
The one who kept VLC free - elorant
https://www.welcometothejungle.co/en/articles/kempf-interview-vlc-videolan
======
jbk
OK, so, this is me talking.

This is an old interview that resurfaces lately (no idea why), and it was done
by a HR company, and they did a lot of cuts. So, it is far from being
technically accurate, and some parts are quite weird.

Clearly not for the HN crowd, tbh.

I dislike those kind of interviews, because they focus on one person (people-
isation trend that we see also in startups) while VLC was done by a
collective. It is sure that I'm the person that spent the most time on VLC and
other VideoLAN projects than anyone else, but the work is a collective one.

Yes, it is true that I refused a ton of money to either sell the trademark and
domain-name, or to include adware/spyware in the Windows installer.

(inb4 mpv, mpc-hc, potplayer is better...)

~~~
300bps
Not ignoring the downsides you point out in the article, this line alone makes
it worth the read:

 _Sure, more money would be fun, but most of the people I know who have more
money are annoying._

~~~
jbk
Yes, I truly believe so. With a tiny bit of exaggeration, of course, but the
idea is here.

~~~
realty_geek
Brilliant!! Just for that I'd love you but you also happen to be an awesome
individual.

------
TecoAndJix
When i was much younger, my friends and I use to joke that you could take a
handful of mud, put it in the CD tray, and VLC would open and play the file.
Thank you so much VLC team for all you have contributed (and continue to
contribute)!

~~~
Pigo
Anybody who has every known the pain of running RealPlayer, knows what a
Godsend VLC was. A free player that just works and is simple to use, it put
those companies that didn't truly offer anything on ice.

~~~
ryandrake
I don't think a lot of younger folks appreciate the pain we had to go through
back in the day to just play a video file on a Windows 95 PC. There were a
handful of media players out there and each would only play 1-2 formats...
poorly. Want to play AVIs? Windows Media Player. Want to play QuickTime files?
Gotta go get QuickTime. Want to play Real format? Download RealPlayer.

So if you downloaded a random video from the web and want to play it, you need
to figure out what player you need to get in order to play it. Back then, a
lot of stuff from the web was garbage, corrupted data, named incorrectly, .mpg
files that were actually AVI format, etc. So once you found the right player,
you had to worry about whether it would play properly with your PC's video
card. There were flaky video cards and not all manufacturers had drivers that
worked. Then, if the downloaded file was corrupted in any way, chances are the
official player would throw its hands up and refuse to play it. Then, once you
actually found the right player and verified that it could play the file back,
you were still stuck with that player's horrible UI and feature set.

There were brave souls who would download these "codec packs" from super-shady
web sites, to act as plug-ins to Windows Media Player, since Microsoft
couldn't manage to ship working video playback out of the box for anything but
AVI. God knows what else those codec pack installers put on your system.

And reliably playing video directly in your browser? LOL, that would be for
another 10 years or so with YouTube.

VLC was a huge breath of fresh air! Maybe it's not so vital now, since proper
video playback is "table stakes" on any platform. You can play any video now
with one line of Python, right? But we did sorely need it decades ago.

------
Excel_Wizard
I have a question that is more likely to be answered here and now than at any
other opportunity I've had before-

For a long while now, VLMC has been a work-in-progress. It is a video editor
being made by the same organization as VLC. I've been eagerly anticipating
having this as a free/open source video editing tool that I can trust will be
available in the long term.

I haven't seen any evidence that it isn't vaporware in a long time. So to
those in the know- when can we expect to see VLMC finished?

[https://www.videolan.org/vlmc/](https://www.videolan.org/vlmc/)

~~~
jbk
> So to those in the know- when can we expect to see VLMC finished?

