Doesn't it just use mplayer's libraries for playing DVDs? Seems like they would be a better target for donation (particularly since most efforts to support new formats e.g. bluray seem to happen there)
And this is what ffmpeg have to say about donations:
Want to donate to FFmpeg? Well, theres no way to do that currently. Luckily we dont need any money. But there are many not for profit organizations with noble goals that do. Select one of your choice that you trust and agree with their goals and instead of donating to FFmpeg, send your donation to them.http://ffmpeg.org/
So yeah, donating to VLC directly seems like a good choice.
No, it uses FFMPEG (among other libraries), which mplayer also use. The thing is, the libraries don't fit together like jigsaw puzzles, you have to do a lot of work to glue them together. VLC also tries to make a stable library for others to use, in the form of libvlc.
I think the parent is referring to libdvdcss, which is the library that cracks the DRM encryption on the dvd. Without it you wouldn't be able to skip unskippable parts, nor even play the dvd using non-authorized dvd players like vlc.
libdvdcss is developed by the videolan project, which is the umbrella project for vlc.
To be honest I had not analyzed this like the other posters did. I just trusted the people I donated to will contribute upstream (downstream?), if not in money then at least in code. In general, yes, I agree that care should be taken with choosing the best target for donations.
