VLC Player App May Violate GPL

A VLC developer has filed a copyright complaint against Apple for the way in which the free VLC player app is being distributed in the iOS App Store. Macworld explains that the DRM that prevents unrestricted redistribution of apps obtained from the App Store that include GPL-licensed code is a violation of that license's terms. Rémi Denis-Courmont did not develop the VLC app, nor did he ask Apple to remove the program. However, the likely action is that the software will be pulled by Apple.

• [Xenu]

  “Grey area” my ass. Unless it comes with source that I can modify and recompile, I don’t see how it could possibly count as free software under any definition.

  • [Anonymous]

    this just in. By your definition, Firefox isn’t free software.

    Read the GPL.

    • [Xenu]

      Dude, WTF are you talking about?

      • [Niklas]

        Perhaps the fact that GPL limits the freedom of the user? The user can’t do anything they want with the code, say, like modifying the code and then distributing it under any non-GPL license such as the Apache or BSD licences.

        • [Paul Lockett]

          By the same token, that course of action could limit the freedom of subsequent users, by allowing modified code to become proprietary. Stating that the GPL limits the freedom of the user is, I am afraid, overly simplistic.

        • [Niklas]

          You are painting a three-step chain here, let us expand:

          A. Original developer
          B. Second developer, forks A
          C. Third developer, wants to fork A or B.

          If A chooses the GPL License he will also force B and C to follow that license, but if A chooses APL, BSDL or some such compatible license both B and C can freely choose which license they want to distribute their branches with. The result is that for any and all situations A has given more freedom to subsequent developers by choosing to adapt an open license that is not GPL-compatible.

        • [Paul Lockett]

          Let’s not forget the most obvious case which disproves that theory, which is A releasing under a permissive license, B forking and releasing in a closed fashion and C wanting to fork B and being completely unable to. Had A released under GPL, then C would be able to do that.

          As per my previous comment, claiming that BSD/MIT gives more freedom than GPL is a major oversimplification, as, for that matter is the reverse.

        • [Niklas]

          Your argument makes logical sense, but it is an odd thing to see that you argue for a license-based Digital rights management.

        • [Paul Lockett]

          I’m not arguing for anything, I’m just stating the facts.

          To be honest, I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say with your mention of DRM. You seem to be implying that the GPL is a licence-based DRM in a thread attached to a story in which the DRM undermining effects of the GPL have been highlighted, which is a bit odd.

        • [Niklas]

          A truly free license should grant the rights to anyone to do whatever they want with the licensed code/item. In this case the GPL manages those rights tighter and restricts the end user’s freedom to do whatever they want to do with the code/item more than MIT/APL/BSD et al. does. Therefore it can be said to be a (digital, because it mostly deals with digital stuff) rights management license. I am not saying other licenses are free from that, just that they are freer.

          If you argue that the GPL’s forcing certain conditions upon use is for the greater good or anything, then you step into the dangerous territory of utilitarianism and should be vary that that exact argument has been used to justify very, very bad things.

        • [Paul Lockett]

          Unfortunately, no licence can grant the right to anyone to do anything. As we’ve already established, giving greater scope to the first person in the chain creates the possibility that subsequent people in the chain face heavier restrictions. It is not the licence which creates your so called digital rights management, it is copyright law. The licence is just a way of negotiating that nuisance and the difference between them is not a matter of more or less free, but the strategy used to reduce the impact of copyright.

          Your comments about the greater good, utilitarianism and the justification of very, very bad things, just sound a bit silly and only serve to undermine the points you’re seeking to make, I’m afraid.

        • [Niklas]

          Not really.

  • [Anonymous]

    You’re confusing open-source and free software.

• [cory]

  Good for him.

  There’s some nuance missing here from several of the places I’ve seen it reported:

  • Rémi Denis-Courmont, who filed the complaint, is not the person who posted the app. He knows who did it, and has said in the thread linked above that he has sympathy for the party that did it, but it ain’t him.
  • He didn’t simply request that Apple pull the app, but that they comply with GPL. The practical upshot is that they will pull the app, of course, but if they did choose to comply with the GPL (in an alternate universe where Apple isn’t an arrogant monster), he would be satisfied.
  • There are legal channels for distributions of the app to other iOS devices, just not through the app store. That means you need to jailbreak your idevice, though, so that sucks too.

  • [Glenn Fleishman]

    I didn’t mean to imply that, so I will revise to add nuance. Thanks!

• [Cory Doctorow]

  Now we get to find out whether the iStore has DRM because “rightsholders demand it,” or because locking the iPad and asserting a monopoly over what code you’re allowed to run on your i-device is good for Apple’s bottom line. If Apple has DRM to honor the wishes of copyright holders, then presumably, they’ll be happy to remove it for this rightsholder (of course, Apple already refused to carry my audiobooks in the iTunes Store without DRM, and to carry my novels in the iBook store without DRM, too).

  • [Harrkev]

    Cory said “Now we get to find out…”.

    Huh? We do NOT get to find out, because we already know the answer to this one. The odds of Apple actually keeping the app, dropping DRM, and publishing the source are right up there with a snowball in hell.

    Of course, I would LOVE to be proven wrong. If Apple would actually open up, I would become their biggest fan. Apple engineers and software developers are awesome. The management and lawyers need to be imprisoned.