No clue. Noone seems to care enough.

~~~
whatshisface
The last commit on the master branch was in 2017:
[https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlmc/commits/master](https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlmc/commits/master)

That's a real shame because there are lots of people who would really like to
see a good open source video editor. Blender's built-in NLE works but it isn't
as well-developed as VLMC could be (it's not the main focus of a 3D modeling
program). I think Natron lost its main developer around that time as well.
It's as if we almost had a broad revolution in open source video editing, but
it petered out before hitting 1.0.

------
SaturateDK
I don't understand the "When a mistake becomes a genius move" part... cool
that is was a mistake, but I feel like there's missing something, how was this
mistake made? What was the mistake?

~~~
jbk
OK, there are a few things that were done in VLC for reasons that could be
puzzling or had unintended excellent consequences. Those are not really
mistakes, per se.

I can speak about 3 of them:

1) the one mentioned in the interview, where, when VLC was ported to Windows
and Mac OS X, instead of using the system codecs, they used the linux-way and
bundled the dependencies. It was supposed to be temporary, and we would use
the system codecs. This means that we control better our decoders and demuxers
than other traditional players, and we did not require codec-pack. That became
very popular for VLC.

2) The cone was a temporary icon (and a student joke), and it is sooooo weird
for a player, that this became a huge brand because it is so recognizable.

3) The code was split in a lot of modules, to help speed up the compilation
time, of the project. That made the code way easier to extend or port to other
platforms. Indeed, for example, a lot of modules don't need a lot of
maintenance, because they just work. And you can add features or new OS,
without understanding the core.

There are 2 other technical reasons that helped VLC getting popular, but those
were planned.

The interview is too short to explain all this.

~~~
alecmg
Do you know how Media Player Classic solved the same problem?

I definitely remember the struggle with codec packs, then a breth of fresh air
when ffmpeg codecs would solve most formats, and then just like that
forgetting all codec issues by using MPC.

~~~
icebraining
Media Player Classic usually came in the same installer as a bundle of codecs
(like K-Lite), so you likely installed the two at once, but the model is still
different from VLC, in that the codecs get independently installed into the
system media framework, not embedded in the player.

------
bstar77
As much as I love VLC, them blowing off the lack of UI polish is why I have a
love/hate relationship with it. For instance, VLC still forces you to kill the
process when it can't find all of the files in a playlist (if you deleted them
from your desktop). When you restart the app, if you hit play you will have
the same problem. This happens to me all the time. It's a shame because it
would not take much to address all of the nitpick issues I have with it, but
there seems to be no interest.

~~~
nothis
The story of all idealistic open source software, same with Gimp, which is
unusable for professional work. Them using the word "beautiful" to describe a
well designed UI is telling and it really is an attitude problem among
programmers.

100,000 hours spent on programming the underlying features, 0 hours on
actually making it usable.

~~~
justinjlynn
> Gimp, which is unusable for professional work

That which is asserted without evidence may be dismissed wihlthout evidence -
or, in terms which may be more paletable to some: lol, no u.

I use it every day for professional work, so, yeah no.

> 100,000 hours spent on programming the underlying features, 0 hours on
> actually making it usable.

Clearly you meant to say "0 hours spent learning it" there, right?

~~~
lostgame
No, before GimpShop, I’d argue Gimp has had the worst native UI/UX I’ve used
next to Blender, and I mostly do UI/UX for a living.

Bizarre keyboard shortcuts, awful ‘stay-on-top’ window behaviour when tabbing
between applications. ‘Copy’ copies the inversion of the selection by default.
Dragging a selection drags _the rest of the image_. The default behaviour of
most tools is inverse to any previously established behaviour.

I’ve used Gimp thousands of times over 15-some years, in some cases for
professional projects, and under the hood it is very good, but for many years
it’s UI/UX made it literally the most bottom rung tool I would possibly choose
to use for graphics manipulation - only when I absolutely had to. (I remember
using Gimp in between the PowerPC -> Intel transition, where CS2’s performance
on my Intel Mac Pro was worse than my iBook, and Gimp had a Universal Binary
before Adobe did...)

I _learned_ GIMP, through tooth and nail, and, knowing it well, I can still
say through and through, especially historically, Gimp has been nothing short
of a mess to use. I’m still not used to the idea that selecting and dragging
something moves _the rest of the image, not the selection itself._

I don’t _want_ to _learn_ to _make an exception_ for Gimp as opposed to every
other graphics application on the planet I’ve used since MS Paint, and I am
certainly not the only individual criticizing particularly the glaring UX
issues within Gimp.

Now, Blender, I’ve tried to take a dozen or so YouTube tutorials, and read
dozens of articles on, and it just makes me want to hurl my MacBook Pro across
the room every time. I was never able to accomplish anything serious in
Blender the way I did with Gimp, which is why I put Gimp as the second worst
UI/UX I’ve ever tolerated.

