Why, this makes perfect sense

Netflix has had HTML5-based streaming for a while now–that’s how they get to iOS-based devices and anything else that can’t run Silverlight, the Flash competitor from Microsoft that never really took off. (It joins Microsoft’s long parade of chart failures in their attempt to take over Adobe’s markets.) Now, Netflix is ready to move forward with plans to make everything HTML5-based. They’re abandoning proprietary protocols to go with standards! Hooray!

So naturally, GigaOM reports, “free software” activists are greeting this with… a call to boycott.

Why? Netflix is relying on HTML5’s upcoming video standards to allow content to be saddled with DRM. The free software crowd isn’t upset that Netflix is adopting HTML5 video, it’s upset that Netflix is helping to drive “non-free” web video.

Except, of course, that it isn’t. Netflix is helping to drive a “non-free” wrapper around an actual open standard, the way MP3, AAC and MP4 already work.1 They’re not doing this because they hate freedom, they’re doing it because it’s required by their business partners.

Furthermore, for most users this is simply a non-issue. I’d vastly prefer to own media and software without DRM (and I have no compunction about removing DRM for my own purposes), but if I’m watching streaming video I don’t care whether the stream is encrypted. The people who care are people who either don’t have the decryption plugin available or who refuse on general principle to run any closed source software. (If you said “and pirates,” bad answer. Pirates don’t care whether your shit is encrypted to begin with.)

In other words, Linux users. Not all Linux users, either, but the ones who correct you with, “Ah, that’s GNU/Linux.”

So: sorry, guys, but your reality check bounced.2 You know full well that the choice here is between Netflix using HTML5 video with encryption or using something completely proprietary with encryption–there is no option that lets you get your “House of Cards” fix without using closed source. (Or pirating, which of course none of you would ever do, right?) You can have Kevin Spacey doing a Southern drawl or your GNU/Principles, but not both.

  1. I’m sure someone wants to bring up H.264 versus WebM here, but when we talk about standards, “open” doesn’t require free in any sense of free, it just means that it’s not exclusive. The Mini-USB connector is an open standard and Apple’s Lightning connector is not, but both are patented and require royalties. ↩︎

  2. While using “guys” as a collective is sexist, percentage-wise it’s pretty accurate; Linux kernel developer Sarah Sharp estimates that while the proprietary software world has about 20–30% women contributing, the open source software world is at a dismal 1–3%. I presume they’re waiting for a GPL-licensed implementation of equality. ↩︎

Jul 24, 2013 11:40am
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