> I hold that implementing DRM is what doomed them

Then again, if Firefox had refused to implement DRM, I'd probably have switched to Chrome by now, so there's that.

I'm really not a fan of DRM, but I don't think it's fair to blame Firefox for doing what probably a huge part of their user base demands, especially given their pretty dire usage stats. Sometimes, there's wisdom in knowing which battle to pick.

You might want to copy-paste the URL for this one, or find another way to not send a referer HTTP header.

I don't get why implementing DRM support is the "original" sin. The DRMd content is playable in basically all modern browsers, generally at a lower quality level than what one can get via "native" apps that implement DRM in a more "secure" manner.

What would have happened if mozilla fought (and won) this DRM battle?

At best, the same content at its lower quality levels would have been playable in the browser (i.e. non in a non DRM manner), but the DRM would have still existed at the higher levels for the "native" apps to use.

At worst, it wouldn't have been playable at all in the browser.

And perhaps somewhat in the middle, it would have been playable in the browser, but at a lower quality level than what is available now.

I'm not sure how this is fundamentally different than allowing patent encumbered codecs in (i.e. either things wont work in browser, or they will work worse in browser). One might argue that its not, but that undermines then the concept of "original sin" as the patent encumbered codecs occurred first.

I also don't get the argument that someone would have "hacked" in support being an argument for not including it. If someone could hack in support, and that version would be come the version people use (instead of the ideologically pure version), what exactly does one's ideological purity get? "No one" (a bit of hyperbole) is using that version.

i believe jwz is 100% correct with this:

  In my humble but correct opinion, Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only:

  1. Building THE reference implementation web browser, and
  2. Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.
  3. There is no 3.

> Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only: (1) Building THE reference implementation web browser, and (2) Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.

I think (1) would more properly be W3C's job, although these days, they probably wouldn't do a good job either (although they did some in the past, and Line Mode Browser has some good features (including a few that modern browsers usually lack), but unfortunately it doesn't work very well).

Why does this link to a picture now? Or is that just for people who use Firefox?

In either case, it's insultingly immature to have that picture be what the link goes to.

> The on-paper existence of Firefox as a hypothetical competitor kept the Federal wolves at bay, and that's all Google cared about.

On-paper prophylactics being the best prophylactics, of course.