~~~
ddingus
I tend to learn high value software. At this point, there have been so darn
many UX paradigms... OK fine.

Unless there is an actual use bug, like things do not work, for high value
software, it pays to just work the thing the way it works.

All improvements welcome, of course. And the interesting there is I hope they
are good, not just a pretty pass, or rearrange. That takes time to remap. It
is nice when it is time well spent.

I tend to give a wide berth to high value tools I get to use gratis.

Perhaps a better UX can be funded somehow.

~~~
lostgame
Funding good UX would be a huge step, I think, I personally pay my CC
subscription, because I use PS every day constantly for my work, easily make
far over and above the subscription cost using the software, and it’s useable
- I unfortunately literally mean that Gimp makes me actively frustrated to
use.

‘Selecting selects the opposite’, is, to me, a use bug, among with many other
designers and developers (a quick Google search confirms this).

I wish I had the time myself to go in and look at it, I really do. I’m sure
it’s the same for a few folks. I love and support FOSS and I wish I could get
behind GIMP like I can VLC.

But VLC managed to make itself a daily driver, even from this interview’s
description, by being _usable_.

Gimp isn’t usable unless I’m going to dedicate myself to it. Functionally,
there’s no reason I can’t use it and Photoshop interchangeably for the same
task.

But when that same task takes me two or three times longer because I’m
fighting with the UX, and design time is money, Adobe can unfortunately take
my money for now.

~~~
ddingus
Yeah, but you know what it does. So deal and flow? That is precisely what I
do.

Most of us have seen it all done a bazillion ways. I go all the way back to
floppies, TV for a monitor and separate application and data disks.

Even a lame UI is presenting me with fast, potent tools!

If there is value there, the learning follows, then stuff gets done, next. It
is hard the first few times. Easier after that. Almost no worry now. "How does
this one do it?" K, next, done.

Hard to complain about pretty great tools I can use, modify, etc. for a song
and small investment in how the tool works.

Or don't, right?

Adobe is happy for your money, and parting with it is worth more than some
time sorting GIMP out.

No worries.

------
jrochkind1
How do the developers that work on VLC get paid?

Unrelated, I found this statement (probably a mis-quote by the journalist)
amusing:

> Because it was done as a student project, it is a very modular program and
> it is very easy to add a new feature.

So many people have found it challenging to make complex software modular and
easy to add new features -- turns out, all we need to do is get _students_ to
create the projects, and then they'll be so! :)

~~~
Avamander
> So many people have found it challenging to make complex software modular
> and easy to add new features -- turns out, all we need to do is get students
> to create the projects, and then they'll be so! :)

Get a student who could be a really good software archidect create the
foundation basically. I think it's a small amount of people who could do such
things.

~~~
jrochkind1
In my experience, skill at doing that usually comes from... experience. (and
ideally experience in similar domains to what you are designing, not just
software in general).

Certainly there are "students" with software engineering/architecture
experience and/or natural amazing talent, but it's def not the first place I'd
look!

------
mlthoughts2018
I’ve mentioned this in other threads on music streaming, but VLC is the center
of my music world. The feature that lets you spawn a web server from the
mobile app to easily transfer files from a laptop is incredible, so easy that
literally my grandma used it to put some old recordings on her phone (and
knows VLC is the “recordings app”).

