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Open Source VLC Media Player Coming To iPad
Stoobalou writes "The people behind VLC, quite probably the most useful media player available right now, have submitted an iPod version to the Apple software police. VLC — which is rightfully famous for having a go at playing just about any kind of audio or video file you care to throw at it — should appear some time next week, if it makes it through the often unfathomable approval process implemented by Apple. The Open Source Video Lan Client has been tweaked to run on the iPod by software developer Applidium."
You can release the source code. You just can't distribute the binary, since you can't satisfy the conditions of the GPL and of the statically linked platform libraries.
Although there is an exception in the GPL to allow linking to libraries that are part of the OS, or are normally distributed with it. Things like the standard C runtime library fall under that. Maybe this applies here.
Who said they included that functionality? I assume there are QuickTime API calls on iPad already, they can just use those... VLC for PC includes QuickTime codecs for PCs since who knows if the users are going to have QuickTime installed (and AFAIK there's no Linux QuickTime). Wouldn't have that problem on the iPad, right?
What? You mean like how I can't release a windows app as GPL without open sourcing Windows?
To add to what others have already mentioned, I'll point out that VLC is very specifically GPLv2, not GPLv3. Version 2 did not have the "anti TiVoization" stuff that version 3 has. The restrictions on what you can do really are different.
I was actually under the impression that u could not release a media player that is not based on the stock one at the appstore because it would be count as replacing standard functionality. Has this changed or am I missinformed at all? Having VLC on iOS could be a dealbreaker for many people who don't buy a iPhone because of the lack of divx/xvid compatiblity.
They allowed the Opera Mini browser, even though it directly competes with (and is ~5 times faster than) Apple's Safari browser. So I'm betting Apple will approve VLC too. - If they do reject it the reason will be something else - like ability to hack into iPad internals (same reason the C64emultator was rejected from iStore) rather than because of fear of competition.
offtopic:
Why isn't SeaMonkey listed on the EU's browser choice screen? I like its old Netscape style. :-|
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The iPad is just a large iPhone that can't make calls. It is not a general purpose computer. It runs the same general kind of CPU architecture as the iPhone (ARM) and uses the same OS. So it is a cut down, embedded type of device. Apps have to come from the Apple Store and so on.
Heh, anyone who's been around long enough should be very aware of those exception clauses. The GPL, Emacs, and GCC all predate glibc and Linux by a lot. Back in the day when I wanted to run GPLed software, I had to run it on a SunOS (the name "Solaris" hadn't been invented yet) or Ultrix or AOS system using the vendor's C library (and often compiler). The GPL does not "infect" the whole "stack" from kernel to system libraries to universally included frameworks.
The answer to your offtopic question is that they include one browser from each vendor, and firefox is the offering they include form the Mozilla Foundation.
I will send my left nut to Steve Jobs if this gets approved.
Note to Apple: If a cooler appears on your loading dock and it has the shipping info missing please open it. If it contains dry ice and a zip-lock bag holding what appears to be a bloody walnut, please expedite it to Mr. Jobs.
Thank you.
Trolling is a art,
Waiting until Apple can give feedback on it, as long as the wait is not too long, is a way to demonstrate to Apple that you're acting in good faith and attempting to comply with their policies and processes. It shows that if Apple finds a minor fault with the app and requests something be changed, they're willing to wait to incorporate those changes before letting non-compliant versions get "out into the wild".
The wait may not be necessary, but it's certainly a decent idea for someone who wants to work with Apple instead of adopting a "fight the power!" attitude. It's a show of respect. And the gesture probably does appreciably increase the odds that it'll get approved.
RTFOA:
http://applidium.com/en/news/vlc_media_player_available_for_the_ipad
Now that Apple publishes their app acceptance criteria, we can look this one up:
Oh well.
E pluribus unum
From the article it seems more like a giant Iphone though, but with out the talking.
That's the iPad in a nutshell.
Shouldn't you beable to install what ever you want on a tablet computer?
