I don't understand the "When a mistake becomes a genius move" part... cool that is was a mistake, but I feel like there's missing something, how was this mistake made? What was the mistake?
I can speak about 3 of them:
1) the one mentioned in the interview, where, when VLC was ported to Windows and Mac OS X, instead of using the system codecs, they used the linux-way and bundled the dependencies. It was supposed to be temporary, and we would use the system codecs. This means that we control better our decoders and demuxers than other traditional players, and we did not require codec-pack. That became very popular for VLC.
2) The cone was a temporary icon (and a student joke), and it is sooooo weird for a player, that this became a huge brand because it is so recognizable.
3) The code was split in a lot of modules, to help speed up the compilation time, of the project. That made the code way easier to extend or port to other platforms. Indeed, for example, a lot of modules don't need a lot of maintenance, because they just work. And you can add features or new OS, without understanding the core.
There are 2 other technical reasons that helped VLC getting popular, but those were planned.
The interview is too short to explain all this.
Turn it sideways (5 degrees per major release) and keep the colors. Eventually it will be a Play Button.
I definitely remember the struggle with codec packs, then a breth of fresh air when ffmpeg codecs would solve most formats, and then just like that forgetting all codec issues by using MPC.
You should keep it.
My little girl has grown-up seeing the cone on our PCs and knows it's what plays the videos from my DSLR. She has asked to watch "cone videos", which means "videos of me you shot with your camera".
"That one papa. Movie" She is three plus, and can use a surprising number of apps. Communicates with me in emoji too. It is a hoot!
Any device she gets her hands on. If she sees that cone, score!
This is definitely the case, VLC isn't a very memorable name, but the icon is unique. I was searching the other day and after typing "traffic cone", one of the search suggestions was "traffic cone video player".
> It was the fact that it came from the Linux world. So, when porting to Windows/macOS, the codec packages were part of the binary. It was supposed to temporary.
> This interview has cut that part.