free software

Future versions of Mozilla Firefox will have DRM

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This probably is the news of the year: Mozilla will adopt DRM in future versions of Firefox for Desktop.

What Mithcell Baker says: DRM and the Challenge of Serving Users;

What Andreas Gal says: Reconciling Mozilla’s Mission and W3C EME;

What the FSF says: FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to support Digital Restrictions Management ;

What Cory Doctorow says: Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart.

Having spent the last weekend talking about the values and mission of Mozilla I can only echo Cory's sentiment.

Looking back on 15 years of advocating for computer user's freedom, I find the claim that everyone can choose not to activate DRM in their Firefox unconvincing and weak. Users either know a lot and can deal with whatever the software vendor throws at them (so, yeah, some people may even build a DRM free Firefox), or don't know much and use whatever is shipped to them. I always thought that the latter is the reason why we constantly need someone to things differently - or in the right way. This decision reinforces that belief.

Other reactions -- linked here for future reference:
Bradley Kuhn - To Serve Users;
Gervase Markham - To Serve Users;
Ben Moskowitz - The Web Is Changing.