videolan / vlc

# VLC media player
**VLC** is a libre and open source **media player** and **multimedia engine**,
focused on **playing everything**, and **running everywhere**.
**VLC** can play most multimedia files, discs, streams, devices and is also able to
convert, encode, **stream** and manipulate streams into numerous formats.
VLC is used by many over the world, on numerous platforms, for very different use cases.
The **engine of VLC** can be embedded into 3rd party applications, and is called *libVLC*.
**VLC** is part of the VideoLAN project and
is developed and supported by a community of volunteers.
The VideoLAN project was started at the university École Centrale Paris who
relicensed VLC under the GPLv2 license in February 2001. Since then, VLC has
been downloaded **billions** of times.
## License
**VLC** is released under the GPLv2 *(or later)* license.
*On some platforms, it is de facto GPLv3, because of the licenses of dependencies*.
**libVLC**, the engine is released under the LGPLv2 *(or later)* license. \
This allows embedding the engine in 3rd party applications, while letting them to be licensed under other licenses.
# Platforms
VLC is available for the following platforms:
- [Windows] *(from 7 and later, including UWP platforms and all versions of Windows 10)*
- [macOS] *(10.10 and later)*
- [GNU/Linux] and affiliated
- [BSD] and affiliated
- [Android] *(4.2 and later)*, including Android TV and Android Auto
- [iOS] *(9 and later)*, including AppleTV and iPadOS
- Haiku, OS/2 and a few others.
[Windows]: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html
[macOS]: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html
[GNU/Linux]: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/#download
[BSD]: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-freebsd.html
[Android]: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-android.html
[iOS]: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ios.html
Not all platforms receive the same amount of care, due to our limited resources.
**Nota Bene**: The Android app and
the iOS app are located in different repositories
than the main one.
# Contributing & Community
**VLC** is maintained by a community of people, and VideoLAN is not paying any of them.\
The community is composed of developers, helpers, maintainers, designers and writers that want
this open source project to thrive.
The main development of VLC is done in the C language, but this repository also contains
plenty of C++, Obj-C, asm and Rust.
Other repositories linked to vlc are done in languages including Kotlin/Java (Android),
Swift (iOS), and C# (libVLCSharp).
We need help with the following tasks:
- Coding
- Packaging for Windows, macOS and Linux distributions
- Technical writing for the documentation
- Design
- Support
- Community management and communication.
Please contribute :)
We are on IRC. You can find us on the **#videolan** channel on *[Libera.chat]*.
[Libera.chat]: https://libera.chat
## Contributions
Contributions are now done through Merge Requests on our GitLab repository.
CI and discussion