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Comment Re:Why blame Mozilla (Score 1) 406

With website js, your firefox already runs closed-source software all the time. Everything Mozilla creates and ships will be open source, and firefox will download the CDM and execute it in a sandbox, just like the js. I doubt that the sandbox chrome or IE have are as secure as the Firefox sandbox.

I'm not using Chrome or IE, and I don't care how secure their sandboxes are. I simply don't agree with the DRM concept in general, because it limits my rights, the problems with reporting security issues, and it only affects the customers (not the actual pirates). And no, running a JS code is not the same as running the EME plugin.

Mozilla must ask the user for their consent whether to install the CDM, as they must at least accept the license. This could be a good spot for Mozilla to explain that DRM is bad, while still allowing the user to click "Yes, I want to restrict my freedom".

Given how much they praise Adobe (which is one of the worst companies cosidering approach to open-source), I doubt they'll have the courage to do that.

W3C allows EME to become a standard or not doesn' bother Microsoft or Google.

Believe that or no, they actually care about standards. That's why both the companies lobbied for this at W3C.

Already now certain youtube videos are blocked in several countries because of copyright disputes. And I can't watch BBC videos as I'm no resident of england.

Yeah. And the point is? What has this to do with DRM?

Comment Re:Why blame Mozilla (Score 2) 406

Oh, analogies with physical world ... I always loved the one that said "but it's exactly the same as stealing a car".

Anyway, the analogy is stupid for a number of reasons:

(1) With a lock on my door, I'm protecting my property, that I'm not willing to share with anyone else. DRM protects something that is being shared (sold) with customers.

(2) While a lock on a door may be broken / lockpicked, it needs to happen every single time. Whereas when a DRM scheme is broken, it's broken one and for all.

(3) While a lock may be lockpicked, that need to happen in public, in limited time etc. Whereas breaking DRM may happen in a nice calm place, take arbitrary amount of time etc.

(4) I certainly don't put a lock on the main door, while leaving the back door and all the windows open. Yet we'll get DRM in the browser and unprotected DVDs, blurays etc.

So let me reiterate - all the paying customers will get a binary blob from Adobe into their browsers (and I'm one of those who got the nice rootkit surprise from Sony a few years ago), but the actual pirates won't even notice this. Either they'll break or workaround the DRM somehow (which really won't be all that difficult), or they'll use a different source (e.g. dvds/blurays, ...).

And not only that the paying customers will have to install the blob - it's actually illegal to analyze the code, researchers are afraid to even report security issues in it because of possible prosecution.

Which is pretty much the problem with the DRM - the purpose is not to protect the content directly (because of all the weaknesses), but to make the prosecution easier (breaking the DRM vs. violating copyright etc.).

Comment Re:Why blame Mozilla (Score 4, Insightful) 406

No, it's not. Or at least, there are no clear arguments to support this claim (see the article from Cory Doctorow in Guardian, explaining this in more detail: http://www.theguardian.com/tec...).

The only vague argument available is along the lines "netflix transfers a lot of data => it's important => we'll loose a lot of users if we don't support EME". Which is quite weak implication, IMNSHO. For example it's absolutely unsupported claim that users will abandon Firefox completely - there were times when I had to use IE occasionally, because dumb webdesigners made it work only with IE. But I was using FF or some other browser, because it was superior in every other aspect.

Second, it absolutely absolutely ignores countries not covered by Netflix - which is pretty much everywhere outside America and northern part of Europe.

And finally, this DRM is as futile as all the other DRM technologies - it's going to be broken sooner or later (rather sooner), and there are other ways to pirate movies. DVDs/blurays, recording DVB-T ... so the only people not suffering by this are going to be pirates. Just like with all the previous technologies.

Anyway, I always thought the goal of Mozilla is not to acquire the highest browser marketshare, but to offer a truly open-source alternative. Also, browser is not the only project they have. This could have been a great education opportunity - showing a page briefly explaining the DRM issues, why Mozilla decided not to implement it, etc.

Partnership with Adobe, one of the companies most hostile towards open-source, that's a slap in the face.

However, Mozilla is not the only offender here - the first step was done by W3C, who allowed EME to be become part of the standard.

Comment Re:Not denying something is different from forcing (Score 1) 406

What? How is yelling "fire" in a theater similar to publicly warning people about issues with DRM? That's one of the weirdest analogies I heard in a very long time.

Anyway, please explain how is DRM beneficial to the society, that it's worth limiting such freedoms as reporting bugs in the DRM technology.

Comment Re:How about Parallel Query Execution? (Score 1) 162

So what exactly does 'web 2.0' mean? Because I can tell you it's a completely vague term, used to create hype around so many disparate concepts it lost all the meaning it once had. And even if you manage come up with some definition, do you really think the business wonks will understand it / should be responsible for choosing the technology?

Wootery implied nothing about Postgres being incapable database system, just that the 'web 2.0' is a buzzword. That says nothing about Postgres (or rather Postgres-XL, because that's what the website is about). And IMO he's right. Also, the ad hominem arguments are annoying.

BTW Postgres is not a company. It's an open-source project, with a community developing it, so there's no 'chief marketing guru' position to apply for.

Comment Re:next for NoSQL (Score 1) 162

Except that the transactions in MongoDB can touch only a single document. Which kinda makes the whole ACID idea pointless, because that's about consistency of the whole database. Saying "it's ACID, but only within a single document" is a bit like "you can have any color, as long as it's black".

I'm not sure about CouchDB - I know it used the same approach (single-document transactions), but maybe that changed a bit.

One of the absolutely terrible things coming from the whole NoSQL movement is redefinition of existing terms. "Consistency" is a great example of that, "availability" is another one.

Comment Re:If this is anything like MariaDB (Score 3, Informative) 162

Well, yes and no. PostgreSQL had a text-only JSON data type since long time, and was able to index keys using expression indexes. That's nothing new.

The 9.4 improvements are that the (a) JSONB is stored in a binary form, and (b) a lot of ideas from HSTORE data type, plus new ones were implemented. That means that you can create "universal" index without prior knowledge of what keys will be interesting. So then you can ask for data containing arbitrary keys, sets of keys, values, documents etc. See http://www.postgresql.org/docs...

Sure, it's not perfect and the index may get somehow big, but well ...

Comment Re:Probably not Illegal. (Score 1) 417

They can also require web filtering and surveillance software, of course.
In many schools, this kind of software, web filtering (including filtering of proxies and category of SSL-based websites) is ACTUALLY REQUIRED in the US, for many schools to keep funding under various federal programs -- eg E-rate.

I'm not going to pretend I know the US law. Or even UK law, for that matter. IANAL

Sure, there are things that may be tweaked by the school, but the are laws setting the basic boundaries for such modifications.

Well, they are perfectly within their rights to provide a policy of "No laptops allowed past this point", at the door.

I'm fine with "no laptops allowed past this point" policy. Heck, I'm fine even with monitoring the traffic, assuming it's publicly announced. What I'm not OK with is when this happens in secret, without telling anyone.

Anything less is a concession on their part.
In the case of your physical PERSON, they can't require arbitrary concessions, such as body cavity searches without infringing on people's rights.

With laptops however; they can require arbitrary modifications or standards of their choosing, before the laptop is permitted access.

Fully updated, not running an EOL operating system such as Widnows XP, No infections present and working antimalware, would be some common restrictions.

There may be differences between US/UK, and the part of Europe where I live. Here we have "privacy of correspondence" which applies even when I (for example) access my personal email while at work. Or whatever. So no, it's not just about physical person - at least not universally.

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