In late November, the volunteer team at VideoLAN that develops and supports the free video player VLC announced a Kickstarter fund raising campaign to help speed up development of VLC made to run on Windows 8 in its Modern UI. Today, the Kickstarter page got a development update and announced that the fund raising efforts will also go towards making a Windows Phone 8 port of VLC.
The update post says:
While the roadmap is about Windows 8 for Intel followed by a version for Windows RT, it appears to be feasible to publish another version with a specific interface for Windows Phone shortly after, since the WP8 APIs are way more similar to Windows 8 than WP7 ones.
The post adds that the Windows Phone 8 port might be easier to make than the Windows 8 version because it contains less restrictions. VideoLAN says they won"t have to make any changes in VLC"s networking code for it to work with Windows Phone 8.
VideoLAN also says that Microsoft has been in contact with the team, saying:
They are looking into ways of supporting us directly through non-financial matters, notably hardware, technical and design help. This is great news. Moreover, we"ve been in touch with several designers and some hardware chip vendors about this project.
The team has also been working on making sure the Windows 8 VLC port passes through Microsoft"s Windows Store requirements, adding, "So far, the Windows Store terms and conditions seem to be compatible with the GNU GPL." With 18 days to go, the Kickstarter campaign has now raised 13,599 pounds, with the goal of raising 40,000 pounds.
Source: VLC on Kickstarter | Image via VideoLAN