VLC For Windows 8 Reaches $65,000 Funding Goal On Kickstarter 210
An anonymous reader writes "A Metro version of VLC, the popular free and open-source media player, is coming to Windows 8. On Sunday, the VideoLAN organization reached its funding goal on Kickstarter for its Windows 8-specific app. There are also plans to port it afterwards to Windows Phone 8. The project has now been funded by over 2,500 backers, who have pledged more than the £40,000 ($65,000) goal."
VLC (Score:2)
Why wouldn't the usual version work on Win8? I was under the impression that there is a Classic-like interface, sans Start Menu?
Re:VLC (Score:5, Informative)
Re:VLC (Score:5, Insightful)
... assuming Microsoft 'approves' it. Buying into a locked ecosystem is a mistake. It's rewarding a company for taking the ownership of your hardware away.
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Re:VLC (Score:5, Insightful)
There is zero chance that MS will not improve it. They are desperate for apps and they approve total crap. They will not ban a quality app. Also the music player has nothing to do with selling music. The player is not related to the files you get from their service.
Re:VLC (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is not whether they will approve it or not. The issue is in the principle of acting as if the hardware vendor has the right to choose what software the user and proprietor chooses to run.
As developers, we should not be complicit this terrible precendent, and we should not contribute in any way to the positive health of this system.
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Or, in this case, the software vendor.
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A lot of people want someone to else to keep them safe. As long as sideloading is an option I am not going to get too upset about "official app stores".
The issue for me is, why waste the effort? Windows 8 is not popular at all. It lacks apps and the OS is buggy. Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Windows 8 rt are going to be a bigger fail for Microsoft than Vista ever was. Just as the tech press, Microsoft faithful, and a few techies here and there will pop up with, "It is fine, I have no problems, and You ju
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That's up to the people with $65K to decide. The effort of the devs is not wasted because they are paid to do it.
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There is zero chance that MS will not improve it. They are desperate for apps and they approve total crap. They will not ban a quality app. Also the music player has nothing to do with selling music. The player is not related to the files you get from their service.
I suspect Microsoft have contributed a large amount to the project
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"look up what happened when they tried to port VLC to the Apple appstore"
I did. So some company named Applidium took the VLC code, ported it and stuck it in the Apple store. VLC code owner complained. You disagree. Zzzzzz.
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then you can just side load it.
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I was under the impression that it wasn't allowed under the metro interface. Is that something easy for the average user?
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Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
That is incorrect. Nice FUD, though.
1. Admin Powershell prompt (easily available even on Windows RT).
2. Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenceRegistration (yes, this is a PS command. Try "show-wi" + [TAB])
3. Enter Windows Live credentials. They don't have to be the ones you sign in with (in fact, you don't have to be using Windows Live signin at all), and the don't have to be associated with a developer account in any way. In fact, they can be for a throw-away account.
4. Download an APPX package and run its install script. Congrats, sideloading achieved.
The status of the "developer registration" will need to be periodically refreshed, as by default it expires after a month. However, it costs nothing except a trivial amount of time, and you can refresh it repeatedly.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's go back to the grandparent:
Now let's list those steps again:
Doesn't look to me like something the "average user" (read Joe Sixpack) can do to me.... Besides, I thought Microsoft hated the command line given their proclivity to denigrate its use in Linux.
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He also fails to mention that the certificate can be revoked and lasts no more than 120 days. This isn't side loading, it's abusing a convoluted system by which you can use VS2012 to test and debug formerly-Metro software.
It's nowhere near like you can do on X86 using desktop applications, or even on Android with its checkbox. It's slightly less dickish than iOS with its mandatory $99 fee before you can so much as test on hardware.
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Just wondering if that one asshole developer who blocked the client on iOS will block it for windows phone as well.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Wait. So the developer of VLC, that application that you so much use, have chosen to license the app and libraries under an open source license and have chosen to make VLC for free available to you.
Now that Apple have chosen to make their app-store not GPL friendly, and Mircosoft have chosen to do the same, you say he, the developer, is an "asshole"?
wow, just wow. I think if you look at the mirror you can see the real "asshole" here.
