--- title: Why HDCP support in Weston is a good thing | daily.dev description: Pekka Paalanen, a Weston maintainer at Collabora, argues that adding HDCP support to the Weston Wayland compositor is justified on both technical and economic... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-hdcp-support-in-weston-is-a-good-thing-ncdgb10j2 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why HDCP support in Weston is a good thing | daily.dev og:description: Pekka Paalanen, a Weston maintainer at Collabora, argues that adding HDCP support to the Weston Wayland compositor is justified on both technical and economic... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-hdcp-support-in-weston-is-a-good-thing-ncdgb10j2 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ncDGb10J2.png og:image:alt: Why HDCP support in Weston is a good thing og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why HDCP support in Weston is a good thing **[Collabora Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/collabora)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Pekka Paalanen, a Weston maintainer at Collabora, argues that adding HDCP support to the Weston Wayland compositor is justified on both technical and economic grounds. HDCP is a hardware-level encryption feature for video output; supporting it in FOSS software does not restrict user freedoms because the compositor can always be modified to ignore or lie about protection status. Economically, HDCP support makes Weston more attractive to commercial product vendors, which drives more upstream investment and benefits the broader community. Technically, the Linux DRM subsystem requires real userspace consumers for any new kernel UAPI, and Weston serves as that reference implementation to validate the HDCP 2.2 UAPI and the accompanying Wayland protocol extension. As of Weston 7.0.0, the Wayland protocol extension for HDCP has landed upstream, while the DRM backend UAPI usage followed post-release. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Does adding HDCP support to Weston or a Wayland compositor restrict user freedoms? No. HDCP support in Weston is purely a hardware feature toggle — software like Weston does not change how it drives the display when HDCP is active. The Wayland protocol extension lets a client request protection, but the compositor is free to lie about it with no way for the client to detect this. A user can even patch Weston to always report protection as disabled. _Developers working on Wayland compositors track FOSS policy debates like this on daily.dev._ ### Why does the Linux DRM subsystem require real userspace consumers for new UAPI, and how does Weston satisfy that requirement for HDCP? Linux kernel UAPI is permanent — once released and used by any program, it can never be broken or removed. To prevent poorly designed interfaces from becoming a permanent maintenance burden, the DRM subsystem requires all new UAPI to have real userspace consumers, not just test programs. Weston serves as that reference consumer for the HDCP 2.2 UAPI, and its review process already prompted changes such as adding an event for HDCP status changes. _Engineers navigating Linux kernel UAPI design constraints find relevant discussions surfaced on daily.dev._ ### What was the HDCP support status in Weston 7.0.0? In Weston 7.0.0, the Wayland protocol extension for HDCP had already landed upstream, meaning Weston was internally prepared to handle protected content. However, the DRM backend code that actually enables HDCP in hardware via the kernel UAPI had not yet merged into 7.0.0 and landed in a subsequent merge request (MR 48) after the release. _Weston and Wayland release tracking is easier when compositor news flows through daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Weston 16.0 Compositor Released With HDR Improvements, Vulkan Fixes](https://daily.dev/posts/weston-16-0-compositor-released-with-hdr-improvements-vulkan-fixes-l4sfjkkcj) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Linux 7.4 DRM Infrastructure Better Supporting HDMI 2.0 With New Helpers](https://daily.dev/posts/linux-7-4-drm-infrastructure-better-supporting-hdmi-2-0-with-new-helpers-x2yp9g7w8) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [I held onto X11 longer than I should have, and switching to Wayland fixed these things I didn't know were broken](https://daily.dev/posts/i-held-onto-x11-longer-than-i-should-have-and-switching-to-wayland-fixed-these-things-i-didn-t-know-72cnc7fro) · XDA Developers · 5 upvotes · 0 comments - [Wayland's Weston 16 Alpha Brings HDR Improvements, Vulkan Renderer Fixes](https://daily.dev/posts/wayland-s-weston-16-alpha-brings-hdr-improvements-vulkan-renderer-fixes-bnkh3gomy) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-hdcp-support-in-weston-is-a-good-thing-ncdgb10j2) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why HDCP support in Weston is a good thing","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-hdcp-support-in-weston-is-a-good-thing-ncdgb10j2","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-hdcp-support-in-weston-is-a-good-thing-ncdgb10j2"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:57:09.739Z","dateModified":"2026-08-11T09:43:13.494Z","description":"Pekka Paalanen, a Weston maintainer at Collabora, argues that adding HDCP support to the Weston Wayland compositor is justified on both technical and economic...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c4c0b5a03e5695db441fcf41bf1b31f9?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c4c0b5a03e5695db441fcf41bf1b31f9?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Collabora Blog","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Collabora Blog","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--ZGZ0FjqS--/f_auto,q_auto/v1786438306/logos/collabora?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/collabora"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-hdcp-support-in-weston-is-a-good-thing-ncdgb10j2","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"linux","timeRequired":"PT8M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Collabora Blog","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/collabora"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Why HDCP support in Weston is a good thing"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-hdcp-support-in-weston-is-a-good-thing-ncdgb10j2#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Does adding HDCP support to Weston or a Wayland compositor restrict user freedoms?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No. HDCP support in Weston is purely a hardware feature toggle — software like Weston does not change how it drives the display when HDCP is active. 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