The idea behind open-source software is sharing, where users can take what was originally created to potentially create something better, or something else based on the original code. However usually it’s a sharing process, where what you create needs to be shareable as well, but not everyone feels the same.VLC’s media player app is one that many, many people are familiar with, and it is also an open-source software. Unfortunately there is the existence of an app called 321 Media Player which took VLC’s code and rebranded it and released it, while stuffing a ton of ads inside of it, breaching VLC’s GPL license in the process. The good news is that it looks like Google has finally done something about it and has since removed the app from the Google Play Store.
In a post on Reddit, VideoLAN President Jean-Baptiste Kempf was quoted as saying, “The Android version of VLC is under the license GPLv3, which requires everything inside the application to be open source and sharing the source. A fork application which changes some things is an interesting thing, because they maybe have something to give back to our community. The application here, is just a parasite, and I think they are useless and dangerous.”
Kempf had previously revealed that they had actually turned down tens of millions of euros in potential ad money, refusing to put ads on the free media player.
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