I want to pay music artists better for their work than what I can with
streaming apps, and I also want my entire library available offline on all
devices.

VLC makes it not just possible, but easy and fun.

~~~
jbk
> I’ve mentioned this in other threads on music streaming, but VLC is the
> center of my music world.

I got good news for you: next release has better audio quality (less
resampling) and gapless playback. Plus more metadata support.

~~~
Tarsul
ok, I finally registered here to say this: thank you and the VLC team! Also...
the only feature that I always missed when playing music with VLC instead of
winamp: Enqueue. Meaning: adding a music file that gets put in as the next
song and not at the end (or played directly)... is such a thing planned at
all? I can't be only one (actually, I haven't found a player that does this
since winamp :( )

~~~
_Tev
On Android, PowerAmp has the functionality, and imo a tad more polished
(enqueue is saved as a temporary playlist).

On desktop WinAmp is still the only one :(

------
mehdix
> we don’t have a marketing department or a management team of people who
> decide on a feature that is then pushed down to the users, as has been
> happening with RealPlayer and BS.Player. So, when we add a feature it’s
> because people actually need it and actually want it.

There is a clear distinction between software written with profit in mind and
free software. Behind the first one often there are people with agendas,
strong opinions and marketing departments. They keep breaking things and force
me to change my habits to their likings. The second group however, is user-
oriented with no marketing department. I used to dislike vlc and its ui. After
many years of experiencing software that breaks and pushes to change me I
learned to love vlc. Even if it looks different. I don't care about this
anymore. Actually I've developed a liking for it, let it break the UI
conformaty. It works and is a solid piece of software and this is just
brilliant.

~~~
b3kart
I wouldn't agree that the distinction is so clear, unfortunately. There are
people with agendas on both sides. For-profit software obviously needs to make
money, so whatever people are more likely to pay for is prioritized, even if
it's not what a typical user wants the most. Developers of free software are
often people with full-time jobs and limited free time, so whatever is more
fun to work on and/or matches their skillset is prioritized, which, again,
might not be that annoying bug that everybody wants fixed, but which would
involve re-writing half the code. I am generalizing, of course: VLC is one of
the counter-examples.

~~~
mehdix
I agree that the distinction is not so clear; contrary to my statement.
However, I think the distinction gets clearer over time. Nowadays, I try to
prioratize agenda-free software over agenda-driven ones as much as possible.

------
INTPenis
I love VLC and use it daily, literally daily. I often donate to open source
projects and VLC is one of those.

One gripe though is that VLC gives a such a good impression that you get very
disappointed when basic things like scanning your media library don't work. It
catches you by surprise because the rest of VLC is so polished.

And for example the fact that there was no sleep timer until recently.

You'd think that an open source project so widely used would find plenty of
help to implement such basic features.

~~~
FrojoS
From the interview:

"For a patch to get accepted, it needs to be maintainable as well as useful
[...] Which means that we put a lot of emphasis on quality. So, with any code
we get sent, we need to make sure that we can still maintain it in 6 months, 1
year, or 2 years… And _that’s why we have a lot of features in VLC that some
consider completely useless and why we don’t have others that some people
think are important_. It’s not because we’re stupid, it’s just that the code
needs to be clean—if it’s not, you don’t get in."

(emphasis mine)

------
GeekyBear
I don't think I've seen anyone else mention one of my favorite features of VLC
mobile.

The ease and breadth of the ways to get content onto your mobile device is
outstanding.

You can browse a Plex server, SMB share, cloud service, FTP server, and even
point your computer's web browser at the IP address of your mobile device and
drag and drop files onto the device, along with other options.

This has proven to be incredibly handy.

Kudos

------
cestith
I didn't watch the video but I read the interview.

If I could get everyone to take away five things from it they would be these.:

Keep everything as simple as possible, keep everything modular and as
independent as possible, develop the features your users actually want and
need, build on a solid base, and keep the maintainability of the project as a
top priority.

------
callumprentice
This sounds like a gripe but it's really not - I'm immensely grateful for the
ability to be able to play media in the product I work on.

