head. Of course everyone is free to use DRM if they want to, however, no one should be free to expose others to the risks/consequences of DRM.

It's basically Popper on tolerance all over again. Herefore it should not be a surprise to notice that Mozilla's strategic failures already are costing us freedom.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance for details.

Jnr2• 2 years ago

Yes, being a browser used by small minority surely gives them major bargaining powers to rid the web of DRM.

Or it would simply make Spotify, Netflix and other similar sites not function on Firefox and reduce their market share even more.

Who knows...

thriftwy• 2 years ago

Out of curiosity, are there any good introspectors/sidesteppers for browser DRM?

The platform is not locked down (in ten years it might as well be), so the only question is which pipeline step the heist will happen at.

fl0id2• 2 years ago

What do you mean by that? There was some stuff re widevine circumvention on GitHub at some point, but not sure if that counts as introspector/sidestepper

r721• 2 years ago

Previous discussion (flagged): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40763757

johnea• 2 years ago

No reason to mastedon this, it's available directly on jwz's website:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozillas-original-sin/

Not sure if everyone is aware, but jwz was an original Netscape developer, and an advocate for creating the free software licensing that created mozilla when netscape went bankrupt.

So he really is an authoritative source on the mozilla story...

wodenokoto2• 2 years ago

Why did this get flagged?

Mozilla's Original Sin

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