The VideoLAN Forums

Hi all,

We are in the process of developing a product for the US federal government and our timeline is very SHORT! this is a crisis schedule for military operations and some law enforcement work. We are having some configuration and development problems with VLC. Seems the VLC MAC keeps crashing and displaing video incorrectly.

We are building a series of video processing servers with embedded unix/linux controllers that need to capture network video streams in MPEG4 format and output the files to disk including some transcoding to multiple formats. We are basing part of the design around features of VLC. System includes streaming services and a searchable repository for previously recorded files.

If you have VLC or other Streaming media experience, especially MAC experience (system will use the new Mac Mini as an embedded controller), java, and some C++, PLEASE CONTACT ME!

Mark R. Wells
CTO
TranTech inc.
4900 Seminary Rd. Suite 215
Alexandria, VA. 22311
(703) 671-99873

Please don't forget that VLC is GPL, which requires you to post any code modifying VLC back into the public domain.

There is no exemption for use in government contracts when it comes to GPL. For example, if you are to modify an API to VLC, that API needs to be made available to the outside world at large. Developing/enhancing an API like RC or VLM is the only clean way to hook to it from an outside, closed-source, application, and GPL requires you to make that enhanced/modified code available (not your external code, but any modified VLC source, works deriving from the source).

I'm familiar with GPL in a USG environment, and the license isn't ambiguous. It's pretty simply stated.

Make sure that you have coverage on MPEG licensing. The VLC FAQ is clear about this, that an end user is responsible for license fees, and it sounds like you may be using the app as both client and server.

You might want to check to ensure you don't include the DVD DECSS element, so that you don't violate DMCA in the US.

I'm sure that you probably have all of the above covered, this is just an opportunity for a reminder.

It sounds like the work you are doing should be of great interest, excellent enhancements. I'm just trying to give you a few helpful hints. I look forward to seeing it!

You might want to send an e-mail to vlc-devel@videolan.org, ask if they could set you up with a development fork in their subversion repository. No guarantees, but something like that may be doable.

That would allow you to work off of a single snapshot of the code base, as well as making new/modified VLC code accessible to the public. This should help you meet the GPL requirement to make derivative work accessible.

Yes I understand the license, and anything that is made at the expense of the government is Public Domain. Believe me, we have built some neat things in the past and solved some difficult problems that now belong to everyone. We have actually developed two XML protocols for medical transactions.

Our intent is to create a web service that interacts with VLC as well as other tools. This web service would be publically available. We are also developing a web based central command product that manages the encoding server. That product would not be public domain (which is where we would make part of our money).

We are big supporters of open standards and hope that more open source softare can be put to use in the business world. Look at Brazil. They just mandated that all government software be open source. Imagine the look on Microsoft's face if this works successfully.

Mark