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VLC Core is LGPL

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Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#41

Post by jbk »

Nursie wrote: post #13
Hupo wrote: post #10

Good for them, I guess. Though VLC's popularity still makes me pretty sad and how better video players like MPC-HC (on Windows) and mplayer/mplayer2 (on everything else) are much more unknown in comparison. I mean, most of VLC's development outside of the streaming stuff has been about playing catch-up with these two for years. But well, the unfortunate truth is that many people are bad at computers and if they manag…

VLC has been able to handle pretty much anything you throw at it for many years and always been available across diverse platforms. It's an awesome product. Why so negative?

The main reason, is that VLC is too mainstream...

For people who want to spend hours to configure their system, MPC-HC with madVR can give better upscaling and foobar gives better audio fidelity. Most of the rest is usual rants from issues that VLC had in the past, but that 1337 video people like to bring up to explain how their setup is soooo much better.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#42

Post by jbk »

pretoriusB wrote: post #38
jbk wrote: post #30

This is my website :) (I did not expect that to come on HN, to be honest) Anyway, the title is, of course, misleading. VLC core, named libVLCcore is LGPL since last year (I did it too in december) and the wrapper for 3rd party applications libVLC was relicensed too at the same time. This is different, since most modules of VLC are now LGPL. We speak about codecs, demuxers, format parsers, protocol accesses, filter an…

How does that play with the iOS VLC port? The one that a VLC contributor working for Nokia (Rémi Denis-Courmont) managed to take down, for not being in compliance with GPL?

Rémi Denis-Courmont is the biggest contributor of VLC, so far, and he pushed forward the LGPL move... :)

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#43

Post by Quarrelsome »

endgame wrote: post #17
mikecsh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a shame?

Because while every piece of free software is a wound against proprietary software, the more liberal licences like LGPL and the BSD/MIT-style licences are a wound against free software: proprietary interests can take free code without giving anything back.

But the trade-off comes with an influx of developers and developers love to open source as much as they can (Microsoft and CodePlex being a decent example of a monolithic propriety beast being led toward open source by its developers).

For a lot of developers in commercial positions it can be politically difficult to use GPL code but LGPL is much more politically expedient. These devs may well then contribute themselves either via the form of bug fixes or future work on more open projects once they leave their original employer.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#44

Post by Hupo »

jbk wrote: post #39
Hupo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subtitle rendering (with xy-vsfilter/vsfilter in general and newer versions of libass). High-quality video rendering (madVR). I'm not at home right now so I can't reliably confirm if certain long-time issues still remain in the latest version (2.0.4), but VLC has also for the longest time had issues with pause not being completely instant (despite claiming so), the audio glitching slightly when pausing/unpausing, and…

Subtitles rendering of VLC 2.0.x is quite high quality, since the video output changes of 2.0. Audio pausing is fixed since a long time on all platforms and on development version for Windows. Seeking on H.264 and MKV ordered chapters issues have been solved since quite some time too. Subtitles quality has nothing to do with libass, but the video output rendering, and this was fixed in 2.0. madVR is very CPU heavy, a…

>Subtitles quality has nothing to do with libass

It most certainly does when we're talking about complex ASS subtitles.

>madVR is very CPU heavy

Actually, it's more GPU-heavy. And while it's only available for Windows, it doesn't change the fact that it's basically the best video renderer out there.

Anyway, I'm certainly going to give VLC 2.0.4 a spin with some of my files when I get home in a couple hours. If some of these issues have finally been fixed, then good for VLC, but again, it sure took them a while to do so in comparison to other players.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#45

Post by comice »

jbk wrote: post #32
comice wrote: post #20

So every contributor essentially gets to vote on the license change, and their vote is proportional to the contribution they made (because if they vote no, their contributed code has to be rewritten). I think I quite like it, but only because there is an option to replace their code if they vote no (which admittedly may be very technically difficult). No single contributor can truly veto the license change. Clearly h…

I did delete some code, and rewrote some. But not for many people.

Was there any single person with enough of a contribution that if they'd said no, you'd have abandoned the idea of a license change?

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#46

Post by pretoriusB »

endgame wrote: post #17
mikecsh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a shame?

