14 DAY TRIAL // VideoLAN is sad to announce that all work on the Mac OS X version of VLC may come to a halt. The open source media playback application is most notable for bridging the gap between official playback solutions developed by Apple and Microsoft, delivering support for a wide range of file formats. The software is being developed entirely by volunteers. The Mac version currently disposes of none - a situation originally reported by macnn.
Moreover, the 64-bit VLC for Mac OS X is also a halted project, with VideoLAN warning that, unless more developers step forward to help out, Mac support could be ended with the release of VLC 1.1.0. Work is particularly needed in the graphics area, including the output architecture. Knowledge of Objective-C Cocoa and Xcode is required on the volunteers’ end.
Reproduced below is VideoLAN’s open letter to the VLC community.
Mac situation
Indeed we have a kind of lack of manpower on the Mac interface of VLC.
The VLC core (in C) and most other plugins work pretty fine, just not the OS X GUI (1% of the code of VLC) in Objective-C.
That explains the issues you have seen in latest version of VLC 1.0.x on mac, and the drop of 64bits version in 1.0.3.
In consequence, VLC on Mac might use the Qt interface in the future.
We may have an alternative in a near future: stay tuned.
Apple
Finally, we have a few issues, since Apple doesn't want us on the Mac platform and is blocking us a lot, and refuses to explain why.
VideoLAN foundation
To answer a few people, especially on Hacker News, the VideoLAN foundation is run only by donation on the paypal account. The money is spent on hardware, servers and meetings... We have less than 10,000 euros per year...
People working on VLC are ONLY volunteers.
VideoLAN Dev Days '09 VideoLAN is organizing its VideoLAN Dev Days '09, starting tomorrow in Paris, France. You are welcome to come and discuss: VDD 09.