I'm personally interested in the decoder only.
In any case, an open source implementation of G.729 is already available in Asterisk project (http://www.readytechnology.co.uk/open/i ... 29-g723.1/).
In general G.729 requires a license, but VLC can freely integrate G.729 and the royalty fees will be eventually paid only by the VLC users that want to use this codec.