Where is your contribution to VLC, where is your media library?
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Just wondering if that one asshole developer who blocked the client on iOS will block it for windows phone as well.
Couldn't the other developers have just wrote new code to serve the functionality of the stuff he wrote and replace his code, thereby removing him from the project contributor list in effect and making his opinion moot?
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He is one of the very few core VLC developers and has been for some time. He is involved in a lot of the hard bits of VLC's code, so it is very unlikely that his code could be replaced.
Re:VLC (Score:4, Insightful)
Now when looking at his resume which is plasterd with Nokia adventures, I have the feeling it has a lot more to do with butthurt and frustration regarding the downfall of Nokia.
The whole freedom, fsf, whatever claim seems also weird for somebody that mentions different software patents on his resume. I find it kind of hypocritical for somebod with high freedom morals.
Seeing his works relations with Nokia I want to bet on it, nithing will happen. That ks typical for such kind of people.
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True freedom would be donating the code to the public domain so in that regard even the FSF is hypocritical since the GPL itself has restrictions in its use.
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Yes, what an asshole for preventing his work being used for precisely the purpose he didn't want it used for. It's almost like he put his time and effort into it and you didn't and therefore don't have a leg to stand on but are crying about it anyway because you have a deep sense of entitlement.
Re:VLC (Score:4, Insightful)
... assuming Microsoft 'approves' it. Buying into a locked ecosystem is a mistake. It's rewarding a company for taking the ownership of your hardware away.
Well, there's now $65,000 out there willing to test the waters. And the developers don't lose anything if it fails -- only the investors do. I'd guess a lot of that will be spent on the lawyer screwing about over patents... it might be the case that the only thing required is a few edits here and there to surgically transplant the UI. Porting an app usually costs a fraction of the original development cost. If portability was considered from the initial design, it might only require a few hours work to prep it for compiling on a different architecture. And it's open source; Projects that survive as long as VLC has do so because the programmers made it a goal to keep maintenance down. Release one bad app and you'll be supporting it for the rest of your life. :)
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I'm curious about people moderating this as 'troll'. Do you think a locked ecosystem is a good thing? Do you think rewarding manufacturers who do it is going to result in you having more control over your hardware?
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I'm curious about people moderating this as 'troll'. Do you think a locked ecosystem is a good thing? Do you think rewarding manufacturers who do it is going to result in you having more control over your hardware?
You had me right up until the third word: Think. No, the moderators do not think. They agree or disagree. Thinking is so Malda-era, and our new Web 3.0 monetization of the synergy of infolectual peer based interaction systems function better without it.
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Thinking is so Malda-era,
I hope you mean this in the generic sense rather than specifically referring to this website when CmdrTaco was around. Quite frankly, it didn't seem that he gave two shits beginning somewhere around the time when Y2K didn't end the world or maybe right after he proposed.
Unless you've got a considerably smaller UID to come back with, I'm going to have to say that your longing for some greater, better, more wonderful time is complete and total horseshit. Slashdot has always sucked. At times, off and on, it ha
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For media creation devices it's a nice option to have at least.
Also I've written apps for my Windows Phone; they're easy to write, and they're pretty specific to things I want (graphing my phone data usage, implementing my password system). Th
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I did. Greed is a greater motivator than freedom for many.
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Furthermore, should Microsoft ever manage to turn Metro/Windows Store into a dominant platform, it could use its leverage to (for example) keep Open Source software out its app store.
Re:VLC (Score:5, Funny)
Presumably it's quicker and easier to fund a complete new version of VLC that it is to work out how the fuck you're supposed to launch and run a program under Windows 8?
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Not really they allready have arm Linux Android and bios they can recycle a lot of that code all they have to build is a new front end.
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*ios not bios stupid auto-correct
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It works perfectly fine as a desktop app; and I've got VLC installed myself.
But this new version should also run on ARM windows RT devices along with Windows phones, where obviously the "usual version" currently does not, and would not really be appropriate user interface-wise even if it did.