Because while every piece of free software is a wound against proprietary software, the more liberal licences like LGPL and the BSD/MIT-style licences are a wound against free software: proprietary interests can take free code without giving anything back.

>Because while every piece of free software is a wound against proprietary software, the more liberal licences like LGPL and the BSD/MIT-style licences are a wound against free software

Some of like like our proprietary software very much, thank you. I wouldn't want to live in a world where there would not have been a Photoshop, a Premiere or a Logic Pro but only their open source "alternatives".

>proprietary interests can take free code without giving anything back.

On the contrary. In reality BSD style licenses _enable_ companies to give something back to a project, whereas they would not be able with a GPL license. Sounds strange? Let me explain:

Take a BSD licensed project X.

(a) A company wants to ship something based on X, but as closed source and with proprietary extensions.

(b) They can do it, since X is BSD licensed.

(c) In order not to have to maintain a fork themselves, they also give back their fixes and improvements to the core X project, off which everybody in the community benefits.

So, the company gets to add proprietary extensions and ship closed source code based on X AND the project gets to benefit from the company's work on core X.

If X was GPL, the company would not have touched it, and would have opted for some other project instead. All those contributions back to the X community would have been lost.

That's how it works with Apple and LLVM, for example.

That's one of the reasons developers chose BSD/MIT/LGPL over GPL. Because they _specifically_ want people and companies to be able to have that option.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#47

Post by pretoriusB »

jbk wrote: post #42
pretoriusB wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that play with the iOS VLC port? The one that a VLC contributor working for Nokia (Rémi Denis-Courmont) managed to take down, for not being in compliance with GPL?

Rémi Denis-Courmont is the biggest contributor of VLC, so far, and he pushed forward the LGPL move... :)

But, since, LGPL enables the iOS port as an option again, what made RD-C change his mind?

A cynic would ask if it has anything to do with not working for Nokia anymore...

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#48

Post by belorn »

_pferreir_ wrote: post #34
endgame wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because while every piece of free software is a wound against proprietary software, the more liberal licences like LGPL and the BSD/MIT-style licences are a wound against free software: proprietary interests can take free code without giving anything back.

Yes, they can, which doesn't mean they will. I understand you may not like BSD/MIT, but LGPL seems pretty reasonable to me. It all depends on how big/important your software is... if it's something that you're sure you'll never be able to make a living out of and that may be useful for others, why ask for anything else other than an acknowledgement?

Citing a comment made by a lawyer several years ago. First ask oneself what situations you dont want to be in, and then prepare yourself for it.

Some people dont want to see their code being used in a context that might hurt a other human being, like spyware hidden inside a video player. Say someone modified VLC to produce a proprietary video player which included functions that spied on the users activities. As a developer, I would feel slightly at unease if I heard a Chinese citizen died because he watched a unpopular video, and the government found out because the program I wrote helped in spying and identifying that user.

Of course, that doesn't make producers of LGPL (or BSD/MIT) software evil or uncaring. Its up to each and every developer on how they view their work and its impact on society, and how far one want to go on that. Same goes for work, eating and spending habbits, money investments and so on.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#49

Post by tobiasu »

endgame wrote: post #17
mikecsh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a shame?

Because while every piece of free software is a wound against proprietary software, the more liberal licences like LGPL and the BSD/MIT-style licences are a wound against free software: proprietary interests can take free code without giving anything back.

> proprietary interests can take free code without giving anything back.

I have bad news for you. Proprietary interests do take GPL code (any version), heavily modify and extend it, without ever giving back. The GPL specifies that you have to give the source code to the entities you distribute the work to - not to the general public or the original authors.

Since most custom software is B2B, it will "never" show up on the internet. In case the software is bundled into something physical, like an expensive CNC machine, it is even less likely.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#50

Post by jbk »

comice wrote: post #45
jbk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did delete some code, and rewrote some. But not for many people.

Was there any single person with enough of a contribution that if they'd said no, you'd have abandoned the idea of a license change?

Yes, a lot of them.

VLC contributions have mainly been done by 2 dozens of persons. If any of Rémi Denis-Courmont, Laurent Aimar, Gildas Bazin, Pierre d'Herbemont, Rafaël Carré (or me) would have disagreed, I would have stopped right away.

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