The VideoLAN Forums

We are looking at using VLC in a commercial app but I am not entirely sure about the restrictions that would be placed on us since we would not want to extend the GPL or LPGL license to our products at least not to all of our programs.

One option for us would be for us to use libVLC in C++. It looks like the best way of doing that would utilize vlc header files.
With VLC 1.x and GPL, I am pretty sure that would consitute derived software therefore we would have to GPL our source. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Could we do that with VLC 2.0 / LGPL without having to LPGL our product?

The second option would be to use C# and something like the EasyVLC library that uses pInvoke to resolve references to the vlc dlls at runtime.
I am assuming that we would be safe doing that with either version / license. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I guess that the caveat to that is that we can not bundle VLC with our product; it would need to be installed seperately. Correct?

In the case(s) that we would have to GPL or LGPL our product, could we get around that problem by seperating our code that is built on and calls vlc into a seperate program that our existing source sends messages to? In this scenario, our existing source would not have its license changed but the new program that receives messages and calls vlc would have the appropriate open source license (and would be part of a seperate install I suppose).

One option for us would be for us to use libVLC in C++. It looks like the best way of doing that would utilize vlc header files.
With VLC 1.x and GPL, I am pretty sure that would consitute derived software therefore we would have to GPL our source. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Exact.

Could we do that with VLC 2.0 / LGPL without having to LPGL our product?

Yes.

The second option would be to use C# and something like the EasyVLC library that uses pInvoke to resolve references to the vlc dlls at runtime.
I am assuming that we would be safe doing that with either version / license. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I guess that the caveat to that is that we can not bundle VLC with our product; it would need to be installed seperately. Correct?

Probably.

In the case(s) that we would have to GPL or LGPL our product, could we get around that problem by seperating our code that is built on and calls vlc into a seperate program that our existing source sends messages to? In this scenario, our existing source would not have its license changed but the new program that receives messages and calls vlc would have the appropriate open source license (and would be part of a seperate install I suppose).

Yes, this is doable, but the legality is so-so...

Thanks for the quick reply!

It looks like our best option is to use libVlc from VLC 2.0 by including the header files in a project similar to this one
http://www.codeproject.com/script/Artic ... ?aid=38952

This VLCWrapper code is GPLv3.

I do not see why you need a wrapper, to be honest.

I have a similar situation.

I would like to use VLC activex plugin embedded on a C# application just to view different camera images using the RSTP stream. This application will be distributed for free as an add-on of a commercial product. How shall I indicate that I use vlc in the disclamer? With this use of VLC, do I have to open my code unsing GPL or LGPL?

In the future, if i would like to code a product with this component and sell it (i.e. a featured video player), what steps should I follow?

Thank you very much.

Regards,

Alvaro

You know that libVLC 2.1 is mostly LGPL?