Re: Bug#531221: okular: Arbitrarily enforces DRM
+ John Goerzen (Sat, 30 May 2009 19:09:11 -0500):
> I'm CCing this to Debian-devel because I think it speaks to a larger
> issue.
> I just downloaded a PDF, and tried to copy and paste a bit of text
> from it. I used the selection tool, and Okular offered to speak it to
> me, but said "Copy forbidden by DRM."
> pdftotext was able to convert the entire file to text format in an
> instant.
> So what I want to know is: why are people putting code into Debian
> that limits our freedom? Why are people putting such code into KDE?
> And can we please patch it to stop that?
I see it's been pointed out in a comment in your blog post already, but
I'll mention it here for the benefit of those reading along: obeying DRM
is a configurable runtime option in Okular, so it's just a matter of
going to the preferences dialog and unchecking the "Obey DRM" check box.
Now I have no idea why it would default to obeying it (or, for that
matter, why it would have such an option). I'm CC'ing Pino whom I'm sure
will be able to help. (My guess would be that it protects upstream
against some shit or whatever, at least by their reckoning, or the
person that added it in the first place.)
Cheers,
--
- Are you sure we're good?
- Always.
-- Rory and Lorelai
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