Let me give you a quick rundown of VLC is, for those of you that have no idea what it is. VLC stands for VideoLan Client. Basically the idea behind VLC is that it can play almost everything you throw at it, video and audio. If you have some sort of video that won’t play anywhere else, download VLC (direct link to 1.1.4 32bit version) and try playing it on that thing. It’s been called the Swiss Army Knife of video players by Patrick Norton. It is an open source and free program to download and I highly recommend it!
Well VLC has always been a popular client on the desktop of most PCs, Macs and Linux boxes for years. I will say that if you have any sort of video files that may contain **cough** **cough** movies or **cough** **cough** tv shows, this is the player you want to play them. Even the new rage of .mkv files has been able to implemented into the compatible codecs that are playable on this thing. Well, VLC wanted to move onto the iOS platform so that could expand its horizons, only problem is that VLC by itself (the company that wrote the program) couldn’t because it is a non-profit organization and therefore could not get a developer status for the Apple world. So VLC went to Applidium and asked them to distribute the app under it’s name, and they said YES! So Applidium took the code and ported it over for the iPhone.
So now we have an app that can play unknown file formats to the stock iPhone, and we can have some of those movies that we have purchased and made digital copies of, and put them on our phones along side the iPhone formatted .m4v, .mp4 or .mov files. OR, for some of us who don’t have a DVR and miss shows because we don’t subscribe to cable, and the show isn’t available on the network website, Hulu or iTunes (Big Bang Theory, I’m looking at you); we may go elsewhere to find the show that we love. So the iPhone is now a better smartphone because it can play all sorts of formats, like its competition! So iPhone users everywhere (well newer devices) rejoice!
But wait, it seems we have a dissenter among the ranks! It seems that the developer of the VLC app, Rémi Denis-Courmont, had sent papers to Apple citing copyright infringement. Basically saying that the app VLC is released under the GPLv2, and it should be free of any “locks” that Apple store distributes with it’s apps. So the company that wrote the app, asked for HELP to GET ON THE IPHONE, that company helps and it gets there, then you go an KICK THEM IN THE MOUTH!!!!!! Are you freaking kidding me????? If you go onto read the papers, Rémi goes on to blame Applidium for their involvement as well, as they knew that DRM exists, but were going to release the app as FREE in the App Store. So it is still FREE!!! So the only problem is that the app is still “locked” into your iTunes account, but its FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!
This developer is completely retarded. I understand his stance, but he is biting at nibbles here and making a mountain out of a mole hill!!! They have made the iPhone a better platform for it, but because he wants to be nit picky on the details, we may soon see the app get pulled all together because Apple doesn’t want to have to deal with all of the debacle that this guy is creating. Apple is basically just an innocent bystander, and has all rights to pull the app, all thanks to this idiot.
The only thing I can find on this guy, is the email address [vlc-devel@videolan.org], someone please comment below if you can find something else and tell this guy to back off!!!!
UPDATE:
Rémi Denis-Courmont
remi at remlab.net
http://www.remlab.net
http://fi.linkedin.com/in/remidenis
via [ArsTechnica] [Boy Genius Report] [Engadget]
