For those who have been suffering through DRM issues with open source video viewing, the end game on the issue may perhaps be here.

Firefox is going to incorporate a sandboxed DRM handling system that does not involve Silverlight or Adobe Flash running constantly on your machine as the primary translational system -- the browser integral open source DRM identifier number for your device will be generated internal to the browser itself and will supposedly be kept current to the industry requirements.   This separates the officially required portions of the DRM standards and keeps it separated from the additional nonsense requirements tacked on by the major media providers such as Amazon Prime.

(especially since Adobe Flash has shown it will not keep up with Amazon or anything else for very much any more).    

If a "secondary proprietary re-compiler" is needed, it will be generated and run as needed in a sandbox of its very own, not running constantly taking up resources and not screwing up the rest of your machine all the time any more.

This means IF IT IS REQUIRED by the piece of video you are trying to view, a current copy of Silverlight or Flash can be generated in an isolated sandbox apart from your general machine and allowed to do whatever whacky disruptive stuff it thinks it needs to do inside that sandbox without fouling up the rest of your machine.

Why this is still going to be problematical is Amazon Prime who is constantly shuffling their DRM repeatedly and constantly TO FORCE YOU TO BUY A AMAZON TABLET/DEVICE TO BE ABLE TO VIEW YOUR AMAZON CONTENT.  

This little piece of arrogance reminds us of the worst side of Bezos, the side that believes his AMAZON is worthy of being its own operating system/world apart from all other operating system worlds.    And remember, Bezos AMAZON is only currently willing to share with MS, Apple and Roku, but with not with the Android or Linux populations in general.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-and-w3c-eme/



Question then becomes, since Bezos and others DO NOT WANT TO PLAY NICELY WITH ALL OF THE CHILDREN, this new trick only makes it easier for Firefox to fake out whatever moving arbitrary requirements they put on things.   It does not address the "restrictive minded" base issues that keep causing the constant DRM problems with you viewing your paid for streaming materials..  

It means Firefox can make up a customized, up to date sandbox for Amazon, and another one for Netfix, etc. etc. etc.     The sandboxes could then be shared between the open source browsers, which would give a systematic approach to rewarding those DRM players that are more consistent and open from the more troubled & twisted children such as Bezos' AMAZON.  

Bezos would no longer be able to break anybody's elses stuff but his own.

Very quickly, the "open source responsibility" for maintaining these open source sandboxes could fall back on the video source supplier (Amazon would be responsible for maintaining the open source sandbox tool for Amazon Prime).  

Then the onus for "intentionally fouling things up" would go back to the people responsible for creating the foul up, instead of getting blamed on the browser people for "not keeping up".  

The onus would then be localized to the people and products creating it.

AMAZON would then be castigated for not keeping their own open source tool working.



Functionally, nothing will really change.   AMAZON only wants to provide viewing on their own equipment and the American consumer in general is stupid enough to go along with that.  

Interesting point is AMAZON provides (and maintains) a constantly working free iPad app that allows Amazon Prime to run properly on an iPad -- which is one of the major reasons I have an iPad -- everyone's stuff "just works" on an iPad because THEY have to maintain their own app according to Apple's published standards.