[mythtv-users] VLC Acquired by Real Networks

[Nick Rout]

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 12:51 PM, Tortise <tortise at paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> From http://www.videolan.org/
>
> VideoLAN acquired by RealNetworks
> 2010-04-01
> VideoLAN is proud to announce that it has been acquired by RealNetworks, the
> world's premiere provider of Internet media delivery tools. RealNetworks
> will be working with VideoLAN over the next few months to leverage the
> powerful Real toolset to improve VLC media player and other VideoLAN
> software. Accordingly, with the introduction of Real's superior solutions,
> we will be dropping all other encoders from the streaming component of VLC
> media player. Additionally, to better serve our customers, we will be
> introducing a new VLC media player Pro application, with cutting edge
> streaming capabilities and the ability to play back and edit all Real video
> and audio formats. This new application will be available for the low low
> price of $30/€30. We hope you enjoy the new VLC media player!
>
> Is this an April Fools post?

You posted it, you tell us!

Look at the date of it.

>
> Will dropping all encoders (for streaming) be a good thing?
>
> I am not sure how an open source project like VLC gets acquired by a
> commercial entity and whether this will be a good thing for open source, or
> even consistent with open source?
>
> Could something like this ever happen with mythtv?
>

I'm sure Isaac is as much a jester as anyone, keep an eye on the list
in 364 days...

Seriously though how do you "acquire" something when the copyright is
owned by possibly dozens of authors? Even if you found all of them and
got ALL of them to assign their copyrights to you, there is always the
latest svn version released under the GPL2 and others would surely
fork it and keep it open source.

BTW the FSF requires contributors to GNU projects to assign their
copyright to the FSF. Not a bad plan, as long as we continue to trust
the FSF. Which is a fairly good assumption.

> Any comments?
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