[vlc-devel] [videolan] Formal complaint - censorship

[Pierre Ynard]

On Tue, Oct 26, 2010, Christophe Mutricy wrote:
> > This is called censorship.
> 
> Abusing VideoLAN's ressources to distribute blog post in the form of
> Press Release is not really nice either. Non-tech people will fail to
> not the planet part of the URL and have certainly no clue about
> aggregation. They will fail to understand that it is your personal
> actions and opinions.

This wouldn't have happened if Rémi had been clearer about the fact
that he was taking action individually. This probably wouldn't have
happened if he had coordinated with the team before posting on his
blog. This wouldn't have happened if the team had reached out to all
developers about distributing VLC through the AppStore. So this wouldn't
have happened if the association had posted a meeting report about their
decision to distribute it on the AppStore, or had posted the agenda for
the meeting, or had started a discussion in the mailing lists. Everyone
could have done a little better here.

Now, people misunderstand what happened: they actually believe that
VideoLAN knowingly put VLC on the AppStore, just to post a complaint
once it was accepted, and that it's a manipulative strategy to coerce
Apple. I don't know which one is better between looking like deceptive
lobbyists, or looking like dummies who can't even agree among the team
before doing something; but some free software enthusiasts are already
supporting us for the former...

But it seems that the "grey area" about licensing turned out to be
an issue after all. So should VideoLAN try to save the situation by
supporting the fight against Apple's license? Should we simply ask
that they change their license, instead of just suggesting removal
like Rémi's post does? Should we post an apology and take VLC off the
AppStore by ourselves?

-- 
Pierre Ynard
"Une âme dans un corps, c'est comme un dessin sur une feuille de papier."