But I suspect that Apple removing VLC has more to do with controlling what formats you can play, and so where you can buy content, rather than a desire to protect VLC's GPL contributions.
Interesting that the super hacker cool Apple have effectively banned GPL from their popular platform and with the Mac iStore may soon be banning it from all their machines. While MSFT is announcing more open source support. Looks like the lightsaber of the dark side has been passed on.
The GPL banned the GPL from the App Store.
The GPL banned itself from the App Store, plain and simple, yet everybody will still make it about big bad Apple censoring libre software from the App Store. You chose the GPL when you started your project, Apple didn't. If the license that YOU chose for YOUR software doesn't allow you to distribute YOUR software under Apple's EULA, that isn't Apple's fault.
There's also no financial incentive for them to modify their EULA to be more GPL-friendly. They're going to say, gee, those hundreds of thousands of apps on the App Store have succeeded with the EULA we have, why get into legal battles over two publicized apps? The publicity is negative for us, so why bother?
This doesn't seem to led to IBM, Oracle etc stopping selling Linux. Apple put a line in it's\ EULA about only being able to use app store for non-commercial use, which is ridiculous businessmen do use iPhones and iPads
Erm... They may support it in some instances.
Apple didn't ban GPLed software from their platforms. Apple has terms of service for their software distribution mechanism that conflicts with GPL'ed software. I agree the terms are restrictive and disrespectful towards the users, but I am not sure why are you implying that Microsoft is doing much better. Have you read any recent EUAL from them?
Rémi's argument is that the Apple Store Terms & Conditions constrain your usage rights — "YOU SHALL BE AUTHORIZED TO USE THE PRODUCTS ONLY FOR PERSONAL, NONCOMMERCIAL USE." — and downstream authors/distributors are not allowed to "impose any further restrictions" beyond the GPL.
Rémi is technically correct (the best kind of correct!) that the App Store terms are in conflict with the GPL. The clause in question isn't just for apps, its basic purpose is that purchasing a song or movie from Apple doesn't give you public performance rights to it. Apple could pay their lawyers to bloat out the whole usage section so that it'd be difficult for Rémi to pick a fight over it, but they probably won't.
But if people are going to pick fights over minor unenforceable EULA terms, they're going to find them everywhere they look. I mean for fuck's sake you also agree that you will not use iPhone software in the operation of nuclear facilities or for aircraft navigation, like in a great many EULAs. If some ideologue really wants to burn it all down they could probably find a ton of high-profile but ultimately pointless technical GPL violations in this vein.
Wherever a fight is sought it will be found. No copyright license will ever prevent either upstream or downstream from being huge asshats if that's what they want to be.