VLC for iOS is back in App Store – not by VideoLAN | Hacker News Reader

VLC for iOS is back in App Store – not by VideoLAN

itunes.apple.com

10 pointsteajay13 comments

This is the last in a long row of copyright violations permitted by Apple to the store despite app review and multiple complaints by us in the past. This binary is based on buggy, old pre-production code, includes ads and absolutely non-working integrations to Dropbox, etc. because the provider did not set the private keys correctly. The official app currently awaits review and will hopefully be out soon. It will be stable, ad-free and with full support for the clouds.

Here is translated author's statement:

VLC is Open Source and I was irritated by how long they waits with their release - I've spent some nights on this and convinced Apple to approve it. And I succedeed. At first they returned it to me, because of violaton of copyright laws. I was expecting it, so I sent them links to MIT and GPL2 from VideoLAN webpage, where is stated, that you can use source code for whatever you want. Well, they approved it today.

Using the code is fine, but the name is trademarked and should be enough to block it from the app store.

Ok, at first, the app provider added advertisement to the app using Google AdSense to make a personal profit. Further, the license is not MIT but MPLv2 and GPLv2 which is intrinsically different - and we clearly don't say that you can use our code for whatever you want. Then, they don't provide the source code to their changes, which is required by either license. Those licenses are not being shown in the App Store. Finally, the App Store shows "© 2015 Voldzi" which means that you claim copyright for entire app, which they clearly don't have.

Believe it or not, I'm not an author of it... And I'm not approving it, just found it interesting, that Apple accepted it into App Store.

I have a copy of the original VLC App on my iPad, but since I've bought my new iPhone 6, and restored it from iCloud, the official VLC player was missing when the restore was completed, I'm guessing this us to do with it being pulled from the App store at the time.

To my surprise, I was looking at the purchased app section on the App store on my phone, and under the area where it lists Apps not on my iPhone I saw VLC Player, with the cloud button with a downwards arrow on it, so I quickly download it. Not too sure what happened, but I now have the official VLC app back on my iPhone.

It says the developer is VideoLAN and version 2.4.0 and not the one by Jiri Volek

You can still download IPA file from VideoLAN[1]. I'm wondering if it's signed and ready to install through iTunes. I also have original copy from App Store, so can't test.

[1] http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ios.html

I'm not too sure what happened, the one in the link you posted is 2.3.0, and the one I got from the App store is 2.4.0

This is because you downloaded our app a while ago and we did something so you can re-download it to your device now. This is in preparation of our actual release in the next days (we won't release 2.4.0 publicly but 2.4.1 because of a regression).

Will I need to delete 2.4.0 when the new version comes out, or will I be able to just update it as usual from the App store?

Just update as usual :)

I couldn't be less sympathetic. You guys pull VLC for iOS like six months ago, provide no explanation as to why it was pulled, ignore people asking about it on Twitter, and no ETA or the slightest bit of information on whether or not it would return until a month or so ago, and you're surprised that this happened?

Provide a little feedback to the community in the future. Or better yet, just leave the app in the store between updates like a normal dev, and people won't get so frustrated.

It is not like we voluntary did either the removal nor being silent about it.

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