  • [Niklas]

    This has nothing to do with “what code you’re allowed to run” but rather what license you are allowed to release it under. GPL is not perfect in that it demands from everyone to release their code under GPL. Licenses such as BSD are much more freer in that regard.

    • [hassenpfeffer]

      What Niklas said. Releasing anything developed under GPL is a legal nightmare. Always better to use BSD- and/or MIT-licensed code.

  • [mdh]

    Jail-breaking voids your warranty, nothing more.

    Are you so afraid of that? Do your pillows and mattresses still have all the tags? Have you never photocopied pages from a textbook? have you never used MAME?

    OMG, some company refuses to sell my stuff on my terms. waaaah.

  • [peterbruells]

    Nah, not really.

    There are three possible approaches for the right holders.

    a) they want DRM to protect their stuff.

    b) they give their stuff away for free, if only as a binabry, but don’t mind that one distributor slaps DRM on it. Apart from iOS Software, it is of little matter, since DRM free music, video and epub can get put on iOS devices with miniscule effort.

    c) they want to make an idelogical, religious or political statement.

    Apparently, Apple sees little gain in appeasing the last group, which is not very supriscing since the necessary changes would very likely cost a couple of million bucks *and* perhaps even far more than that if they introduce a mistake that angers or hurst group (a).

    • [dainel]

      you forget d) they want to give their stuff for free, without DRM.

• [dculberson]

  Yep, predictable outcome is predictable.

• [mdh]

  and as I keep saying in these Utopian Reality v. Apple threads – go do it yourself.

  Build a better iPad. Build a better store.

  enough whining.

  • [Paul Lockett]

    Others have done so already, so I don’t feel any pressing need to replicate their efforts and I suspect I’m not alone in that.

• [bardfinn]

  Not to back any position on the question at hand, but to point out something else:

  Anyone with an iOS device can go to Settings -> General -> About -> Legal -> and scroll approximately a third of the way down, and see the legal copy on the GNU General Public License for libgcc and libstdc++ libraries, owned by the FSF. where Apple represents (IANAL IANYL ATINLA) “You may obtain a complete machine-readable copy of the source code for the FSF software under the terms of GNU General Public License (GPL) [...] upon written request to Apple.”

  You obviously /cannot/ — in the way the iOS is intended to be operated normally — get at the binaries of the libgcc and libstdc++ libraries from the device and modify or redistribute them, nor can you substitute updated versions or your own versions of libgcc and libstdc++ on the iOS device.

  While I am not a lawyer, not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice, it seems to me that these conditions violate the terms of the GNU GPL license — and I quote from the legal copy of the FSF GNU GPL regarding libgcc and ibstdc++ included on my iOS device: “[...] But when you distribute the same sections [identifiable sections of the licensed work, here being libgcc and libstdc++] as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.” “[...] rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.”

  Also GNU libiconv, GPLv2 covered … the AES implementation, SHA2 message digest, khtml/html/HTMLDocument.cpp GPLv2.1, and onward through the legal. I do not know how Apple can get away with it or how Apple thinks they can get away with it, but there’s what I’ve observed.

• [nonplus]

  Considering that the VLC app is a competitor to Apple’s media player, isn’t it really in Apple’s interest NOT to have it on the device? I mean, this way iOS users are more likely to pay for media through the iTunes store.

  Ironically, if Apple had initiated the removal of VLC on their own, the OS crowd would be crying bloody murder about Apple’s monopoly.

  • [Niklas]

    Not really. Apple is open to competition. For every standard app Apple has there is more than ten competing.

    • Notepad has too many to list.
    • Weather has dozens upon dozens.
    • Stocks app has its fair share of competition.
    • iPod and YouTube apps have brand competitors such as Spotify and Pandora.
    • The address book as well.
    • Camera has hundreds of competitors.
    • So does the calculator.
    • I can find countless calendars and clocks.
    • Maps and GPS apps are abundant, also with well known names.

• [Gareth]

  From a GPLv2 point of view, I don’t really see an issue.

  Source code is available – the developer’s website has a link right there on their front page. GPLv2 only needs the offer of source code for 3 years. OK, that’s not there in the app’s description, but could be added easily I’m sure (and it’s prominently linked to from the app’s description page, see http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vlc-media-player/id390885556?mt=8 ). And from reading the developer’s site, they seem to want to be doing the right thing, so I’m prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

  The GNU Go issue earlier in the year was different – that is GPLv3 licensed. VLC is GPLv2 “or (at your option) any later version”. Applidium need only state that they’re distributing under GPLv2 and they’re clear, as I read it. (It’s then up to you as the person receiving the code whether you want to use GPLv3, but it doesn’t affect VLC in the App Store)

  A big driving force behind GPLv3 was to stop “Tivoization”, i.e. running GPL code on locked down devices. GPLv2 allowed this, but GPLv3 does not. So a GPLv2 app (that meets the code promise requirements) seems to meet the requirements.

  • [Paul Lockett]

    I believe the issue with GPLv2 is that the licence forbids the imposition of extra terms through the use of EULAs, etc., which makes it incompatible with the terms and conditions which users of the App Store have to agree to.