Mixing open and closed source

[Svartalf]

I think the content provider position is that they don't view *you* as a thief, it's the other guy

Unfortunately, unless you're one of them, you're "the other guy"... After all, if you're not paying (and paying, and paying, and...), you're stealing from them- even if it's all legal and on the up and up.

Seriously, this is a chicken-and-egg situation right now. OEMs are starting to get more interested in Linux, and one of their big questions will be whether BD playback is important for their products. If the decision is "yes", then one or more player apps would probably show up fairly quickly. Without an obvious market, though, it's not worth it for the player app vendors to make a releaseable product.

Heh... The other route is to get the media companies to wise up on DRM in the first place. Not that I see the latter that I mentioned happening in the near future.

Anyhow, my take is this... If it were as simple as software players, John, we wouldn't BE having the conversation we're currently having on the subject- the DRM would be a seperate piece of the accelerator and wouldn't be intermeshed with the video decode portions, etc.

[Svartalf]

It's a totally broken system, but it will continue until the hardware vendors finally wake up to the fact that they will have to stand up to the content companies and by doing so, protect the consumer. It used to be that government was in the business of protecting consumers, but that went away with the exponential growth of corporate lobby power.

It'll continue until either that or the consumer decides to start opting out of the whole affair.

They have the "power" to do these things because we keep handing them the money to do it and people keep buying into it or contributing to the network effects that are brought about by either buying it or infringing it.

Just Say No. I have.