Yes you should, but Steve objects to it so it doesn't happen. Plenty of reasons for and against it, but as far as I'm aware you can only install apps through the marketplace. I'd much prefer an android style system, they control the marketplace and keep it a nice and safe environment, with the option (with plenty of warnings of the risks) to install things through other means. They get their walled garden, I get a gadget I'd actually pay for.
There never seems to be a happy medium. The ability to install what I want on android is awesome, but their marketplace could do with a bit more filtering and checking. The safe marketplace on iPhone is awesome, but sometimes I want to something better that they won't let through.
This just means VLC cannot play music form the music library. music outside the music library is no problem....
But then, if apple thinks different you still have a problem, not apple.
But seamonkey is no longer part of Mozilla. They are a separate company called SeaMonkey Council, and should be allowed to submit their own product to the EU. ----- And if the argument is: "FF and SM use the same mozilla base," that is not valid either. There are two Webkit browsers on the EU ballot.
Back to topic:
I don't expect Apple to reject VLC. If they do it will make them look like hypocrites.
.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
For a start: user interface guidelines (which really can make the difference between app approval and rejection), and also OS infrastructure and frameworks (the iPad can support popups/overlays that the iPhone and iPod Touch can't -- Apple added those API calls to the iPad only, because the iPad display is large enough for that sort of thing to make sense).
For another: the iPad can actually act as a USB host (though you need a physical adapter to do it, the circuitry is in there), letting you use stuff like USB keyboards (and a USB bar code scanner -- I've used one myself), and no other iOS device has the necessary hardware at this time.
It's popular to say "it's just a big iPod Touch", and there are elements of truth to that, but it's not really completely accurate.
Awesome! How many bytes of RAM did you have on your abacus?
(joke only! mad respect!)
backwards? More like 100% wrong. Apple has no such requirements. If you own the source code, you can do whatever you want with it, including licensing it under multiple licenses. The individual who ported GNU Go to the iPhone did not own the source code and the FSF has an opinion on what exactly can (and can't) be done with their source code.
I'm not sure you've read the developer agreement closely enough. You're allowed to do open source, explicitly. Download the latest version of the agreement right now, and look at section 3.3.20. Right there it says essentially "using FOSS is completely okay, as long as you can follow all the rules in this document and all the rules in the applicable FOSS license at the same time".
The FSF certainly says that the app store is incompatible with the GPL. They also say people should never use GPLv2, just GPLv3. The GPLv3 has an anti-TiVoization clause. Heck, read it in the FSF's own words right here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html
Focus on the sixth paragraph. That makes the GPLv3 incompatible with the App Store (or with appliances like the TiVo) in ways that simply do not apply to the GPLv2.
(I researched this a bunch while kicking around the idea of taking the last version of Emacs that was under GPLv2 instead of GPLv3 and porting that to the iPad. I ultimately decided against it, but not for reasons of license compatibility.)
OT:
I'm holding out for an Android phone with a flash *and* picture quality as good as an iPhone. The Samsung Galaxy S is the closest but no flash and no image stabilization. VLC would be a must it it existed but I'll setting for a phone/MP3/Camera for now. I'm sick of nursing multiple batteries/chargers and SD cards.
I do not care to join the growing iPhone penile colony.
Are you ejaculating that Apple has erected a large user base of which you do not want to be a member?
No, open-source apps have been in the App Store for a long while now. I think it was a yeaf after the App Store opened up that Apple relaxed the policies regarding licensing. Thus, open source apps are allowed, provided:
1) You are allowed to distribute it
2) You follow all the requirements of the original license
3) You do not use it in any way that would force Apple's software to be open-sourced.
Most of the open-source stuff I see is that there's a link in the app description to the web site of the developer, and there is the source code for the app. In a more ideal world, there would be a way for the tools to bundle in the source code into the IPA file, so downloading the app downloads the source code as well. (An IPA file is just a regular ZIP file). Knowing the format, iTunes can actually strip out the source code so you're not stuck transfering useless stuff to your device.
GNU Go was a different problem. Someone ported it to iOS, but didn't release source. FSF alerted Apple to the license violation, and Apple removed the app for violating the license and developer agreement.
