VLC, the popular open source media player developed by French organization VideoLAN, is set to take the Indian government to court, all because of inexplicable crash of the project website authorities that lasted more than six months.

“In March 2022, to our surprise and dismay, the URL ‘https://www.videolan.org/’ appeared to be blocked in India without notification to me or anyone else in the organization,” the letter said. sent to India’s Ministry of Telecommunications Jean-Baptiste Kempf, President of VideoLAN and Lead Developer of VLC. “Despite claims and uproar on social media, neither we nor the Indian public have been given reasons to block the URL.”

They picked up the news at Ars Technica and it’s really surprising because there’s no reason for this block: “It’s particularly shocking to us because the Government of India itself encourages the use of VLC as part of its digital initiative, where he expressed his intention to use open source software for applications used in public administration. In fact, the Indian government also appears to be using the VLC Media Player icon and logo on its website to promote open source software,” Kempf added in the letter.

“VLC is currently used by 80 million Indians and has seen a consistent average of 25 million downloads per year in India since its launch. For millions of Indians, VLC is the main option to run all kinds of multimedia formats for free,” he continues, alluding also to the free software project’s political disinterest, except for its well-known stances against DRM and in favor of open source.

From what they say, it was speculated that the block was caused by a malware campaign, as the player was affected by exploiting a vulnerability in an old version, but still widely used. However, according to Kempf, the blocking of the site would begin before the existence of the mentioned campaign is known, and in any case requires an official response from the country’s authorities.

They are therefore demanding a response from VideoLAN in accordance with Indian law, and if it is not forthcoming within a short period of time, they will proceed with a lawsuit against the government, for which will have the help of the Internet Freedom Foundation. Undoubtedly, at least a curious case that will show respect for legality in the territory of the giant of the Indian subcontinent.

Although the dispute could well be resolved by a simple agreement, especially considering the free nature of VLC and the fact that apart from the official website, no one in India should have a problem getting the media player through many other and very different ways. , all legal.