ah, thanks — I did know about the computer bit, but interpreted ‘computer’ in the legalese as meaning any kind of computing device. Changed that bit in the post.

I do know that you can install on more than five iPhones, but didn’t know it was legal to do so (I checked around and haven’t found anything contrary to what you’ve said).

I won’t disagree with you there and I will admit to being a bit of a layman as far as licensing terms go, but how about in practice? I’d think a lot more people simply want to use VLC than modifying it or its UI in some way, or download more than five copies on their own iTunes account. I also don’t think this really damages the reputation of VLC, seeing as the whole project is still free and open source, and it’s just this one port that has a theoretical lock on it.

As for the bit about posterity…I’ve had a few apps that have been removed from the App Store (Camera+ was one of them) and I never had any problems installing them, so long as I had them within iTunes.

However, I will say that you have got me thinking about the issue in a different light. The same freedom that VLC enjoys and which people are very quick to defend is starting to look a bit like the freedom to install whatever Mac apps I want to, which is starting to look a little threatened by the Mac App Store.

Ah, duly noted, thanks.

VLC is not freeware. It is Free Software. This means the end user has the rights to modify it and to redistribute it. The App Store version blocked these rights, and thus legal action was taken to remove it.

It can be on the App Store again when Apple changes their policies to allow it, or you can use it on a jailbroken iPhone.

There are a couple of similar apps out there (OPlayer is a decent alternative) but none up quite up to VLC’s standards.

However, what is very interesting is that in a matter of hours of VLC being pulled from the App Store, the well known developer Ryan Petrich has modified VLC and released it for free under Cydia! I downloaded it today and the only difference I can see is that rather than load videos via iTunes (which is a real pain anyway) you can simply sideload them into your VLC media folder using SSH or USB.

Yet another reason on a very long list of good reasons to jailbreak 🙂

The entity responsible for all those problems, and the entity that has to change its ways but refuses to do so is Apple. Boo at them if you want, not at the developers who’s time and effort you enjoy for free.