Can you elaborate on the best way to ask for help in the VLC support forums?
I've tried a couple of times over the years and literally got told to "stop
asking for someone to do my work for me" and essentially go away..

I know the developers on the forum must get tired of the "CAN PLS HELP ME MAKE
VLC. THANKS" type posts but mine were always specific questions with working
sample code which illustrates smy issue and that I'd banged my head on for
days without success.

I really want to improve the quality of our implementation but have no idea
how to without some pointers from experienced devs.

Thank you.

~~~
jbk
> Can you elaborate on the best way to ask for help in the VLC support forums?
> I've tried a couple of times over the years and literally got told to "stop
> asking for someone to do my work for me" and essentially go away..

It's hard and some devs are not very patient, tbh...

> I really want to improve the quality of our implementation but have no idea
> how to without some pointers from experienced devs.

Come on IRC. Really.

~~~
Avamander
> Come on IRC. Really.

Also applies to many other projects really, it has a big enough of a barrier
of entry people's patience isn't nearly as eroded as in say public forums (or
SO).

------
agumonkey
similarly Blender author made a voluntary move to keep blender an open product

pretty great outcome :)

~~~
bryanlarsen
Not just the Blender author, it was the Blender users who saved it by raising
$100,000 in seven weeks to buy the rights to open it.

------
GeneticGenesis
As JB said, this is a pretty poorly cut together video and article.

We had JB on the Demuxed Podcast last year, and he told a lot of the early
stories around VLC, it's much less edited than the version in this article.
Here it is, with a full transcript:
[https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/demuxed/ep-8-video...](https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/demuxed/ep-8-videolan-
with-jean-baptiste-kempf/)

------
zip1234
VLC is an amazing tool. I almost wish it was the embedded video player for
Chrome or Firefox. It would be nice to play more formats of video on the web
and VLC does an amazing job supporting other formats. Also, there is no way to
play RTSP on the web, which VLC does well.

------
shmerl
VLC and mpv are the only media players you need. I like using VLC for audio
(especially since it can also handle MIDI), and mpv for video.

------
SoStoked
VLC was my favourite video player for years, interesting to find out the
history of its creation.

------
martin1b
VLC, it really whips Winamps a$$.

------
w8vY7ER
merci pour tout jbk!!!

------
foobarbecue
How does changing wives affect your code??

~~~
Insanity
Different family situations can surely impact how much time you have to do
OSS. One partner might always be working on weekends whilst another is always
free during the weekend.

Also if you get a divorce, you might not really be up to working on OSS for
some time, which is probably part of changing wives. :P

------
pizza234
> There are about 500 modules in VLC, which means you can come and work on a
> very small part and improve it without breaking everything else.

This is presented as a positive. Here's the negative: poor maintenance.
Virtually nobody knows, for example, how the official SMB plugin works, and
there's no documentation.

Speaking about "best developers" (a section of the article). Since version 3,
video playback suffered from one or more bugs on _any_ of the 4+ machines I've
tried it on. I'm talking about video playback, which is a core feature; I had
to switch to MPlayer.

It seems to me that VLC is the software users love to love. I'm puzzled by the
reasons of this; my guess is that products with a zillion of features have a
certain charm.

~~~
jbk
> Virtually nobody knows, for example, how the official SMB plugin works, and
> there's no documentation.

Totally BS. We have 4 SMB modules, which ones are you talking about? (Windows,
samba, libdsm (v1) and libsmb2). We spent a lot of time lately to fix that and
improve it.

Sure, with the move to SMBv2/3 we had some issues, but that is normal because
it required a new architecture, and they are almost all fixed now.

The documentation of those modules is at the same place as usual.

> Since version 3, video playback suffered from one or more bugs on any of the
> 4+ machines I've tried it on.

Since version 3, we activated hardware decoding by default, and that means it
is very dependent on your linux distribution and your drivers. I think most of
those issues are fixed now though.

