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Lack of Manpower May Kill VLC For Mac

plasmacutter writes "The Video Lan dev team has recently come forward with a notice that the number of active developers for the project's MacOS X releases has dropped to zero, prompting a halt in the release schedule. There is now a disturbing possibility that support for Mac will be dropped as of 1.1.0. As the most versatile and user-friendly solution for bridging the video compatibility gap between OS X and windows, this will be a terrible loss for the Mac community. There is still hope, however, if the right volunteers come forward."

11 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. f/p by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll


    use a real os bitches and this would not be an issue

  2. Could it be possible that noone cares? by c0d3g33k · · Score: 0, Troll

    Fans of the walled garden may be happy with what they get, while those who are unhappy with that choice may be looking elsewhere for their OS environment, thus VLC for Mac may not be on their radar.

  3. Oh fuck no by ickleberry · · Score: 0, Troll

    I remember when I had a Mac about 2 years ago it was very hard to find something that would burn CD's (yes I know VLC won't do this), play tunes and videos because the developers of all the alternative programs just gave up in the face of the mighty iTunes when that started to gain popularity.

    And I hate, hate, hated iTunes, the interface, the then DRMified music store, the way it tried to force you to use a 'library' to store every single song that I only wanted to play once - it was and still is one of those programs like MPLAB [IDE for writing software for PIC] that just for some reason makes me want to dig my way to China with a teaspoon because that would be less stressful than using it.

    Its like its authors decided the age-old concept of 'files' was not good enough anymore so their software (poorly) tries to portray the real-life concept of a dusty box filled with records while dumping every song into some random folder with a cryptic filename. But these wiseguys don't realise that I'd much rather deal with files that I can recognise by their filename, copy and move them with the well known 'cp' and 'mv' commands rather than having their craptastic software try to manage it all.

    Having VLC go from the Mac would mean there is only one real alternative left - mplayer. Now mplayer is a fine piece of software but it's good to have VLC just in case, they both have their own distinct advantages.

  4. Mac users got told again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I am the Steve Jobs. You will only use my Quicktime player. Now suck my iCock.

    Macfags face the truth

  5. Mac people don't want VLC by thetoadwarrior · · Score: -1, Troll

    You can't use VLC with a turtle-neck sweater and maintain that pretentious twat aura.

  6. Developers Developers Developers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    It turns out they are probably tired of Apple being restrictive about what can and cannot be done.

    More Macs are switching to PC, w00t.

  7. Honestly, Mac sucks for open source by MacGyver2210 · · Score: -1, Troll

    My personal opinion, as a longtime programmer of many languages, is that it's just too much of a pain in the ass to write anything for the Apple OS. Most of it will need to be done in Objective-C (which is a horribly strange and awkward language) or it will need to somehow be compiled from a simpler language to run under OSX. It doesn't surprise me in the least that even a huge open source project like VLC is dropping OSX support. With any luck, every company with common sense will follow, and Apple will be back where it belongs crying "monopoly" and begging money off slightly more competent computer companies like Microsoft or Sun. If you're going to charge an extra $1000 for your hardware, it should be worth that extra value. If you're going to lock your system down so tight everything requires company approval, good luck in the open source world.

    --
    If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
  8. am i right here...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    who would want to develop something like a media swiss-army knife for the mac; if you're so up the rear passage of Mr Jobs to buy one of his stupid toys then you won't be into something as anarchic and marvelous as vlc.

  9. Attention Mr Jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Looks like another potential victim can probably be sued into submission. It's on the ropes, better attack while you can.

  10. Re:VLC is the linsux of media players by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Perhaps that is why the EDA industry is a stagnant mess. Basically my rule of thumb is that any industry that does not use Mac's exclusively for their computing infrastructure is not a serious industry. Computing with Windows or Linsux is like building a house using plastic childrens tools. You eventually may get something out of it, but it will take you a thousand times longer and will suck in the end anyway.