A little know fact about the VideoLAN project is that it was started so that the student organization could justify the need to replace the old networking infrastructure of the campus with a brand new high-bandwidth fiber optics network. They really wanted to deploy a fiber optic network but the school would have never approved it so they thought "OK, we need something that uses a ton of bandwidth, let's make a video streaming app".
They proceeded to start the VideoLAN project, with the VideoLAN Client (VLC) and VideoLAN server, and streamed movies and public television channels to the whole campus.
Interesting how it came to benefit everybody.
Source: I studied there and had a chat with one of the original creators of the project once.
On a related note, VLC's traffic cone icon comes from a club member drunkenly stealing one, which then ballooned into the organization collecting them and eventually inspired the icon.
True the origins are cryptic, but it's become pretty iconic and recognisable. For a nice example take a look at this tweet (the author is semi-famous for selfies captioned with "Come to <place> in the next 15 minutes if u want an ass-kicking") and try to imagine a similarly funny/engaging tweet about any other piece of video playback software.
Enh, I mean, it's not a good logo in the sense of clearly signposting what it signifies, but at this point in the development of the internet, I don't think there are any good logos left. All the clear icons for "audio/video player" have been used a dozen times over. All that's left for any project now is to pick something random, but distinctive. VLC's traffic cone manages that, at least.
The logo itself is always secondary to what stands behind it. People attach their good feelings towards the project / service / company to the logo. If something is good, like VLC is, then the logo may represent absolutely anything. Look at the logos of successfull brands. Quite a lot of them could be called "terrible, stupid, confusing", but nobody says that because they're already firmly established in peoples' minds.
Thanks for the correction! I was remembering one of the members of VIA (the student association who manages the IT at Ecole Centrale) giving me a tour of their infrastructure and boasting about fiber optic networks but I guess that was was after VideoLAN and the switch from Token Ring to Ethernet. Maybe something related to the Renater backbone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renater)
I remember this. The Linux User Group on my college campus in 2002 was trying to setup a streaming service using VLC to stream DVDs across the network to all interested parties. Unfortunately the administration forcefully said no. This was the height of the Napster lawsuits as I recall.
Over the years when I've opened VLC I've occasionally wondered what the LAN part meant in VideoLAN. I thought it must be something other than Local Area Network. Thanks for sharing.
This mirrors what appears to be Cisco's acquisition strategy—pick up companies that makes things which use loads of bandwidth (UC etc). It's a smart move, sell products which inflate bandwidth requirements and conveniently be there with shiny new infrastructure to support those new found needs.
They proceeded to start the VideoLAN project, with the VideoLAN Client (VLC) and VideoLAN server, and streamed movies and public television channels to the whole campus.
Interesting how it came to benefit everybody.
Source: I studied there and had a chat with one of the original creators of the project once.