[vlc-devel] STOP! Think. Act... (was Re: Formal complaint -censorship)

[Guy Perkins]

Absolutely. Agree totally.

(I may be repeating some of Yuval's thread, but I will anyway)
All the great things about VLC & all the work that has been done all
over the world on such a ground breaking & universal app, no wonder
people want it.(Don't be surprised, be proud)

Please keep perspective.
This issue, although appearing massive now, is really dwarfed by VLC &
it's massive achievements, that all of you have contributed to.
That means "you", yes, all of you.
Sure there may be some of you that currently feel aggrieved in some way,
but please everybody take a step back & understand & appreciate
"everyone's" genuine input, both past & present.

Hence my total agreement with Yuval's sentiment.
Please get together, decide what VLC wants & needs, how is best to
achieve it, and watch the common ground appear like lines of beautiful
code before your eyes.

While I understand and appreciate Yuval's restraint in offering an
opinion, the only comment I would offer, (again from a position of a
mere user with interest), is that people who coded & contributed in the
past on the basis of the GNU should be respected. Without their past
input I'm sure VLC would not be what it is today, if in existence at
all.

That said, please also appreciate peoples genuine desire to see VLC
where it should be, right at the top.
I'm sure there will be a way to achieve this that is agreeable to the
vlc-devel team and I'm also confident that you will all find it.

So, please do not lose sight of the real appreciation of users all over
the globe who owe each and every one of you much much more than a beer
or 2.
Let's face it, some of the largest corporations in the world with
billions of dollars in the bank are still peddling OS's & apps that can
only be described a legacy product.(Hell, the planet runs on them.)

Be proud, each and every one of you. You are stars. ALL OF YOU!!!

Sincere thanks and appreciation.

Guy



-----Original Message-----
From: vlc-devel-bounces at videolan.org
[mailto:vlc-devel-bounces at videolan.org] On Behalf Of Yuval Levy
Sent: 26 October 2010 20:10
To: vlc-devel at videolan.org
Subject: [vlc-devel] STOP! Think. Act... (was Re: Formal complaint
-censorship)


Hey guys,

this looks ugly, is getting uglier, and guess who is winning and who is
losing 
here?

1.   It's a fact that Apple and copyleft are like oil and water.  They
don't 
mix well. The App Store's terms are incompatible with GPLv2 (additional 
distribution restrictions).


2.  Rémi's PR backfired.  Optimal would have been to ask Apple to comply
with 
the GPL and let them sort out how.  Publish the request and Apple's
answer and 
let the public judge Apple by its own action.  Not to request negative
action 
and blurt about it in public.


3.  From a Public Relations perspective it makes sense to temporarily
suspend 
the planet and iron out the differences *in private*.  Not to wait for
the 
problem to spill out on a public mailing list.  To add an "opinions
expressed 
hereafter" blah blah exacerbates the conflict. 

*Have you tried to contact Rémi before he posted here?  YES or NO?*


4.  All the insults at Richard (J) Stallman's and Steve (M) Jobs'
followers do 
not help  VLC.  I hope that most people here are agnostic or tolerant
enough 
to recognize that the cone rules here, not the forbidden fruit or the
African 
bovine.  Karma over dogma.  Stop trading insults over such a silly
dispute.

5.  The dispute ("censorship") is silly.  The underlying cause (license 
infringement) is not.  There may be good reasons to be tolerant of grey
zones.  
Or not.  Pull yourself together.  List the pros and cons for tolerating
a grey 
zone in the case of the App Store.  Make a common decision and act 
accordingly.  As a team, not as individuals.  Fix the ugly PR.  Fix the 
temporary suspension of the planet.  Get back to be the heroes coding on
the 
best media player in the world.

If you want my personal opinion on the issue and how to fix it, let me
know.  
For now I keep my two cents for myself because I don't consider myself 
important enough to your community.  I'm just a user who loves VLC.

So:
1. list the pros and cons of living with the App Store vs. GPL gray zone
2. decide if you can live with it or not 3. act upon it 4. fix the pr 5.
fix the planet 6. live long and prosper

Yuv


On October 26, 2010 02:10:10 pm Christophe Mutricy wrote:
> > This is a formal complaint against whoever unilaterally decided to 
> > take my RSS feed out
> 
> Which is not the case: http://www.remlab.net/feed.xml still works from

> here
> 
> > and then shut down planet.videolan.org
> 
> For this one yes
> 
> > 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.
> 
> I initially wanted to add a "opinions expressed hereafter are not 
> necessarly VideoLAN opinions" kind of text (hopefully will less
> legalese) but it was defeated by my lack of templating skill at 11pm.
> 
> Regards,