Voici la raison du retrait de l'application VLC de l'AppStore

Comme vous le savez déjà, l'application VLC était retard de l'AppStore la semaine dernière par Apple pour avoir enfreint les règles concernant la possibilité d'utiliser l'application sur plus de 5 iDevices. C'est l'hypothèse sur laquelle tout le monde a présenté la nouvelle la semaine dernière, mais en réalité personne ne connaît, pas même les développeurs de l'application, la véritable raison pour laquelle l'application a été retirée. Le président de la société VideoLAN était informé par un avocat de la société Apple que l'application VLC a été retirée de l'AppStore, mais que la raison du retrait ne lui a pas été expliquée.

At last, Apple has removed VLC media player from its application store. Thus the incompatibility between the GNU General Public License and the AppStore terms of use is resolved – the hard way. I am not going to pity the owners of iDevices, and not even the MobileVLC developers who doubtless wasted a lot of their time. This end should not have come to a surprise to anyone.

L'application VLC est développée sous licence GNU, ce qui signifie pratiquement que n'importe qui peut utiliser l'application sans aucune restriction. Apple impose une limite de 5 appareils sur lesquels une application peut être utilisée, il est donc aussi clair que possible que l'application VLC viole cette règle. Le développeur de l'application a informé Apple de cette incompatibilité il y a plus de 2 mois, mais depuis lors et jusqu'à présent, Apple n'a pas pris la peine de modifier cette règle, bien qu'il ait apporté d'autres modifications via la réglementation. En conclusion, personne, pas même le développeur de l'application, ne sait pourquoi Apple a pris cette décision et nous ne le saurons probablement jamais. Jusqu'à un autre vous pouvez télécharger l'application depuis Cydia.

Voici ce que le développeur de l'application a dit sur le blog Entreprise.

On January 7th, I was told by an Apple attorney that VLC media player had been removed from the App Store. That is how I was able to break the news first. However as can be expected from an attoryney, there was not really any explanation. A number of people and -unfortunately- popular bloggers have jumped to the obvious conclusion: the VideoLAN project, and I in particular would be idealist morons who care more about technical license details than users, and we would have constrained Apple. This is not quite true.

Premièrement, même moi, je ne sais pas avec certitude pourquoi Apple a supprimé VLC, et Apple ne dira probablement jamais la vérité.

Second, Apple has already removed VLC from the “old” Mac Store for computers… already about 4 years ago, at a time when VLC was one of the most popular applications, and I am yet to learn the reasons why.

Third, Apple received my copyright notification more than 2 months before they pulled the application. This was not expedited, as the US copyright law would require. As such, it seems dubious that my well-publicized notification from last october is the root cause of the removal. It is nevertheless the reason why I was learnt directly from Apple that VLC was removed.

Last, Apple had the power and plenty of time (2 months) to adjust and clarifiy the terms of the App Store. Indeed, said terms were modified several times since then. Alternatively, Apple could even have continued to carry VLC implicitly distributed under the GPL by Applidium. This is effectively what I believe the situation was before the removal.

Dans l'ensemble, nous ne connaîtrons probablement jamais la vérité. But I am inclined to believe what Eben Mogel, from the Software Freedom Law Center, foretold me 2 months ago: Apple would remove VLC simply because it cannot stand software distributed under the GPL on its stores. But, it is Apple’s choice and business decision, therefore Apple would have no reasons to expedite the process. It could also be that they do specifically not fancy VLC on their platforms. That would account for the removal from the Mac Store a long time ago.

I know this would be disappointing to the many Apple fanboys who have insulted or slandered me on the web or over email in the last few days. But I might not be the (anti-)hero people made me.