VideoLAN to India: If you love FOSS so much, why have you blocked our downloads?

Developers of the open source VideoLAN media player have challenged India’s government to explain why the project’s website has been blocked. As The Register reported in August 2022, the videolan.org site has been unavailable in India since March 2022, meaning the official source of downloads not available. No official …

[Tromos]

A futile exercise

Blocking VLC to protect or censor media is like banning spoons to prevent obesity.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: A futile exercise

"banning spoons to prevent obesity"

Does it work? Its got to work better than my diet!

[ThatOne]

Reasons of State

> your correspondent fancies authorities may offer an explanation to the effect that blocking VLC downloads will prevent access to copyrighted media and/or material deemed objectionable under local laws

Or that they just felt like doing something, anything. You know, to protect children and fight terrorism.

[Michael Strorm]

Re: Reasons of State

Either that or they jumped to the mistaken conclusion- on the basis of the forks mentioned in the article- that it was Chinese malware (and a national security risk) but the otherwise simple act of recognising the error and reversing the block would make some bureaucrat or similar mediocrity look incompetent, so they don't.

[Pascal Monett]

I use VLC

I have been for about a decade already.

I didn't even know VLC was based in my country.

Irony ?

[Martin an gof]

Re: I use VLC

Two great video projects based in France; Videolan and Handbrake.

M.

[Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese]

the videolan.org site has been unavailable in India since March 2022, meaning the official source of downloads not available

I'm reading that as meaning that any mirrors would still be accessible, as they live at different (i.e. unofficial) domains.

Is this a case where someone with limited understanding has implemented something without realising that it won't achieve what they think it will achieve?

[Graham Cobb]

Surely not! You are talking about a Government here!

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect Modi

In March Modi was dealing with general strikes, an election, a series of meetings reflecting his growing relationships with China and Russia, and his policies on muslims.

I suspect that either some video, probably relating to the strikes, set him off, or that China complained that their VLC forks were being banned but VLC was not.

[venkatarangan]

My country's (India) bureaucracy is legendary. In this case, I suspect there was something that triggered the ban and now that reason would've got forgotten.

The officialdom has great inertia to do anything. No one wants to stick their head out and revoke the ban. They never get punished/held accountable for inaction, so why risk with action? They will wait till the courts order them to do, so that they will never get blamed.