VLC Creator Rejected Tens of Millions in Ads to Keep Software Free

What was said

"The last offer I had was obscene. And they say, yeah, but imagine with all that money, you could build something new, open source, right? It was like the mind trick was, it was difficult, but for me, it was just like, no, this doesn't work like that, or this is not the right thing."

Jean-Baptiste Kempf revealed he turned down multiple offers worth tens of millions of dollars to bundle toolbars, spyware, or advertisements into VLC. He explained the offers came from shady ad companies and accepting would have betrayed the open source community and users, even though he could have become a multimillionaire. The decision preserved VLC's reputation and mission.