Apple pulls VLC media player from the App Store
updated 08:35 pm EST, Fri January 7, 2011
Move said to be related to licensing dispute
Apple has finally pulled Applidium's VLC video player app from the iTunes store due to a licensing discrepancy. The situation is one of the prominent examples of conflict between the open-source GNU General Public License, which is tied to the VLC player, and the terms detailed in Apple's own App Store licensing.
Interestingly enough, the incompatibility was brought to Apple's attention by Rémi Denis-Courmon, one of the principal developers behind the VLC media player. The problem was brought to attention over two months ago, however Apple only recently removed the app.
"At last, Apple has removed VLC media player from its application store," Denis-Courmon was quoted as saying, according to a Planet VideoLAN blog. "Thus the incompatibility between the GNU General Public License and the AppStore terms of use is resolved - the hard way."
Apple's insistence on Digital Rights Management (DRM) for App Store content is reportedly the primary source of conflict with the GNU license. A similar situation resulted in the removal of GNU Go, a game app that also also uses GPL code.
"I am not going to pity the owners of iDevices, and not even the MobileVLC developers who doubtless wasted a lot of their time," Denis-Courmon added. "This end should not have come to a surprise to anyone."
Junior Member
Joined: Jul 2009
Gee, really?
You mean the GPL can't be used on a platform designed for consumers because it is too constricting? That comes as a shock -- to anyone who hasn't paid any attention whatsoever to the GPL for the last decade.
Of course, now that I think of it, most people haven't, and that's a good thing for once. The GPL is a nasty piece of work by an ideologue, and if it isn't well-known that's probably a good thing. It deliberately leaves some terms vague so that people can be punished later -- and Stallman has admitted as much. Who knows what moronic lawsuits are waiting in the wings -- Google "Busybox lawsuit" to see the sort of thing that is doubtless planned. People who don't want to use their software as a bludgeon to beat people into submission use one of the licenses written by actual adults, like the one for BSD.