The popular VLC video viewer may be the latest app to be removed from the App Store. Interestingly, this time it isn’t due to a violation of Apple’s restrictive policies, but rather the fact that the App Store itself violates the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL) that covers VLC. The GPL requires that not only the original software but also any works derived from it have to be free and open source, and this isn’t the case with it when you download it from the App Store. The lead developer of the VideoLAN Project has sent a letter to Apple complaining of copyright infringement, and it is expected that Apple may remove the app at any time.

One of the primary developers of the VLC Media Player, Rémi Denis-Courmont, has filed a formal copyright complaint to Apple regarding distribution of the VLC media player for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store.

Rémi Denis-Courmont has issued the following statement:

Today, a formal notification of copyright infringement was sent to Apple Inc. regarding distribution of the VLC media player for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. VLC media player is free software licensed solely under the terms of the open source.

GNU General Public License (a.k.a. GPL). Those terms are contradicted by the products usage rules of the AppStore through which Apple delivers applications to users of its mobile devices.

The folks over at VideoLAN however also have limited rights on VLC and had given Applidium the green signal to port VLC to iOS, which doesn’t seem to agree with Denis-Courmont’s stance. They have responded with the following tweets:

Maybe the FSF should actually ask us our opinion instead of writing misleading articles about VLC…

@dougsymon @Lrichie_london So far, VLC is not going out of the AppStore…

Originally based on a student project at the École Centrale Paris in 1996, VLC was rewritten and made open source in 1998. After more developers extended the original application, ownership passed to the VideoLAN organization last year. The software has been available for several years under the GPL, which expressly states that programs covered under that license should not run on “devices, designed to deny users access to install or run modified versions of the software inside them, although the manufacturer can do so.” This sounds exactly like the closed, un-jailbroken iOS platform, and the GPL refers to such platforms as “fundamentally incompatible with the aim of protecting users’ freedom to change the software.”

The VideoLAN project was not responsible for the iOS port, but rather the devs at Applidium, who put the free app on the App Store. Rémi Denis-Courmont of the VideoLAN Project has sent the formal notice to Apple, saying that the “products usage rules” of the App Store violate the GPL. He notes that in a similar circumstance, Apple removed the iOS port of Gnu GO from the App Store, and that he expects Apple to remove VLC soon as well. Denis-Courmont insists it’s not his fault if the app does get removed from the App Store, stating that Applidium is responsible for the port and that he is “not the one who took risks of violating copyright here.”

[Source: Cult of Mac, VideoLan, VideoLan (letter)]

Authors: _GadgetNews

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