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This is my website :) (I did not expect that to come on HN, to be honest) Anyway, the title is, of course, misleading. VLC core, named libVLCcore is LGPL since
by jbk 14y ago
This is my website :) (I did not expect that to come on HN, to be honest)
Anyway, the title is, of course, misleading. VLC core, named libVLCcore is LGPL since last year (I did it too in december) and the wrapper for 3rd party applications libVLC was relicensed too at the same time.
This is different, since most modules of VLC are now LGPL.
We speak about codecs, demuxers, format parsers, protocol accesses, filter and outputs.
And those modules are way more important in terms of contributors and lines of code than the VLC core. In fact, we speak here of 230 people with around 300,000 lines of code, compared to 80 people and 80,000 lines of code for the VLC core.
Of course, from a higher-level point of view, all those playback modules are part of the "core of VLC" :)
- ChuckMcM 14y agoVery nice, so will we see a new VLC app for iOS? I've been carefully syncing and copying my copy to insure it stays on my iPad.
- pretoriusB 14y agoHow does that play with the iOS VLC port? The one that a VLC contributor working for Nokia (Rémi Denis-Courmont) managed to take down, for not being in compliance with GPL?
- jbk 14y agoRémi Denis-Courmont is the biggest contributor of VLC, so far, and he pushed forward the LGPL move... :)
- pretoriusB 14y agoBut, since, LGPL enables the iOS port as an option again, what made RD-C change his mind? A cynic would ask if it has anything to do with not working for Nokia anymore...
- jbk 14y agoAnd a cynic would be wrong. The LGPL move started some time ago and Rémi was still at Nokia and he was pushing for it.
- icebraining 14y agoDo you know if he was against an iOS port? Maybe he was just against violating the license.
- radarsat1 14y agoHow does LGPL enable the iOS port? My understanding of LGPL is that it requires that users be able to switch out the LGPL-licensed code. This implies dynamic linking, not a difficult proposition, but more fundamentally it requires that users are able to access the LGPL code portion, delete it, and replace it with something else. I don't see how any old iOS user can do this without paying a dev fee.
- jbk 14y agoYou could do a proprietary application about libVLC+VLCKit and distribute on the AppStore. And one could still side-load your application.
- paxswill 14y agoI thought that that was the point of contention; that it is not normally possible to sideload software onto iOS devices. If sideloading was possible (hmm, would jailbreaking count?), no biggie, just make the object files available for linking like Sparrow did (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/lgpl.php http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/lgpl.php).
- jbk 14y ago> I thought that that was the point of contention I think not. The issues were mainly 2: - The Apple EULA was applied ON TOP of the GPL, whatever happened. This was clearly incompatible. And this is not resolved with Apple updates on the iTunes ToS. - The Apple ToS did not allowed you to use the App for every use, which is a violation of the GPL §0. This is still an issue today.
- belorn 14y agoCould you explain in a bit more details why you did this move from GPL to LGPL? The blog post did not want to expand on this, and I for one would very much like to hear, from your view, what benefits the project might get from this move. Preferable in practical terms, as "more professional developers around VLC" sound a bit vague and, if that is really the stated goal, will you follow up on this with statistics to show if the license is drawing more professional developers to the project?
- jbk 14y agoWe are not able to enforce the GPL anyway, so let's help companies use VLC and contribute back, so this benefits all users. Competition. AppStores and other crap of the post-PC era. :)
- belorn 14y agookey, so beyond AppStore and theirs rules/eula/requirements and so on, the goal is to increase third-party contributions from companies? I would be very interested to see some data on that, say gathered over a year or two. Licenses decision really need more scientific approach, and if the main desire from choosing a license is to attract more third-party contributions, GPL vs LGPL is an interesting situation. Have you seen a change in third-party contributions from companies for the libVLCcore after the license change? Its not the same type of software as the mods, but would still be interesting in this context.
- jbk 14y ago> okey, so beyond AppStore and theirs rules/eula/requirements and so on, the goal is to increase third-party contributions from companies? Yes > Have you seen a change in third-party contributions from companies for the libVLCcore after the license change? Yes, but most of them asked for more.
- belorn 14y agoCould you give, or point where one might find more details. How many more lines of code from third-party patches? 2x? 5x? 10x? Hows the quality? Are there more donations? If one take a scientific point of view, whats been the practical changes of how third-party contributions? Those details can be very useful for the community of free and open source software, and when deciding licensing for oneself.