The App Store is a tricky place. The FSF holds the position it's GPL incompatible because it's Apple that's distributing the software, not the developer. Apple is maintaining their position on the App Store is it's a marketplace, i.e., a store, and while it's facilitating transactions between customer and developer, and it's hosting the content on behalf of the developer. (The difference is subtle - say you provide a binary of a GPL program. You upload the binary onto your webhost. Is your webhost now distributing the binary (which means they need to do the distribution of source and 3 year requirement), or just hosting hte binary (and you the developer are responsible for pointing to the source).
iTunes allows you to copy arbitrary data to your iDevice for a specific application. I believe this is how some eBook readers get their content from PCs.
Besides, this doesn't really matter anyhow; the primary reason to use VLC is to play media that the existing iPod software won't play. If the iPod software won't play it, then iTunes won't let you upload it to the iDevice in the first place.
In other words, I couldn't put an MKV file in my media library even if Apple didn't have this restriction, for technical reasons.
Anyhow, the MediaPlayer framework lets you pass in raw data; there's no particular reason why VLC couldn't pass an h.264 video stream extracted from an MKV file to the MediaPlayer framework. The only issue would be playing content that doesn't adhere to the standards supported by the hardware.
The rejected version had a BASIC interpreter. You could type in code and run it in-app. That's what Apple didn't like.
You sir are a God among men. Short Men, who aren't terribly bright... more like dwarves with learning disabilities. You are a God among Drawves With Learning Disabilities. Hmm... doesn't quite roll off the tongue that way, I think we should stick with the original, but imply the meaning of the second. Right then.
But seriously, that was a troll par excellence. Your bridge must be enormous, and located in the farthest, darkest, foulest depths of the wilderness simply to accommodate your awesome power.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
A few reasons I didn't go forward with it:
1) Even though I'm pretty sure the GPLv2 and App Store are compatible, I'm also pretty sure the FSF would raise a stink and I wouldn't have the resources to fight, and thus Apple would end up removing it from the store anyway, and
2) In order to get the full behavior I'd want with a bluetooth or USB keyboard, at this time I would have to use undocumented APIs, which would piss off Apple. An example of what I mean: I wouldn't be able to get the control keybindings to work properly without using undocumented APIs. And without correct keyboard behavior... what's the point?
3) In order to comply with the "users can't download interpreted code to the thing", I'd have to keep people from loading elisp on to it. But elisp files in Emacs aren't some special magic thing, they're just files. How could one absolutely prevent people from downloading elisp? By preventing network access and (most) file transfers. What's the point?
(In the end, #2 was the biggest reason. If the keyboard APIs open up a bit more, I'll re-evaluate.)
It's not the exact same thing because an Android device isn't locked down the way an iWhatever is. Your options with an Android device aren't limited solely to jailbreak or official app store.
People do bitch about Google spying on them, so it's not like the company gets a free pass.
The iPad is just a big iPod touch--in the same way that a swimming pool is "just a big bathtub." People who say that tend to not realize that size alone makes totally different things possible. (Cue corny jokes in 3... 2... )
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I have a problem, I answer rhetorical questions even though I know they are.
My abacus is can represent 13 decimal digits. The binary number required to do that is 44 bits. So my abacus is can store about 5 1/2 bytes.
And thus we have a demonstration of that "fight the power!" attitude I mentioned.
They do support some FOSS, quite explicitly, and their agreements have been revised specifically to make this clear. There's plenty of FOSS in the app store right now, like the Wordpress and Redmine client applications.
But it's also still a curated platform, and Apple will maintain absolute and unflinching control over the end-user experience, period. There is no pretense or duplicity on this point. Anyone who's not comfortable with that fact ought to stay away from the platform.
This is not a contradiction, and it's not arbitrary "cruelty", and being willing to work within this framework isn't "servile". People who don't understand the value of a curated platform won't "get it". Even people who do understand the value of a curated platform, but who consider it a no-brainer that absolute end-user freedom must always trump that value, those people also won't "get it". But there really is plenty of room for reasonable compromise and respectful interactions, for a lot of folks who don't match those descriptions.