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Native Netflix Support Is Coming To Linux
sfcrazy writes: Native support for Netflix is coming to Linux, thanks to their move from Silverlight to HTML5, Mozilla and Google Chrome. Paul Adolph from Netflix proposed a solution to Ubuntu developers: "Netflix will play with Chrome stable in 14.02 if NSS version 3.16.2 or greater is installed. If this version is generally installed across 14.02, Netflix would be able to make a change so users would no longer have to hack their User-Agent to play." The newer version of NSS is set to go out with the next security update.
When will it work in Seamonkey and Firefox; that is what I care about, Chrome's interface sucks! and I don't want to run two browsers.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Except... I just took a look at instantwatcher.com yesterday to see what was trending, and their movie selection is still shit. There was a time years ago when that list would be full of recognizeable indy and blockbuster movies, at least ones that I recognized and would like to watch. Now I see a few but I have zero desire to reactivate that account. I would have been all over this a couple years ago. I'm writing this while running the latest Linux Mint btw.
It almost seems like an accident, though. They need to move to HTML5 because Microsoft supports its technologies like high school students support their relationships.
It's just a coincidence that HTML5 also broadens deployment targets a little.
Accommodating Netflix is often cited as a reason for pushing DRM into HTML5, but this is a fallacy. Leaving aside one's opinion of Netflix, or even the general existence of DRM, it's perfectly possible to have the big DRM companies to solve their problems by using a privately negotiated addition to the HTML5 standard. There's no reason to put it into HTML5.
Many lovers of free software have been pushing for open standards for years, but now we're headed to a situation where someone can request a HTML5-compliant DRM implementation. When we say "use open standards!", they'll reply they're using HTML5. And free software is frozen out completely.
What can one do? Well, the least one can do is sign FSF's petition:
https://www.defectivebydesign.... ...and spread the word that we don't want DRM in W3C stanardards.
Help build the anti-software-patent wiki
Hopefully this will allow a good XBMC client. Would love to be able to watch netflix seemlessly within XBMC.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I don't understand the fascination with entertainment. As an open source developer, I stick to my morals when it comes to software licensing. I'm proud to say that I've never WILLINGLY used a proprietary piece of software. Whenever the family wants to watch Netflix, I explain the implications that closed software has on a society and the problem is solved. My home network also blocks iPhones from connecting to it. Whenever someone asks for my wifi password, I tell them that Apple's proprietary system doesn't work with my faster network and go on to show them my Android phone and explain the benefits beyond a bigger screen. I remember at university whenever they required Windows 98 for a project and I had a nice chat with the CS chair about that, too.
In short, the only benefit to Netflix is the opportunity to educate people that would otherwise never know the power of open source.
Its also a general issue of browser plugins dying out. Silverlight and Flash had a reason when they were created. The web didn't support the things people wanted to use it for. Browsers were immature, and every browser and every version of a browser rendered different results. In the past decade, the browser vendors and w3c have worked hard to create an unified standardized platform to work on. With this platform, plugins are just obsolete. Even today they are a major cause for browser crashes. With IE11, even microsoft has added a serious contribution.
Drat, now I can't complain about how all the big businesses hate linux desktop users.
Big business doesn't hate Linux desktop users. Linux user dollars are just as useful as Microsoft user dollars. Its just that there are so few Linux dollars available that its not worth big businesses time. If Linux offered a viable market they would be happy to extract dollars from it. Don't confuse a rational economic choice with hate just because you are bitter over a perceived slight.
Big business in fact loves Linux. It has relieved them of the need to implement their own Unix incarnations, or license expensive Unix incarnations from others. Big business basically funds Linux development these days, and directs it through such support. Long gone are the days that Linux was hobbyist developed and directed. Linus is far down the list of top kernel contributors these days, not even in the top 100.
It almost seems like an accident, though. They need to move to HTML5 because Microsoft supports its technologies like high school students support their relationships.
12 years for Win XP.
However, Silverlight is already out of support. It didn't even make 3 years of support. I think the big thing that did it in was also the same thing that MS tried to show it off with - the Olympics on-line broadcasting in the US. Too many restrictions and it didn't go anywhere. NBC left it behind shortly after; an there has been zero large deployments of it since (at least any where near that scale).
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)