Slashdot Mirror
Kickstarted Firefox OS HDMI Dongle Delayed, DRM Support Being Added
An anonymous reader writes: You may recall last September when Mozilla and a new company named Matchstick announced a Kickstarter project for a new device that would compete with Google's Chromecast. It was an HDMI dongle for streaming media that runs on Firefox OS. They easily quadrupled their $100,000 funding goal, and estimated a ship date of February, 2015. Well, they emailed backers today to say that the Matchstick's release is being pushed back to August. They list a few reasons for the delay. For one, they want to upgrade some of the hardware: they're swapping the dual-core CPU for a quad-core model, and they're working on the Wi-Fi antenna to boost reception. But on the software side, the biggest change they mention is that they're adding support for DRM. This is a bit of a surprise, since all they said on the Kickstarter about DRM was that they hoped it would be handled "either via the playback app itself or the OS." Apparently this wasn't possible, so they're implementing Microsoft PlayReady tech on the Matchstick.
I am so disappointed in the open source community. It's like they don't care about the very foundation this community was built on. They don't care about users freedom what-so-ever. All they care about is market share. If I wanted to use Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X or Google Chrome I'd have just bought that instead. I've got a system already running DRM-free, but unfortunately with adobe flash. I'm trying to move AWAY from that crap not towards it.
It's called a PC. Hook it up to the TV (or receiver if applicable) and the network. Play anything video you want. Play any audio you want. Access the full internet. Play games. Do all the fucking things. Laugh at DRM. Torrent to your heart's content.
There is no substitute.
The open source movement was started to never raise a user's software freedom as an issue. Read the FSF's essays (older essay, newer essay) on how open source differs from free software and you'll get a very clear explanation of how open source's goal to speak to business means accepting proprietary software and whatever other anti-user stuff businesses want to implement with proprietary software (DRM, spyware, back doors, patent traps, etc.). Mozilla's partnering with Adobe, the Linux kernel accepting and distributing proprietary software as part of the project (code which GNU Linux-libre removes), and Mono developers celebrating Microsoft's releasing .NET software under the MIT X11 license without acknowledging the danger of Microsoft's patent promise are just a few examples of how the philosophical differences between the older ethically-minded free software movement and the younger developmental methodology-focused open source movement play out on the ground.
Digital Citizen