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VLC 1.1 Forced To Drop Shoutcast Due To AOL Anti-OSS Provision

Posted by Soulskill on from the more-shouting-imminent dept.

The folks over at VideoLAN are in the process of releasing version 1.1.0 of VLC, and one of the major changes is the removal of SHOUTcast, a media-streaming module from AOL-owned Nullsoft. "During the last year, the VLC developers have received several injunctions by e-mail from employees at AOL, asking us to either comply to a license not compatible with free software or remove the SHOUTcast capability in VLC." Within the license is a clause prohibiting the distribution of SHOUTcast with any product whose own license requires that it be "disclosed or distributed in source code form," "licensed for the purpose of making derivative works," or "redistributable at no charge." The license would also force VideoLAN to bundle Nullsoft adware with VLC. Update: 06/22 00:52 GMT by H : The 1.1 release is ready from their site; you can also read up on the release information.

3 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So what? Stay using Icecast by BitZtream · · Score: 1, Troll

    It's 2010, closed source does not belong on the net

    You do realize if you took 'closed source' out of the Internet, right this instant, you'd not be able to communicate outside of your own home, let alone with the rest of the world.

    When you start running OSS based CMTS or DSLAMS and OSS based core routers, THEN come talk about how it has no place on the net. OSS is not the end all be all of software on the planet and is generally eclipsed by closed source software in every arena on the planet except for a select few where inroads have been made.

    You wouldn't like the Internet if there was no closed source software on it, as it wouldn't exist, and neither would most of the OSS stuff you love so much which exists because of the Internet and the code that powers it.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  2. AOL still exists?!? by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 0, Troll

    I thought that shit pile was dead years ago?!? They have paying customers? Who the fuck are these people that are still even pulling a paycheck?

    I thought they were off chilling with the altavista people... drinking... Boonesfarm under a bridge in some rust belt city.

    --
    Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
  3. Re:Open Sound System by malkir · · Score: 0, Troll

    Sucks to be them? Who cares. AOL users are nubs anyway.