[vlc-devel] Formal complaint - censorship

[salsaman]

On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 8:27 AM, Geoffroy Couprie <geo.couprie at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 1:07 PM, salsaman <salsaman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Geoffroy Couprie <geo.couprie at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 2010/10/26 Rémi Denis-Courmont <remi at remlab.net>:
>>>> ----- Message d'origine -----
>>>>>  - First, everyone know what you did. Including yourself, obviously.
>>>>> Your post on planet.videolan.org was meant to be understood as a PR
>>>>> from VideoLAN. While clearly it is not. It's your only your own
>>>>> personnal feeling. So go post that on your own personal blog.
>>>>
>>>> This is preposterous. I have done numerous PR on behalf of the project. When I do that, I always mention it and use official means: the official website and/or the announcements mailing list. Thdi time I used my personal feed and signed with my lone name.
>>>>
>>>> I find it disturbing that I am wrongly accused of impersonating the project, while you obviously benefited from advertisment by said project, and I did not. But that is to be expected when the website admins have made themselves party to the argument.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Well, for people outside of VideoLAN,  it looked like an official
>>> statement. Without a sentence like "Warning, this is my own opinion,
>>> not the consensus in VideoLAN", anyone following planet.v.o would
>>> think this is an official decision (moreover with formulations like "a
>>> formal notification of copyright infringement was sent" instead of "I
>>> sent a formal notification").
>>>
>>> I won't debate about legal aspects, GPL and Apple's ToS (because
>>> 1.IANAL 2.I am not a mindless follower of Stallman
>>
>> Thankyou, I take great offence to this.
>>
>> I choose to release my code under the GPL. Now you are categorising me
>> and others who choose to do so as "mindless followers of Richard
>> Stallman".
>
> I am sorry I have offended you. I have nothing against code released
> under GPL. The real problem I have is with GPL and FSF advocates,
> because it always get emotional when there's a discussion about
> licenses. I don't endorse the FSF's campaigns like "defective by
> design" and "Windows 7 sins", and I don't like people wanting to
> enforce GPL at all prices. The idea of freedom they're defending is
> not mine.
>
> Now onto the point here: I care more about PR than license violation.

Well, there is the difference. *I* care more about license violation
than about PR.


> "Normal" people don't understand license compatibility, the difference
> between free software and open source, etc.

Then that is all the more reason why we, who do understand such
nuances, should be looking out to protect their rights.


> But what they will
> understand is that VideoLAN announced and promoted iOS versions of
> VLC, and then backpedaled accusing Apple of infringing copyright. We
> will look stupid, and Apple will take a shot at it.
>

Then I am sorry, but the VLC team should have read the Apple TOS
first, and realised they were incompatible with GPL under which most
(if not all) VLC contributors released their code.

IMO, the best PR would be to say "sorry, we made a mistake, Apple's
TOS do not allow us to release our code through their AppStore. If
Apple change their policies then we can start to distribute it again
via that channel". Then you are clearly placing the blame on Apple,
which is as it should be.

>>
>> Looks like I will not be contributing any more to the vlc project. In
>> fact should you continue to distribute any of my code via the
>> AppStore, I will look into taking legal action against you.
>
> As I said, I don't like when it gets emotional. Don't leave the
> project just because someone made an offending comment, it would be a
> great loss, for you and for VideoLAN.
>

I will contribute again, but only if you can guarantee me that my code
will only be released under terms compatible with the GPL. (which
apparently does not include the Apple AppStore).


Regards,
Salsaman.


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