Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the maintainer of VLC media player, received the European SFS Award 2025 from the Free Software Foundation Europe for his dedication to keeping the popular media player free and open-source. Despite numerous lucrative offers to monetize VLC through advertising and bundled software, Kempf has consistently refused, prioritizing user value over profit. VLC originated as a 1996 student project at École Centrale Paris and has grown to include over 1,000 contributors. Kempf took over leadership in 2006 when the project risked collapse and later founded Videolabs in 2012 to support its continued development.
Sort: