Arch Linux

gajjanag

Member

From: Cambridge, MA

Registered: 2015-05-10

Posts: 17

Website

Firefox 38 EME support

Firefox 38 has landed support for EME (Encrypted Media Extensions), intended for DRM.
However, it seems like Mozilla is creating a new version without the EME support, see
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/12/mozill … m-support/
and the ftp link therein
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org … ases/38.0/, though currently this is win32 only.

I am curious as to what the Arch community thinks about this. For instance, what should the vanilla firefox package contain, and should a split of packages be done, one for EME and one without EME?

---

"Behind every theorem lies an inequality" - A N Kolmogorov

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,331

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

Arch builds from source. I don't think you can build EME support from source. That makes this discussion moot.

gajjanag

Member

From: Cambridge, MA

Registered: 2015-05-10

Posts: 17

Website

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

A search through the codebase for "Encrypted Media" yields a couple of hits, e.g
https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central … ent.h#1192

It seems like they are enabled through a MOZ_EME flag.
The configure script has a section for EME:
https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central … re.in#5325

Thus, even when building from source, one can choose whether to enable EME or not.

---

"Behind every theorem lies an inequality" - A N Kolmogorov

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,606

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

EME itself merely provides a sandbox where a CDM (content decryption module) will run, and you can very well build that from source, in fact you have to explicitly compile with --disable-eme if you don't want it. The question is, will the CDM, which will be a closed blob from Adobe (yeah...) run on every random compile, or will it only run on official Mozilla builds. I read about how this will be handled, but can't remember details anymore, as I don't care much about DRM'd content.

@gajjanag: Considering the Arch build of Chromium contains support for Widevine (the CDM from Google), I doubt there will be two builds of Firefox. It'll be one build that will most likely have EME.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,331

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

Yeah, I was thinking of the CDM itself.

gajjanag

Member

From: Cambridge, MA

Registered: 2015-05-10

Posts: 17

Website

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

I personally don't care for DRM'ed content either. My main concern is to not have Firefox prompting me for any sort of closed blob even if a website wants to serve up DRM'ed content. I would rather have the browser fail than show a prompt, since I might inadvertently click "yes" to the prompt. To me, it seems like the easiest and cleanest solution is to disable EME (as it was in previous versions).

I am not familiar with the technical details of this, but as an end user, I want to have this choice. Any suggestions?

---

"Behind every theorem lies an inequality" - A N Kolmogorov

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,331

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

Yeah, build it yourself from the ABS or make an an AUR package.

Edit: Is this really a concern, though? Will binary extensions be automatically downloaded? Even if they are, you really can't trust yourself to press no?

Last edited by Scimmia (2015-05-14 16:00:08)

gajjanag

Member

From: Cambridge, MA

Registered: 2015-05-10

Posts: 17

Website

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

For me, the costs of maintaining a complex, frequently updated package like Firefox in the AUR outweigh the small benefit of not dealing with CDM prompts. However, I would be happy to use and vote for an AUR package that does this.

@Scimmia - you are absolutely right. I would trust my ability to press no more than my ability to maintain an AUR package .
It is just that in an ideal world (see e.g FSF's stance on this issue https://fsf.org/news/fsf-condemns-partn … anagement), I would have hoped for the opposite situation, i.e a --disable-eme in the official repos, and people selectively enabling EME if they wish via an AUR package.
I now understand why Arch Linux won't do that due to the KISS philosophy, ease of maintenance, etc, and fully respect that.

---

"Behind every theorem lies an inequality" - A N Kolmogorov

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,330

Website

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

This does not apply to linux at all yet.  The EME inclusion was for Windows only:

Implemented Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) API to support encrypted HTML5 video/audio playback (Windows Vista or later only)

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/3 … easenotes/

I'm on the other end of this - I'm looking forward to being able to watch Netflix in Firefox without needing most of the multilib repo installed to use pipelight.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,331

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

chromium is much easier than pipelight...

MisterAnderson

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 285

Re: Firefox 38 EME support

I too want EME support as soon as possible. I love Netflix and would be disappointed if I needed to use an AUR version of Firefox. At the very least there should be the extra EME stuff available in official repos.

I hate DRM too but hey, I'd rather this than pipelight or chromium any day.

---

D: