VLC media player is freely downloadable
software [1] having a size of 28 MB and two billion downloads. It works on 14
platforms like Windows, Linux, Android, Apple TV, ChromeOS and so on. As
expected, VLC is regarded as the world's most preferred media player [2]. It is difficult to believe that VLC player
developer team consists of 12 active members including five core developers [3].
The team thrive on the donations they collect. Building a very successful
software using small band of developers with shoe string budget is really
fascinating. Adequate documentation regarding the VLC player project and about
the people involved are not available in Internet. This post tries to summarize
the scrambled pieces of information about VLC player.
VLC
stands for VideoLAN Client. VLS i.e. VideoLAN Server existed in the initial
stages of development. Later it was merged with VLC. Technically it is possible
to stream a video over a network using VLC player. VLC is software developed by
a non-profit organization named VideoLAN. As the name suggests the VLC project
was developed to send video over Local Area Network (LAN). The software was
developed by students of École Centrale, (a famous engineering college in France, located in Paris ) to deliver videos from
satellite across the computer network present in the campus. [4]. It was code
named as "Network 2000". The project was started in the year 1996.
The birth date of VLC is not 1996 instead it is 1st February
2001 . On
this day only the VLC project was made as an Open Source by École Centrale authorities. General public uses “free software” and “Open
software” interchangeably. Free software means the price of the software
is zero. Open software permits the user to access the code (programs). Thus
users can fine tune the software according to their wish. Invariably open
software comes with zero price tag and general public think these two terms are
synonymous.
 |
| Photo of Mr. Jean Baptiste Kempf. Image Courtesy: ocsmag.com |
French
engineer named Jean-Baptiste Kempf is the lead developer of VLC player and the
president of VideoLAN [4]. As stated earlier a small band core developers and a
big pool of part-time developers volunteer their time and effort to build and
maintain VLC player. They don't have a business model to sustain. They just
hang on with donations they receive. Mr. Jean Baptiste Kempf feel inserting
advertisements in VLC player will jeopardize user privacy. He is also not
interested in bundling VLC with other software. Thus we get clean non-intrusive
software. But the down side is VLC's user interface is very primitive.
VLC can
be regarded as a Swiss Army Knife of video players. It has features that are
unknown to casual users. VLC player is capable of recording computer screen
activities (desktop), Video file conversion, downloading YouTube videos,
ripping DVD and to subscribe to podcast [5].
If you
are good programmer then join VLC or any other open software community and
write code for them. If you have money then fund these organizations. Else just
talk about them (or share via social media) among the young science students
and general public. If we can instill a fire in a brilliant student's heart
then that is sufficient. In the years to come we will have Kempf II from USA , India , Brazil and so on.
References
[1]
VideoLAN - Download official VLC media player for Windows | http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html
[2] 10Best Video Players For Windows (2016) |
http://beebom.com/10-best-video-players-for-windows/
[3] VLC:
An Interview with Jean-Baptiste Kempf | OCS-Mag |
http://www.ocsmag.com/2015/07/17/vlc-an-interview-with-jean-baptiste-kempf/
[4]
VideoLAN celebrates 15 years of VLC, the media player that plays everything |
VentureBeat | Media | by Emil Protalinski |
http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/01/videolan-celebrates-15-years-of-vlc-the-media-player-that-plays-everything/
[5] 5Hidden Things You Don’t Know Your VLC Media Player Could Do » TechWorm |
http://www.techworm.net/2016/12/5-hidden-things-dont-know-vlc-media-player.html
