Netflix to dump Silverlight.

[TeamRocket1233c]

I wonder if this means we'll be able to do Netflix on Ubuntu for once, Netflix ditching Silverlight.

[kurt18947]

How do you propose this happen? DRM systems largely depend on proprietary algorithms with secret keys. The reason Linux doesn't support DRM is because an open-source operating system has no method for reverse-engineering the encryption schemes. If Netflix thought Linux viewers were a large enough audience for its product, it would have released a proprietary Linux player long ago. Evidently they don't see the value in reaching out to Linux users.

I have virtually no knowlege of how DRM systems work. My thinking is that Linux supports things like SSL and VPN which rely on encryption and seem pretty secure. Is DRM 'a different breed of cat'? Linux also supports (to the extent Adobe is willing) Flash which is closed.

[forrestcupp]

How do you propose this happen? DRM systems largely depend on proprietary algorithms with secret keys. The reason Linux doesn't support DRM is because an open-source operating system has no method for reverse-engineering the encryption schemes. If Netflix thought Linux viewers were a large enough audience for its product, it would have released a proprietary Linux player long ago. Evidently they don't see the value in reaching out to Linux users.

Good point. There is absolutely no reason that Linux couldn't support DRM. It's just that the companies that use DRM don't support Linux. The whole point of DRM is to make something that is hard to crack. For that reason, it would have to be ported by the company instead of being reverse engineered. If something like DRM could be reverse engineered by some Linux group that is big enough to back that sort of thing, they would have a lawsuit against them so fast it wouldn't be funny.

[kurt18947]

Good point. There is absolutely no reason that Linux couldn't support DRM. It's just that the companies that use DRM don't support Linux. The whole point of DRM is to make something that is hard to crack. For that reason, it would have to be ported by the company instead of being reverse engineered. If something like DRM could be reverse engineered by some Linux group that is big enough to back that sort of thing, they would have a lawsuit against them so fast it wouldn't be funny.

I imagine they'd have Eric Holder (U.S. attorney general) and his merry band of <whatevers> knocking on the door as well if there were a reverse engineering effort. DMCA and HUGE campaign contributors and all that. It still seems like there ought to be a way to keep everyone satisfied.

[screaminj3sus]

This definitely doesn't guarantee that linux support is coming, but I figure there's a much better chance of that happening with HTML5 than with silverlight.

I really wish netflix would support ubuntu, there's great potential if they did. Imagine how awesome it would be if netflix was integrated with UOA and the dash. Hit super key, search for movie, hit enter, bam watching netflix.

[SeijiSensei]

I have virtually no knowlege of how DRM systems work. My thinking is that Linux supports things like SSL and VPN which rely on encryption and seem pretty secure. Is DRM 'a different breed of cat'? Linux also supports (to the extent Adobe is willing) Flash which is closed.

SSL and other encryption schemes like those in SSH use public standards. They all rely on "public-key" methods for encrypting their traffic. In these systems, each user generates two keys, a "public" and a "private" key, which have an important mathematical relationship. The private keys are kept secret; the public keys are not. To encrypt my traffic, I use the remote's public key and my private key. The remote decrypts the traffic with its private key and my public key. Each side protects the secrecy of its private key, but both can communicate fully.

DRM schemes take entirely the opposite approach. They are all about creating secret methods for encrypting and decrypting traffic that are difficult to break. There is no public methodology involved here; DRM relies on using proprietary methods. In fact, as you suggested, reverse-engineering this scheme would violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, just as methods to break the CSS encryption on DVDs did. You'll notice that it takes a couple of extra steps to get libdvdcss2 in Ubuntu, even if you install restricted-extras.

Adobe itself supports, or rather used to support, Flash in Linux. Ubuntu redistributed Adobe's plugin but took no responsibility for its bugginess. The last release of Flash for Linux contains a notorious bug that turns humans into blue "smurfs" when using NVIDIA hardware and graphics acceleration. Since Adobe won't invest any additional resources into Flash for Linux other than security updates, that problem will never be fixed.

[monkeybrain2012]

The last release of Flash for Linux contains a notorious bug that turns humans into blue "smurfs" when using NVIDIA hardware and graphics acceleration. Since Adobe won't invest any additional resources into Flash for Linux other than security updates, that problem will never be fixed.

Some Nvidia engineer fixed it with a patch in libvdpau. Anyway I don't use flash to watch Youtube (it happened only on Youtube with hardware acceleration enabled if I remember correctly) so I never noticed that.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...70#post2518770