

VLC Submits iPad App to App Store - Garbage
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/vlc_submits_ipad_app_to_app_store.php

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ryandvm
Surely they are not really expecting approval?

I can't imagine that Apple would let anything through that weakens the
iTunes/iOS death grip on media playing. Especially something as robust as VLC.

It seems to me that software that allows the iPad to stream movies from _any_
brand media server is a game changer.

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gte910h
3rd Party AppStore developer here.

There isn't a ban on "media playing".

However, there is a ban on GPL licensed apps, as they GPL is incompatible with
the app store terms of use.

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Dylan16807
I suppose, but with GPLv2 there's nothing more than a technicality in the way,
is there? As far as I understand it, the app store agreement prevents you from
taking that particular copy of the app and doing free things with it, but
nothing truly restrictive. You can still get a copy of the source from the
app-maker, and exercise all your normal free software rights.

Then again, saying that makes me feel like I'm missing something. Am I?

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sjs
Apple would be in violation of the GPL for distributing the app with those
restrictions tacked on. If I were them I wouldn't distribute GPL apps either.

They would basically have to special case apps licensed w/ the GPL. Sadly I
doubt it's worth the legal and/or operations costs involved.

I'm not a license snob, whatever works for a project is great (GPL has been
great for Linux). However this is a prime example of why MIT and BSD licenses
are more free than the GPL.

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jackfoxy
Hooray! I hope VLC gets approved. I'm really missing being able to overclock
lectures on the iPad.

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taitems
Damn, I've been working on a web-based version on and off for a while now. I
guess I won't find the time to finish it, especially if this gets approved.

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antidaily
Where would you play videos from? Dropbox or something?

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oiuygtfrtghyju
VLC can do client-server streaming from another copy of VLC. So your desktop
machine can stream your dvd/avi/mp3 collection to the iPad

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th0ma5
and you can do this already, too, right? stream to the ipad by just opening a
transcoded stream?

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Terretta
E.g., Plex, which does it on the fly and is in the app store.

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oiuygtfrtghyju
I think plex only lets you share your iTunes with other iStuff and only if the
iDRM approves.

VLC lets you share iWhateverTheHellYouWant from iWhateverMachine with
iWhateverOS to iWhereverYouWant.

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drivebyacct2
Whaaa? VLC developers spent time making an iOS app when a much more open and
free platform was available? Interesting. I hope Android sees the same love!

Oh come on, it wasn't even a dig on iOS, give me a break with the downmods,
jeez. I was just surprised at their choice considering all thats happened with
them in the past with AOL and what not. I was just genuinely surprised to see
an OSS project with a history of being burned by corporations choose an iOS
device as their first mobile target. But hey, I mentioned Android. Flame away
HN, flame away.

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pederb72
Using your logic VLC shouldn't release a Windows version since Linux is more
open than Windows. I'm sorry, the world just doesn't work like that.

Besides, even with Android NDK it's probably easier to port VLC to iOS than to
Android?

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jbk
VideoLAN chairman and VLC developer here.

This is exactly the point. Porting VLC from MacOS X to iOS is more or less
just a rewrite of the audio and video outputs (sinks). Plus an interface, of
course...

Porting to Android is taking longer and is, of course, on the way...

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drivebyacct2
Cool. Thanks for the reply. Any details on why the Android port is taking
longer or why it's so much easier to port to iOS? Maybe a VLC blog post or
something?

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jbk
iOS is very similar to Mac OS X, where VLC runs already...

Android is very different from usual Linux, using a different libc and
libraries than normal GNU/Linux and requires Java bindings to run...

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drivebyacct2
I'm impressed that Apple has maintained such consistency across the
desktop/mobile operating systems. That is an interesting advantage of iOS that
I pretty rarely see mentioned. Thanks for your thoughts.

