Re: [dvd-discuss] Geeks in government: A good idea?

[Jon Lech Johansen <jon(at)nanocrew.net>]

On Sat, Aug 17, 2002 at 08:47:17AM +0200, Tom (tom@lemuria.org) wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 16, 2002 at 07:30:35PM -0700, microlenz@earthlink.net wrote:
> > And where are the free Windows players? Now that the DeCSS, a trade secret is 
> > known, where are they? or the Linux ones? or GNU, GPL? 
> 
> mplayer, vlc and livid are three that come to mind immediately. all
> three break CSS. the vlc team has even written a library (libdvdcss).

The real question is: How many commercial Linux distributions include
such players? I'm not aware of any.  
 
> the vlc team had the first useable Linux DVD player, and IMHO one of
> the reasons they were faster than livid even though they started later
> was that they didn't stop to fight the dinosaurs first. they just wrote
> code and that was that.

The VideoLAN project was started in 1996. They already had many of the
other necessary modules by the time they added the DVD module. As for
dinosaurs, there weren't and aren't any around to fight. VideoLAN is a
project at a French university. VideoLAN's partners include companies
such as IBM, British Telecom, AT&T and Sun. VideoLAN was one of the
winners in IBM's International Linux Scholar Challenge. The dinosaurs
don't have any legal standing to attack VideoLAN, and PR-wise it would
be suicide (not that this prevented the RIAA from threatening Felton).

The dinosaurs will however probably show up for the EUCD festivities.
Now, if only I could find a sufficiently large asteroid on ebay.

-- 
Jon Johansen
nanocrew.net

http://www.eff.org/support/jonfund.html

MR. LEVY:  I'm sorry, your Honor. I actually have a technology expert
  with me. Would the Court like to or would they agree to hear a very
  brief statement on this point from that expert?
THE COURT: No.    -- MPAA v. Reimerdes injunction hearing, 2000/01/21