Netflix, a popular movie and TV show streaming service, is finally being prepared for deployment on Linux.
Paul Adolf, a senior engineer at Netflix posted the following to the Ubuntu Mailing List:
‘Netflix will play with Chrome stable in 14.02 if NSS version 3.16.2 or greater is installed. If this version is generally installed across 14.02, Netflix would be able to make a change so users would no longer have to hack their User-Agent to play. What is the process of getting a new NSS version into the update stream? Or can somebody please provide me with the right contact? Thanks!’
Apparently, there are ways to make Netflix work in Linux if you’re willing to put in the effort, however, i’m sure that this change is still much welcome in the Linux community so people won’t have to struggle with it anymore.
The Linux community has been struggling to get the support of software vendors for years due to the fact that Linux runs on only a fraction of PCs (17% the last time I checked).
The Linux community has been using Wine (a Windows emulator) to run Windows applications on Linux in the mean time, but this doesn’t always work well. Some applications won’t work at all.
Another more solid, reliable, and long-term approach to this problem is the creation of new, stable alternatives to Windows software from scratch, such as The GIMP (an alternative to Adobe Photoshop), Blender (a 3D modelling application), UMPlayer, VLC Media Player, and many others.
This approach is the most reliable because software built for Linux won’t malfunction with every upgrade like Windows software does in Wine.
Wine developers are constantly at work just to keep Windows applications running on Linux.
What Could The Linux Community Benefit From Most Apart From Netflix?
I think that more developers would be helpful. If you are looking for a great cause to donate to, look into Linux alternatives to software under development and help them out (especially video editing software, audio editing software, OS development, and any other open source cause you like.
Monetary donations can help them to contract freelance programmers to help them work through large, complex projects.
These open source and free software causes are all about supporting the people. This applies to open source hardware as well.
Source: Paul Adolf on Ubuntu.
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