The VideoLAN Forums

I'm an Ubuntu user, and I see much people like me switch immediately from Totem to VLC.
For what I know VLC is not the default multimedia player shipped in Ubuntu because of US patent issues with some codecs. Can't you create a reduced version of VLC without the support for those codecs, and add them as suggested plugins?

VLC is not the default multimedia player, because of lack of disc space on the CD, not because of patent issues.

...(Sheldon mode) Is it irony? The matter is VLC is too big?!?

Yes.
This is not irony.

Well, if you read this thread on Ubuntu forum, in particular this post, you can see patents are a problem and size is not, in particular now with the dvd format.

For what I know VLC is very popular and this is the only obstacle to have it as default player in Ubuntu and other Unix-like OSs.

You can split the codecs from VLC in the same way as other players. This is blah blah...

Especially since libavcodec53 is already on Ubuntu.

libavcodec53 is on Canonical, but much of dependencies in VLC are on Universe, as VLC too...

If this is a patent related issue, then one could build VLC with only certain dependencies. VLC can be used quite well with core + QT4 interface + libav* plugins + one VOUT + one AOUT. Basically you just need proper configure options for that.