Thanks for explaining

Posted May 16, 2014 6:48 UTC (Fri) by oldtomas (guest, #72579)
In reply to: Thanks for explaining by roc
Parent article: Firefox gets closed-source DRM

Note: I assume your intentions to be good, and I commend your work done on free software. Thanks for that.

But I strongly disagree on this point. The only viable solution is (IMHO, of course) strong political counter-pressure. And every bit which makes the life of gullets more miserable is a help at this point.

Because what "content industry" wants is docile and willing gullets.

I know, this sounds harsh. It took me a while to reach this conclusion.

Thanks for explaining

Posted May 16, 2014 22:41 UTC (Fri) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link] (2 responses)

When I say "user-unfriendly" I don't just mean more difficult to use, I mean more privacy-invasive, more surveillance-friendly, and more completely taking control of devices away from their users. I'm not confident that going further down that path is the right way to ultimately make things better.

Thanks for explaining

Posted May 17, 2014 7:13 UTC (Sat) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link]

> When I say "user-unfriendly" I don't just mean more difficult to use [...]

Yep. I got that. But that's exactly the point of our disagreement. To put it pointedly, "let's keep the users just at the edge of their confort zone wrt. their tolerance of surveillance and control" amounts to me to slowly boiling the frogs.

Forcing Big Content to show their ugly fangs (as much as possible) just might be a better long-term strategy.

IOW I am convinced that the ugly RIAA lawsuits and carpet-bombing have done more for freedom than Gnash.

Now if constituents could get off their asses and vote those corrupt politicians who play along with secret trade agreements (TTIP, Trans-Pacific) out of office, that would be it.

Sorry for the political tangent, but the root of the problem *is* political, not technical.

Thanks for explaining

Posted May 19, 2014 7:07 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]

The more invasive and ugly the DRM the more people will reject it. And ultimately that has to be the end goal. Companies will give it up when users start flatly refusing to buy it, and not one moment before.

It has to get worse before it will get any better.