A tablet / touch / full screen version of VLC for that platform makes a lot of sense, and it would be pretty nice on x86 windows 86 systems for watching movies etc -- I'd like it for my HTPC for example.
I'll keep the cl
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Many people may not like the Don't-call-it-Metro UI but here are $65K that like it.
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Yeah and then they would not let it into the store as comments above suggest :)
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but merto limited muilt tasking and lack of resiz (Score:2)
but merto limited muilt tasking and lack of resizing sucks even more so on a big screen or muilt screen system.
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The project has now been funded by over 2,500 backers...
Or not.
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In order for an application to be perfectly portable between Windows 8, Windows RT, and Windows Phone 8 it needs to target the WinRT Run Time (related to, but not synonymous with Windows RT). Currently, VLC presumably targets the Win32 runtime which means it will run just fine on Windows 8, but not on Windows RT or Windows Phone 8.
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And this is exactly why they need $65K to port it
New Kickstarter Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
How about we start a kickstarter to not port VLC to windows phone?
Re:New Kickstarter Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Because of the freedom right? We should outbid the people who are willing to pay for the Win8/WP port and make them free by denying them free software.
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... and focus on finishing the Android version.
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Who do you mean by "we"? Because $65K do not agree with you.
Re:New Kickstarter Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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I can avoid using it for only so long, Microsoft is forcing the issue, ramming a walled-garden tablet UI down all of our throats. I don't think I'll get around to liking a crippled walled garden capable only of single full screen tasks
But yes we will eventually be forced to use it. Whether we want to or not.
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Accept it? Sure. Like it? Not necessarily. I dunno how many programs over the years I've upgraded and found that I actually downgraded after it was too late.
Let Windows 8 Die (Score:3, Interesting)
Then Microsoft would be forced to fix the UI and bring back the start menu.
It's not going to die (Score:3)
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I would be much happier if nobody ported their software, and Windows 8 was allowed to completely fail.
Then Microsoft would be forced to fix the UI and bring back the start menu.
As long as progman.exe still works.
Re:Let Windows 8 Die (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 8 is my new main OS at home. Im figuring it out, and less unhappy than I was when I first got it. But it is the least discoverable UI I have ever used; Ubuntu was oodles easier to use.
Re:Let Windows 8 Die (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting. The more I use it the more unhappy I am with it. At first I thought it was a little wierd (the whole 2 UI thing) but I figured I would get used to it. I have gotten used to it but like it less and less every day as I discover another annoying and arbitrary design decision. I put classic shell, so I can't complain about lack of a Start menu, I have that. The latest thing that really bugs me is that there are settings buried both in the desktop Control Panel, and also in the "Metro" Settings->Change PC Settings. You just have to know which ones are at which location.
And for all the defenders out there, there is nothing I have not been able to figure out, even if it has required search or help. I've never had to resort to documentation (help or google) with a graphical UI. The lack of discoverability is going to piss off a lot of users. Even when they get used to it windows 8 will leave them with a bad taste in their mouth.
My recommendation to Microsoft - unify the split personality. Allow users to choose "Metro Style" or "Desktop Style" and stay entirely within that UI. I see no technical reason that Desktop apps could not run in a Metro window or metro apps run in a desktop window.
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I would love if they did that. My decreasing unhappiness is partly due to the performance improvements, and as I discover things I really dont like (the control panel crap you mentioned), theres other things I really like-- the new task manager, the new taskbar multimon support, and the improvements to caching.
as I discover another annoying and arbitrary design decision.
"Arbitrary" pretty much defines every single problem that Windows 8 has, actually. One wonders what sort of usability study ended up with this UI as the top pick on desktop.
Re:Let Windows 8 Die (Score:5, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with usability. They're leveraging their monopoly on the desktop OEMs (again) to push their mobile platform. It's a business decision, not a user decision. If they wanted to make it usable, they're disable the tablet mode interface.
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I fail to see how forcing a tablet UI on desktop users in a way that is clunky and hard to use somehow makes me want to use a MS tablet.
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It's not to make you want to use it, it's to push the new UI and APIs, and build up their walled garden.
