At the end of October, Applidium released an updated VLC for iOS, finally giving iPhone and iPod Touch owners a chance to use the popular media player on their devices.
The move followed Applidium’s 1.0 version of the software which runs on the iPad.
Today, it has become clear that a possible licensing conflict may force the app offline.
PCWorld explains:
In addition to being free in the sense that it costs nothing, VLC is also open-source software developed collaboratively under the GNU Public License (GPL), which is designed to promote the creation of software that can be freely modified and redistributed by anyone, as long as they do so in compliance with the license.
In order to maintain the freedom of the software it protects, the GPL imposes several conditions under which redistribution may take place; in particular, the redistribution of the software must be unrestricted under any circumstance, allowing any user to give another user a functional copy under the same original terms.
Regular VLC contributor Rémi Denis-Courmont has said, however, that the iOS App Store violates the aforementioned terms because it uses proprietary DRM to make sure users do not redistribute apps obtained through the store. Denis-Courmont says he has now filed a copyright complaint with Apple, asking the software be removed from the store.
Apple has yet to respond but the software is still available and if you want it, chances are you should download it now.
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Boxee has announced this week that it will begin shipping its highly anticipated Boxee Box starting in November, after first unveiling the device last December.
Speaking to PCWorld, Boxee says the box will run on an Intel Atom CE4100 processor, different than the expected Nvidia Tegra 2. The company says the processor will still allow the box to handle 1080p flawlessly.
Additionally, the box will have both a wired and wireless 802.11n connection, a QWERTY keypad and come with an RF remote.
Boxee Box’s software is very similar to Boxee on Windows/Mac, including a WebKit browser with Flash support.
The box is now available for pre-order on Amazon for $200.
Anyone ordering from Amazon will receive their box a week before other buyers, notes D-Link, the manufacturer of the box.
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Christopher Poole, founder of the infamous meme site 4chan came out this week claiming that Verizon was “explicitly blocking” access to the site, and it appears Poole may have been right.
Jeff Nelson, a public relations employee for the ISP said via Twitter this morning: “2 of 4Chan affiliates were staging for attacks.” However, “They’re green-lighted for tonight’s network update.”
Poole’s full post earlier had read: “Over the past 72 hours, we’ve been receiving reports from Verizon Wireless customers having difficulty accessing the image boards,” Poole wrote. “After investigating, we found that Verizon is dropping traffic… only on port 80 (HTTP). No other subdomain/IP/port is affected, which leads us to believe this block is intentional. After an hour and a half on the phone, we’ve received confirmation from Verizon’s Network Repair Bureau (NRB) that we are “explicitly blocked.”
Verizon had refused comment until today except to say that they were being bombarded with calls about the issue, adds PCWorld.
