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Submission + - RMS urges W3C to reject DRM in HTML5 on principle (fsf.org)

gnujoshua writes: In a new article, GNU Project founder, Richard M. Stallman speaks out against the proposal to include hooks for DRM in HTML5. While others have been making similar arguments, RMS strikes home the point that while companies can still push Web DRM themselves, the stance taken by the W3C is still — both practically and politically — vitally important:

[...] the W3C cannot prevent companies from grafting DRM onto HTML. They do this through nonfree plug-ins such as Flash, and with nonfree Javascript code, thus showing that we need control over the Javascript code we run and over the C code we run. However, where the W3C stands is tremendously important for the battle to eliminate DRM. On a practical level, standardizing DRM would make it more convenient, in a very shallow sense. This could influence people who think only of short-term convenience to think of DRM as acceptable, which could in turn encourage more sites to use DRM. On the political level, making room for DRM in the specifications of the World Wide Web would constitute an endorsement in principle of DRM by the W3C. Standardization by the W3C could facilitate DRM that is harder for users to break than DRM implemented in Javascript code. If the DRM is implemented in the operating system, this could result in distribution of works that can't be played at all on a free operating system such as GNU/Linux.


Comment Re:TFS last sentence untrue (Score 5, Informative) 92

I know it says rate-limiting, but from our logs, the accepted rate appears to be 0. We don't have that many users; certainly not enough to trigger a rate limit in the scope of the kind of rate they would be worried about. And while we did not say "lazy" in the original article, but rather expressed our sympathies for having to grapple with the spam problem, this is not an acceptable solution. As other commenters are pointing out, this is essentially shifting the burden to much smaller entities, who now have to respond to their users' complaints. If Google would publicly describe the problem, and the scope of it, and publicly explain what they are *actually* doing, then the rest of us could help find a solution. Right now, this definitely looks like "easiest way out for us, broader principle of federation and workloads of other entities be damned."

Comment Re:Cherrypicking sources (Score 1) 277

Yes, I have the nerve to call studies which do not publish their methodology unscientific. I published mine, which is exactly why others have been able to find issues with it. Some of these issues are valid, and I will be writing a new analysis accounting for those issues. This is how, at least to my understanding, science progresses. I guess you probably didn't listen to my presentation, which is fine, but in it I was very clear that I was presenting these numbers to stimulate further discussion about the issue while being conscious of the framing of the question, and I challenged people to find problems with the numbers.

Comment Re:spending time on opportunities ? (Score 1) 747

I'm glad that you raised disagreement with this, but I think you are downplaying the extent of the connection. From the Foundation FAQ:

Q: What is the difference between the CodePlex Foundation and CodePlex.com?

CodePlex Foundation is an extension of the CodePlex brand established by Codeplex.com. Codeplex.com has not only built a strong community, with more than 10,000 projects now hosted on the site, but has steadily built a recognized brand. CodePlex.com launched in June of 2006 out of a need for a project hosting site that operated in a way that other forges didn't â" with features and structures that appealed to commercial software developers. The next chapter in solving for this challenge is the CodePlex Foundation (Codeplex.org). The Foundation is solving similar challenges; ultimately aiming to bring open source and commercial software developers together in a place where they can collaborate. This is absolutely independent from the project hosting site, but it is essentially trying to support the same mission. It is just solving a different part of the challenge, a part that Codeplex.com isn't designed to solve.

This says clearly that the Foundation was conceived as the "next chapter", and so the name is deliberately the same. RMS's point is that this means we can get some idea of what the Foundation will do based on what the .com has done. It's an independent effort, but supporting the same mission, and the overlap in mission is his point.

Given that this relates to an underlying deliberate similarity and not just a superficial one in name only, I hope you are also arguing for a change in that mission for the Foundation, and not just a name change.

Comment FSF calling on Amazon to free the Kindle (Score 1) 437

As mentioned in the article, the Free Software Foundation is calling on Amazon to release the Kindle's software as free software, and drop the DRM: http://www.fsf.org/news/amazon-apologizes. The Kindle is already a GNU/Linux system running largely free software -- it would be a short step for them to do so, and the only real way to make sure this or something like it doesn't happen again. This is, after all, the 3rd time in a year they have pulled something like this, despite supposedly being sorry each time.

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