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I agree in general. However, there's something I feel should be pointed out:
You refer to Search as though it's an option of last resort. That's backwards. Ever since Vista came out (6 years ago), the Start search has been *the* method you should use to launch programs or access settings. It's faster by far than navigating the Start menu or navigating the Control Panel, it can be done entirely with the keyboard ([Windows] + a few letters of the program name you want + [Enter]), it's practically instant on th
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Ubuntu doesnt do the things I need it to do. For instance, if I want to do virtualization in Hyper-V, thats simply not an option, and HyperV remains a fairly large player in the VM market.
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Ubuntu has both kvm/libvirt and VirtualBox available for it.
Both are high quality, proven virtualization solutions.
Hyper-V is a shitty slapped together solution Microsoft hurriedly arranged because they failed yet again to get into that market on time.
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Right. But thats not HyperV, and as I might need to do some testing in hyperv, i cant do that in Xen.
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HyperV was a terrible solution 5 years ago when it came out. It has since been through 3 iterations and is now a full fledged solution.
That you would even place VirtualBox (which noone in their right mind would host production servers on) in the same league with HyperV is laughable. Virtualbox is proven to be unreliable; that an upgrade of it could wipe out VMs (which was a known issue from 3.20 ->3.30) kind of proves the point.
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HyperV 3 is by all rights considered to be a worthy contender to vSphere and Xen.
Xen has its own pile of baggage to deal with, like a buggy interface.
Re:Let Windows 8 Die (Score:4, Interesting)
Genuinely curious, as I am not an expert in these areas, but what is wrong with VirtualBox?
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Genuinely curious, as I am not an expert in these areas, but what is wrong with VirtualBox?
It doesn't work, that's what. I had to give up on it and go back to using vmware player, because it kept crashing on me. And that's even without the 3d driver. That's not important to people running servers so much, but let me tell you, virtualbox's is garbage, and vmplayer's works. I have actually never had the 3d compatibility layer in virtualbox work, never ever not once. Meanwhile, it almost always works in vmplayer. And tons of software that runs fine in vmware that doesn't have any 3d access actually
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HyperV 3 is also "a game in town" as it is in use in a lot of places and has a lot of features that are close to or as good as the other two.
It can be debated until the end of time which is best (vSphere, HyperV, Xen) but you cant pretend that those arent the "big 3" in virtualization, and I believe by all measurements vSphere is currently the top dog (except on licensing).
65K? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why, that's annual salary of an entry-to-mid level programmer. Seems like it would take a whole lot more. Sort of a strange target.
Re:65K? (Score:5, Insightful)
Alternatively, it is the salary of a high-level programmer who is willing to take a pay-cut in order to avoid daily commuting, pair-programming, stand-up meetings, team-building weekends, unpaid overtime, Six Sigma, and all the other bullshit that comes with high-paying jobs in the corporate world.
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We do student projects on this scale in 4 months with 5-6 kids. Doesn't seem like it's that big a deal.
It's just changing the UI to use the metro language, and performance optimization for ARM on windows RT and anything that crops up along the way. It's not trivial, but it's not like they have to write an entire media player, with codec support etc. from scratch, or at least, hopefully don't.
It's just a UI (Score:3)
Seems like it would take a whole lot more.
VLC is already modularized. Most of the functionality resides inside a library, and this library has already been ported to ARM CPUs too.
The only thing needed is "just" yet another UI. Next to the classic windows, Mac OS X Quartz, Linux GTK, Linux QT, textmode and a few other less known, they now need to add a metro interface.
It's basically just making new menu/button that work nicely on a metro tile, and connecting them to the already existing portable VLC engine.
That will actually require only a couple of
How about fix VLC for ANY operating system! (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to use VLC exclusively, but then it began to choke on newer codecs and more demanding resolutions. I upgraded and the latest build was far worse (no audio half the time, problems skipping, etc) so I had to revert back to an older version. I've switched to Media Player Classic (which I used to use over 5 years ago before VLC) and am very pleased because it "simply works". So IMO, MPC has leapfrogged VLC in their back and forth development surges. The fact that the latest releases of VLC were worse leads me to believe whatever developers are now active are not doing such a good job.
