[mythtv-users] netflix + myth 0.23

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 8:07 AM, Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com> wrote:
> On 4/8/2010 09:44, Brian Wood wrote:
>>
>> On the plus side, the success of the dedicated hardware units (like the
>> Roku
>> player) should prove to the program suppliers that Linux can "protect"
>> their
>> content as well as any other OS, and that Linux is not just a pirate tool.
>>
>
> No.  Linux systems cannot 'protect' content.  It is impossible, due to being
> 'open source'.  All someone has to do is recompile the source without the
> bits that prevent end user access to the content.  Even if one used binaries
> with the crypto keys built, preventing a simple recompile, the source is
> available to make it easy to find the keys.  Even if one used a closed
> source application, there is no protected video output, so one could just
> capture the output to the X server, and have the uncompressed video.  It
> just won't work.
>
> The reason that little embedded systems can get by is because they often do
> all decoding and playback in a custom hardware chain.  The Linux OS exists
> for bootloading and menu display.  The video and OS never touch.

Technically speaking there isn't a legal reason why a NetFlix Player
on Linux has to be Open Source. The DRM part could be closed source
like the NVidia driver and could even require some sort of encrypted
file system to install it to keep it safer.

Granted, some distros wouldn't include it by default, but users could
still install it.

This ain't gonna happen though, is it? ;-)

- Mark