VLC Running Kickstarter Campaign To Fund Native Windows 8 App

New submitter aaron44126 writes "Some VLC developers have launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of a native port of VLC as a Windows 8 app. The goal is to create an app with a UI that fits into the rest of the Windows 8 ecosystem that supports the playback of all of the types of files that VLC already supports. Playback of optical media (DVD/VCD/BD) is also on the list. They hope to use as much existing code as possible while doing whatever necessary to get VLC running in the 'Metro' environment and meet Microsoft's requirements for distribution through the Windows Store. Porting to ARM so that it can run on Windows RT devices will happen after the Windows 8 app is complete. The campaign has actually been going on for almost two weeks but they published their first update yesterday, in which they announced their intent to produce a Windows Phone 8 port as well."

Useful Software

[AnotherAnonymousUser]

VLC is one of those must-haves on any newly reformatted system. They've done an excellent job of making a player that Just Works, for every single format I could encounter in the field. I use it as a simple video player, but in the many years that I've been using it, I've only encountered one format ever that even VLC threw up its hands and refused to play. They're constantly updating performance, threading capability, offering all kinds of new features and options well beyond what I use VLC for. Since Windows stopped bundling a lot of DVD software natively, they've been the go-to software of choice for close to a decade, and they deserve to have their efforts and their project rewarded with solid backing, since they've managed to navigate through the morass of codecs and incompatible formats, while remaining lightweight, intuitive, and universally functional. Good luck guys =)!

Re:No thanks..

[BitZtream]

You shouldn't be using the scroll bars in touch, you should be two finger dragging.

You change apps (alt-tab) by two finger (or three?) swiping from the left edge of the screen towards the center.

I personally don't care for Windows 8, but you really need to learn its gestures if you want it to suck a whole lot less.

Re:Why?

[leuk_he]

There are 100 media players on windows. 97 of them depend on the decoding drivers of mediaplayer to decode videos. So if some video is dong badly ( Bad image quality/ high cpu usage/ unsupported file type), then your options to play that file become limited. VLC has all the demuxers and video decoders build -in , so that is one of your options left then.

VLC sucks far less than Windows Media Player...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

It plays anything I have thrown at it, takes up less resources and disc space, and isn't constantly loading updates and security patches.

Re:Source...

[hweimer]

You can publish VLC on the App store yourself as long as you also distribute the source as it is GPLv2 which doesnt' do any silly things that prevent it from being put there.

Wrong [fsf.org].

Re:Source...

[jythie]

Apples DRM restricts a single purchase of an application to 5 devices, so while the source was available, Rémi Denis-Courmont felt that the distribution restrictions were not compatible with GPL, and Apple did not feel like fighting him on it.

I am a little skeptical of the claim since, at it's heart, the GPL is about releasing source back to the community, not about how the final binary is distributed. There was also an argument (not sure if it was in the copyright complaint) that iOS did not allow users to change the version they had installed, so they couldn't grab the source, recompile, and update their version.. but that is an old battle line with GPL and embedded devices.... which is probably beyond the scope of this discussion (and would probably result in a flame war between consumers and developers)

VLC already works on Windows8

[Dunge]

Windows8 desktop is still the same old desktop and works just fine. Metro applications are useless.

Re:Not for me

[kelemvor4]

That software written before or built on software predating Metro might not be Metro? I know, I'm still waiting for Excel 2.0 to be a 32-bit Windows NT application.

Office 2013 was released 21 days before Win8. I believe they are intended to be run together.

Visual studio 2012 is what they want you to use to build metro apps with.

Re:Source...

[shutdown -p now]

Unlike iOS app store developer agreement, the one for Windows Store [microsoft.com] has an explicit exemption for OSI-approved FOSS licenses, including GPL:

Your license terms must also not conflict with the Standard Application License Terms, in any way, except if you include FOSS, your license terms may conflict with the limitations set forth in Section 3 of those Terms, but only to the extent required by the FOSS that you use. "FOSS" means any software licensed under an Open Source Initiative Approved License.

And section 3 is as follows:

3. SCOPE OF LICENSE. The application is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the application. Application developer reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the application only as expressly permitted in this agreement. You may not work around any technical limitations in the application; reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the application, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation; make more copies of the application than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation; publish or otherwise make the application available for others to copy; or rent, lease or lend the application.

So I don't think there's any issues with it being in the store. I mean, it would still be in a walled garden, but at that point, with the clause above rescinded, it would be purely a technical limitation that users can legally work around if they can, not a legal one.