Until VLC can be made to halfway work on ANY platform, I'd be hesitant to try and push it out to Windows 8. There are fundamental problems with the low level decoding right now that need to be fixed first, before high level GUI / API / OS stuff is tweaked for a new OS.
VLC 64-bit's VERY good on Win 64-bit... apk (Score:2, Interesting)
I see the opposite on Win7 64-bit, actually Dan East! To wit:
I went to Media Player Classic 64-bit for about a year, prior to lately/now!
(Since I went to 64-bit Windows 7 circa 2009 when it released)
However, lately, on SOME video files? MediaPlayer Classic began to LAG...
Even using its 'optimized' output option.
So, it was time to try VLC 64-bit & since versions before the one I use now in 2.05 just recently released (2.02 - 2.04)? It hauls ass, & doesn't "lag frames" like I've seen Media Player Clas
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an ex- coward that now cower in fear of Mikaealchristthepet628
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Interesting, what do you mean by more demanding resolutions? I haven't had any problems whatsoever with good old 1080p source material, even when playing back on high-res displays (2560x1600) with rather old hardware.
Are you playing 4k or 8k something else insane? Have you checked your CPU load? Activated HWA decoding?
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I used to use VLC exclusively, but then it began to choke on newer codecs and more demanding resolutions.
I've noticed time and again that mplayer will play files that vlc claims to support, but that it chokes on. Usually gstreamer chokes on the same file, or will at least hang if you try to seek.
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The thing with VLC is, that its a shit-ton more than just a media player. You can't really find any other single piece of software that could replace it IF you also use it for its other uses.
But I do agree, that for just playing video files, I am torn between it and MPC-HC
But I found VLC too slow for my liking lately... (Score:2)
This isn't to troll, but I am sorry to say, that VLC versions 2.x.x and up were too slow for my liking compared to the 1.x.x seies. Talk of "improving the customer experience!"
Needless to say, I abandoned ship! On Android, I have discovered BSPlayer FREE [google.com]. This is one player that will not throw errors at the multiple video formats I've thrown at it. VLC on Android isn't even out of beta! On windows, it chokes and sucks big time!
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You're not alone. I still use it on Windows for its wide video support, but even on simple audio files (mp3, mostly), it's become a real dog.
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Actual VLC Kickstarter page (Score:5, Informative)
That is a good thing (Score:2)
However I would not installed it on my desktop because 1: I lack a license to do so and 2: I would have to buy start8.
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... why would you need Start8? The Start screen is perfectly capable of launching desktop apps such as VLC. The goal of this Kickstarter is to break a Windows Store (using The Interface Formerly Known As Metro) version, including porting to Windows RT.
New model for software development? (Score:2)
While I don't care much if VLC is ported, the idea of a community sponsored software development is interesting to me. I have often felt that software design decisions appear arbitrary for me (small time no-influence user). This gives people an actual insight into what are popular features, and a heads-up on future changes.
While many companies have feedback (submit suggestions) on their website, it seems like it is flushed down the tubes. I get a "Thank you for blah blah blah" and have no idea of what hap
But does it play wav files? (Score:2)
I will never understand what people at Microsoft are smoking... the latest and greatest flagship windows phone 8 platform won't even play wave files... a format Microsoft itself had a hand in creating and still widely used for lossless audio.
There is soo much missing in windows phone 8 existing in windows mobile since almost a decade ago ..really basic shit still does not exist in the platform. Bluetooth HID, serial bluetooth profiles, PAN, file transfer, VPNs and basic data synchronization all totally mis
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That probably hurts things like the Elite update, which is about 400k short (~30%) with about 2 weeks left.
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umm, 5 days left as of this post... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1061646928/vlc-for-the-new-windows-8-user-experience-metro?ref=search [kickstarter.com]
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You still could; the Kickstarter is still running. You can probably find a donation link on the VLC site in general too, although that wouldn't necessarily go towards the specific goal of a Windows Store version.
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Is the DRM stuff still applicable to the LGPL?
Parts of VLC are under LGPL now [videolan.org].
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I remember what it was like trying to help my