6 ms·
Parts of VLC are now re-licensed under the LGPL
- JoshTriplett 15y agoThe article fails to mention why this change happened, and what motivated it.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- keeperofdakeys 15y agoPresumably because developers wanted, or VLC wanted developers to be able to use libvlc and libvlccore in their programs without being forced to use the GPL.
- albertzeyer 15y agoSome more interesting information: http://www.videolan.org/press/lgpl.html http://www.videolan.org/press/lgpl.html This change was motivated to match the evolution of the video industry and to spread the VLC engine as a multi-platform open-source multimedia engine and library. Maybe another motivation was the licensing problem with the Apple App Store. This should be resolved with LGPL. (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/no-gpl-apps-for-apples-app-store/8046 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/no-gpl-apps-for-apples...)
- jbk 15y agoApple Store was not the motivation: it requires the change of license of way more code than just libVLC, notably most of the decoders and demuxers modules, and this is not yet done. Having more people using libVLC is important for us, though...
- forrestthewoods 15y agoIs it possible to use LGPL on iOS to begin with? I've seen lots of debate on the subject but never a concrete answer. The requirement for users to be able to update to a newer version of the library has been the sticking point. I've sent a few e-mails to the FSF asking for clarification but have not gotten an answer. :(
- etix 15y agoWe're not even sure right now, we need advice from a lawyer.
- jbk 15y agoFirst, the problem is not iOS, but the AppStore. GPL and LGPL are totally fine with iOS. About the AppStore, the issue is mainly that it does not allow shared-objects, as far as I know, and makes it hard to replace parts of the code. However, IIRC, AppStore allows Frameworks. So, if a Framework is LGPL, and therefore weakly- linked, it might be just fine. But, yes, it is normal that the FSF does not answer, since this is a complex issue.
- forrestthewoods 15y agoGot it. I don't know of a way for end users to replace frameworks with a newer version so it seems unlikely. Was there ever any discussion of going to an even more open license such as MIT/BSD?
- jbk 15y agoNope. We didn't even discussed about it. We were GPL. We want other people to use the Library, so we went L-GPL, since this was the simplest solution and the more respectful of the spirit of old developers.
- zbowling 15y agoThis isn't really correct. When you say AppStore you have to make a distinction between Mac and iOS. As a platform, iOS doesn't allow you to bundle any dynamically linked libraries with your application (so everything everyone ships on iOS is statically linked). You can dynamically link system libraries though. Since they don't allow you to download and execute any code not shipped with the app, this hasn't been a big issue (except with trying to use LGPL code and to port apps that are already configured around dynamic loading or use different processes to isolate functionality). Now Mac apps fully allow dynamically linked libraries bundled with your app (even with sandboxing enabled). There are fewer restrictions on the Mac AppStore in this respect. Like for example, plugins are fully allowed and supported. Code added to the app after the fact is fine (as long as the advertised core in the app store is there without downloading additional code). On this, working with LGPL restrictions are little more plausible. A framework is basically a bundle of dynamic libraries and headers in a package. Frameworks for that reason are no different than dynamic libraries, so your usage of the term here and false distinction from "shared-objects" is incorrect here. LGPL requires that you allow the user to be able replace the LGPL library out completely and that you release the source to the library if you, the user, who I distributed a binary copy from, requests it. This is just not possible on iOS with static linking of course, but it is possible on Mac OSX. The bigger issue is that Apple is the "distributor" of the app and not the developer that gave the copy to Apple. If I wanted to request LGPL code, I would have to contact Apple because I obtained the application from them not the developer that gave them a copy. Apple doesn't have a facility for this.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- hartror 15y agoFantastic, in a recent review of media libraries I did libvlc looked very attractive. However the lack of LGPL prevented its inclusion in the final selection which was a shame. Now of course we are 6 weeks down the track with a different library but we're a while off feature complete and if libvlc can do everything we need . . . Decisions decisions.
- ldesegur 15y agoVLC is the biggest POS I have ever installed on my Mac (as far as I can remember.) Who cares about licensing and streaming when the app is not even able to keep with video playback on latest hardware. What a joke! Hideous UI, buried options (try removing color or reizing subtitles), even worse: skipping frames while zero tasks running on latest i7 with 8GB RAM and 7.2K HD (I've checked with top) !!! What a crap. So I said: VLC, go away! I switched to MPlayer and all of those issues went away from that very moment. Good riddance.
- Maxious 15y agoThe problem with VLC on OSX is nobody wants to be the maintainer.
- ldesegur 15y agoI browsed the net so much trying to fix these problems and never heard about this situation with Mac OS X. You got people out there who probably could contribute if they knew. Are you sure about this? The Mac OS X port is so bad, I would encourage VLC to scrap it until they can fix it, instead of giving false hopes to users.