[vlc-devel] VLC on TheOpenCD

[Henrik Nilsen Omma]

Hello,

I've posted in the forum, but it was suggested I repost here:

We've been using the VLC player for some time to launch some videos from 
the CD browser of TheOpenCD. This time we have also decided to include 
it as an actual featured program on the disc as well. As always we have 
several issues and questions Smile

As before, there is the issue of deCSS. We would prefer to distribute a 
copy by default that does not have deCSS on it so that the same version 
of the CD can be distributed to all sorts of places without concern. 
TheOpenCD is increasingly being distributed by schools, universities and 
government agencies who tend to ask specifically whether there are any 
IP issues to be concerned about, and we need to be able to answer 
clearly No. (in fact most of these people are unfamiliar with open 
source and are really asking about the copyright of the applications 
themselves, but still, there cannot be any gray issues).

Last time I solved this by simply removing some .DLLs, which was fine 
for running from the CD, but now that we plan to actually let users 
install it on their machines, we should probably do it properly. Murray 
mentioned in this 
<http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=35&highlight=opencd> tread 
that it was a matter of compiling with the --disable-dvdcss option. But 
also that Windows compilation was a bit tricky. I wonder if we might 
have some help with that? (it might of course again simply be a question 
of removing DLLs and re-packing, please advise)

So, we would like to keep deCSS off the CD, but we don't want to just 
duck the issue. We all feel quite strongly about the dangers of software 
patents, and would like to inform our users about it. So we would like 
to point our users to your original version on-line that they can 
download, or ideally a small patch that would enable DVD functionality 
for them. This should be accompanied with text explaining the issues of 
software patents, using the VLC/deCSS issue as a clear example. Perhaps 
we should write such a text in collaboration. We could also include 
relevant literature such as 'Free Culture' by Lawrence Lessig.

Also, what would you recommend as the best method for running it off the 
CD? Previously, with our old browser technology, we launched the player 
with some command line options, including resolution and the file name. 
We then grayed out the launch button for 5 seconds to stop people 
pressing it twice while waiting for the player to launch. I understand 
start times have improved in v0.8, so that should help, but we might 
still want to do something similar. This time we are actually using a 
Mozilla based browser technology. I see that v0.8 has a Mozilla plug-in. 
How does that work? Does it play in the browser itself like quicktime 
does, or does it launch a separate window?

Cheers,

Henrik
http://www.theopencd.org/

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