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You can hear a more detailed explanation on VLC's stance from the man himself (JB Kempf) in the FOSS pod S1E11 episode around 22:10.
Basically:
Thanks for the heads up about FOSS pod. Had not heard of it before.
This is all well and good, and where’s the Traffic Cone!?!
Under Santa's hat
Asking the real questions here.
The cone is the logo for their most popular project (VLC media player), but this is a message from the organization as a whole, which has the logo you currently see. It is not specifically about that one project.
Wait, I thought all countries followed US laws???
Please be sarcasm... Please be sarcasm... Oh I pray to the dark void of the universe that this is sarcasm.
it absolutely is, take it from an autistic person.
(autstic people often don't recognize or can't properly replicate sarcasm, which is why i often use /s)
Yeah, but I've also met several (Americans, usually) who had takes like these and... Uh... Unfortunately meant it.
To some extent this can be mitigated by therapy. I'm serious.
Or we leave people be how they are?
Therapy is about leaving people more "how they are" than before. It's not about making them behave according to expectations.
I know very well what therapy is about. Decades of experience. Being an autistic person and working through a life of internalized ableism and discrimination works wonders for recognizing it. Not being able to understand sarcasm or other subtext is no problem for me, it is a problem for my surroundings so they can go to therapy for it. I go to therapy to learn to not accept being ousted for being different.
Well, for me it's only 2 months of experience, being 28.
I go to therapy to learn to not accept being ousted for being different.
That's right too.
EDIT: I meant - when you are not permanently suppressed by the things which you don't need, like trying to not be yourself, you may have easier time understanding sarcasm and subtexts too.
While the mistake is a common one, all countries have actually agreed to jointly follow bird law in these sorts of matters.
Can someone elaborate?
They don't recognize or value software patents because they aren't recognized by the government where the project is run from.
Vive la France!
Seeing the last law on immigration :/
We got fucked real bad but we are coming for our rulers and will take down their previous work
Valid.
French laws don't recognize software patents so videolan doesn't either. This is likely a reference to vlc supporting h265 playback without verifying a license. These days most opensource software pretends that the h265 patents and licensing fees don't exist for convenience. I believe libavcodec is distributed with support enabled by default.
Nearly every device with hardware accelerated h265 support has already had the license paid for, so there's not much point in enforcing it. Only large companies like Microsoft and Red Hat bother.
They bother because they are US based and can be hounded by the patent ~~trolls~~ holders
Additionally, companies doing business in the US also follow US laws. If they don't, they could still be sued overseas (or stop doing business over there).
America has the odd idea that software is considered patentable. Since the developers of VLC are French, and software isn't considered patentable in France, they're saying "Va te faire enculer" to people who want to sue them.
Why is it odd to be able to patent software specifically? I don't see how it's different from medicine or anything physical. To clarify, I'm not arguing the merits of patents in general, just asking why software is different.
You can copyright software code, just like any other written work, to protect you from people literally copy and pasting your work, but the idea that you could patent things like "slide left to unlock" is just stupid, as it's a fundamental concept and software is full of fundamental concepts.
Compression algorithms being patentable is even more stupid, as it would be like somebody claiming they own Pi, just because they figured it out first. Imagine not being able to compute the circumference of a circle without paying somebody for the privilege.
Like auto update and auto driver installation? They expired for sure, but especially the auto driver installation patent is hilarious. Like no shit sherlock: Check internet for driver with the device md5 hash and the version of the driver installer. Download driver if it's a newer version. Install driver if md5 hash matches. Repeat for all devices, and that's fucking it. Plus an irrelevant figure that shows a computer connected to a printer, scanner and the internet. 3 pages in total, of which 1 page is a copy of another page, so only 2 real pages in total.
Who the heck thought these should've been approved and why?
That's the issue with software patents. Everything is obvious at a certain level of knowledge
Also if my understanding of US patents is correct (chances are low, but still) you can use sha1 instead of md5 and change some other minor thing and it'll not infringe that patent ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Because software is math, and like math, it's basically a way of expressing things that are true about the universe. Allowing only some people to say those things would be nonsense.
Imagine if someone patented Pythagora's Theorem and only they were allowed to use it. You couldn't even begin to count the ways in which it would be impractical. Similarly, audio or video codecs for example are just ways of describing sound waves or images more efficiently.
Yes, there is work that goes into finding these algorithms, just like there is work that goes into new mathematical theorems and proofs, but that work gets rewarded and protected in other ways (copyright etc.)
AFAIK european laws only allow to patent "inventions". Software is considered to be a series of "words" in whatever programming language you're using and, like sentences, it's not an invention and can't be patented.
On the other hand, software-assisted inventions can be patented as a whole.
With that said, software can still be considered a "work" protected by copyright laws.
That logo design hurts my heart.. https://cdn.cnc-comm.com/theme//assets/images/wslogo.png
Fuck that, I like that it's different. I feel a lot of the logos are too similar and boring.
This one has the retro feel to it.
I don't think they were complaining about the design. It invoked a memory of a beloved video game studio from the past that had a similar logo (Westwood Studios) and they are a bit heartbroken. I didn't take their comment as an actual complaint against VideoLAN's logo.
correct!
graphic design is my passion
That’s not their stance, that’s French law
I think it both. Not all software or codec provider aim to apply the EU and French laws. Quite the contrary
