
Netflix Continues To Disappoint Linux Users - bkerensa
http://benjaminkerensa.com/2012/09/17/netflix-continues-to-disappoint-linux-users
======
staunch
What's the risk? There's nothing on Netflix that isn't already on The Pirate
Bay.

Wouldn't surprise me if it was a contractual obligation from Microsoft. In the
past they were extremely aggressive in offering incentives and juicy licence
terms for companies that would help push Silverlight.

~~~
mikeryan
The studios place DRM requirements on the content as part of the content deal.
Its not Netflix's call.

~~~
jiggy2011
This doesn't surprise me, but just seems like an obviously flawed way to
prevent piracy.

If you want to prevent your movie from appearing on the pirate bay in a DRM
free format you have to make it so that _nobody_ in the entire world is
capable of recording the stream.

Even if you make sure the stream remains encrypted all the way from the server
to the monitor, at some point it has to be decrypted in order to play. You
only need one guy with the skills to take his monitor apart and modify it to
feed the input into the actual OLEDs into another device. Once that happens
it's game over.

The only way to really win would be prevent consumer playback devices from
actually playing DRM Free content at all and insist that all content is
signed. In essence force every consumer who wants to pirate to make a hardware
modification.

~~~
T-hawk
That last bit has well-accepted precedent: Game consoles. They do exactly
that. Ever since the NES, game consoles have been designed not to play open
content but to verify some sort of signature (not necessarily cryptographic,
could be in the physical media like the NES's lockout chip.) Pirating on a
game console has always required modification; a hardware modchip for older
consoles or a software jailbreaking exploit for newer ones with an operating
system. But the market accepted that just fine. Such a restriction doesn't
perfectly prevent piracy, but is broadly effective.

~~~
chii
Yet, the piracy market for consoles are so large that dedicated pheripheral
sellers (these mod chip sellers) can exist.

This just points to the fact that software is notoriously difficult to keep
safe via DRM, and that people _want_ the content, just not at the price point
that large publishers are selling at, and people _think_ that the price point
should be lower.

~~~
jiggy2011
The amount of piracy of console games is minuscule compared to piracy of
movies , MP3s and PC games. If you force people to jailbreak or hardware mod
their equipment it drops the rate dramatically.

The issue is that the lower price point in the case of piracy appears to be
free. People still pirate $1 iphone apps.

~~~
chii
> If you force people to jailbreak or hardware mod their equipment it drops
> the rate dramatically.

this is a very key quote - it indeed drops the rate of piracy. But does it
increase the profits earned correspondingly? that is, did the anti-piracy
measures contribute positively to profit?

I am unsure what the case is in reality, since its so hard to compare. Most
pirate's intuition is that anti-piracy measures don't increase the profits (or
unit sold, so as not to complicate currency+accounting issues). Companies that
use anti-piracy measures seem to think the exact opposite.

------
jiggy2011
The UK equivalent of Netflix called "Lovefilm" also moved from working fine
under Linux (via Flash) to requiring Silverlight and of course moonlight
doesn't work.

Their reasoning was that Silverlight had better DRM so people couldn't rip the
films. However they also offered a DVD rental service , so you could get any
of the streamable films (plus a load more) delivered through the post at which
point it would be trivial to rip them.

I haven't looked but I'm pretty sure all of the films they offered for
streaming are available as torrents too and probably at much higher quality.

~~~
mmanfrin
> you could get any of the streamable films (plus a load more) delivered
> through the post at which point it would be trivial to rip them.

Quibbling here, physically ripping a DVD is _much_ less trivial than simply
recording a stream.

~~~
Dylan16807
Really? In my experience, while ripping videos from the web is easy, ripping
flash _streams_ is a huge pain. Where a DVD just needs easily available
software and hitting go.

If you know a good way of ripping streams please tell me, wrangling Orbit's
invasive and buggy plugin was the only thing that worked to grab RTMP the last
time I tried.

------
Nate75Sanders
Amazon Instant Video works under Linux...

~~~
rogerbinns
The wikipedia page says it works with Flash whose utility on Linux varies,
otherwise there is a standalone program but it only works on Windows.

------
tfinniga
Here's another theory - maybe it just doesn't make sense financially.

A source-only netflix wouldn't fly. So, they would need to get developers,
packagers, QA, and support for either one or multiple distributions and many
different hardware configurations, not to mention dealing with linux's
plethora of audio subsystems and graphics driver issues.

It's possible to test on every ChromeOS device. It's much more expensive to QA
and support every linux desktop configuration. Perhaps it's just not worth it
because there are so few desktop linux users. The expected income would need
to be much more than paying for linux devs/packagers/QA/support before it is a
good business move.

------
koenigdavidmj
I wonder how much they are saying "this is a small and thus irrelevant user
base", and how much they are saying "this is a dangerous user base". Linux
support manages to get them the sort of user who is least concerned with
intellectual property laws and most likely to have the technical skill to work
around their DRM mechanisms.

~~~
pspeter3
Yet they have it on Chromebook. Why can't they just use that same code and
limit it to Google Chrome?

~~~
acdha
ChromeOS implies a huge pile of system decisions. Imagine the outrage if they
shipped support only for a single distribution or desktop environment!

~~~
pspeter3
But it is already on Chrome OS. It is certainly not ideal to limit it to one
browser, but at least it would get it to linux users faster and they can
improve from there.

~~~
bunderbunder
Without knowing more about the details, we can't assume that it's so simple.

It might be that there is other software beyond Chrome itself that Netflix
relies on in Chromebooks, and that software may or may not play nice with
arbitrary distributions.

Example wild speculation: Netflix for the Chromebooks relies on a kernel
extension for DRM, and they know they wouldn't be able to get the desktop
Linux community at large to swallow that pill.

------
lukejduncan
How many linux users don't have a box (ps3, wii, etc, etc) that DOES have
Netflix on it and is conveniently already connected to a TV? Netflix's lack of
Linux support, and choice of Silverlight, has always confused me but
personally it's everywhere else I actually want it anyways.

~~~
ChuckMcM
This.

Old joke, "Netflix works GREAT on Linux, get a Roku box."

So "Netflix on Linux" is really 'NetFlix on a Linux running on a Laptop.' But
here is the reality, if you make a list ordered by how many people would
benefit of things you could put a Netflix client on, "Linux based laptops"
would be nearly the bottom of the list, right above the Chumby. But if you
made a list of "things we could do to irritate skittish big-content types"
putting out a Netflix client on a Linux based system would be at near top of
the list. That is a killer combination that I doubt will be dealt with soon.

------
jpxxx
Strange, Netflix works fine on Android Linux. What's desktop Linux doing
wrong?

~~~
fingerprinter
That is a horrible phrasing of a question. Talk about inflammatory!

Anyway, to answer your question, it has nothing to do with desktop linux but
rather hardware. Chromebook, most Android devices, Roku etc typically have
hardware DRM enabled that allows Netflix to run on the device.

~~~
jpxxx
Correct. :) I have no tears to shed for this problem. Netflix in 2010:

"Setting aside the debate around the value of content protection and DRM, they
are requirements we must fulfill in order to obtain content from major studios
for our subscribers to enjoy."

If Netflix was that important to desktop linux users, the distros would have
coaxed a Silverlight implementation from MS or worked on the HAL-Flash schism
or done SOMETHING to enable video streaming services to do their legal duty to
their content providers. They didn't, no Netflix for you. Hardware DRM
assistance is helpful, but clearly not required.

------
davidcelis
"I do feel this goes to show why Netflix is taking a continued hit on their
stock price and subscriber base, simply put they lack innovation and are not
catering to major niches such as Linux Users."

Funny, I thought the stock price taking a dive was because of the Qwikster
fiasco. And I thought the falling subscriber base was because of the
separation of streaming and DVD plans paired with a lack of good content that
is available to be streamed.

------
Cieplak
Since Netflix supports android, it seems it should be possible to run the
android application on a linux desktop.

[http://askubuntu.com/questions/104957/is-it-possible-to-
inst...](http://askubuntu.com/questions/104957/is-it-possible-to-install-
androids-apk-file)

However, it may be the case that the display ends up being quite small.

------
wcchandler
How difficult would it be to build out an Android instance with _only_ Netflix
installed? Then you could deploy the instance locally whenever needed... Or
from a business point of view - get an ARM array of servers that can run it.
Then have them launch on demand with user info, and allow people to "remote
in" ?

------
pspeter3
I really don't understand why they are choosing to do this, it just seems like
they are choosing to arbitrarily limit a set of their users. I'd even be
willing to accept that I had to use Chrome and it was an app in the Chrome
store (since they have a Chromebook version)

------
programminggeek
The irony here is that if Netflix supported linux, it would likely be via
Ubuntu only, and then a bunch of linux users with their own favorite blend of
Linux would freak out and it would turn into a potential PR nightmare because
Netflix "isn't open enough" and RMS or others would talk about how evil Netfix
is for not supporting DRM free truly open technologies and so on and so forth.

Also, the people who want Netflix for Linux already can get it on iOS, Android
Xbox 360, PS3, Roku, Windows, Mac, ChromeOS, Apple TV, and on and on and on,
so how many more Netflix subscribers are going to join that haven't already?
Is that going to be enough money to offset the extra support costs as well as
the likely PR nightmare described above?

~~~
jiggy2011
RMS thinks that they are evil already.

If it works on Ubuntu it can probably be ported easy enough. However maybe
they are worried about getting support calls from people running Fluxbox?

------
cockneyupq
They will see the error of their ways

------
mapgrep
The whole concept of "supporting Linux" is odd. Linux is a kernel. As a Mac
user I don't go around asking if people support XNU.

A company like Netflix has to target relatively consistent environments --
operating systems -- so a much more honest question would be to ask if Netflix
will support Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Debian, Mint, etc. In that case, the
question is its own answer ("no, none of those are big enough"). Diversity can
be a weakness just as it can be a strength.

~~~
jiggy2011
Technically true, but when people say "Linux" they usually mean "GNU/Linux"
and usually in the context of a desktop or server.

Once you support one distro you are essentially supporting them all, even if
not officially. Even though Ubuntu is going in it's own direction with Unity
etc pretty much all of the base libs are the same.

I could understand if they said "Yes, we support Ubuntu 12.04 only" in which
case that would basically mean "you can probably get it to work on any distro
under the sun but don't call us about it".

