Open source video player could be on an iPod near you as early as next week.

Software developer Applidium have developed a version of the VLC open source media player for Apple's line of iOS-enabled devices. The app, which is built entirely on open source code, was submitted to Apple's approval board today. The developers are confident that the player will be available as soon as next week.

Assuming Apple approves it, the VLC app will be free with patches being passed back into the main VLC tree allowing for other developers to implement some, if not all, of the open code into their own iOS apps. Currently, VLC is available on Linux, Windows, and OS X and is a favorite amongst videophiles because of its vast collection of codecs and ability to play almost any media file type.

It's difficult to say whether Apple will approve the app. The company quietly announced an amendment to the controversial iOS guidelines that were revealed over the summer, which required developers to create apps entirely within the official Apple iOS software development kit.

Apple also released their App Store Guidelines, which are available on Scribd, thanks to Venture Beat. Here's the portion that deals with media players:

9.1 Apps that do not use the MediaPlayer framework to access media in the Music Library will be rejected

9.2 App user interfaces that mimic any iPod interface will be rejected Audio streaming content over a cellular network may not use more than 5MB over 5 minutes

9.3 Video streaming content over a cellular network longer than 10 minutes must use HTTP Live Streaming and include a baseline 64 kbps audio-only HTTP Live stream

Unless VLC violates the first provision, it should be in the clear, but it's important to know that the guidelines can change at Apple's discretion. We'll know more after next week.

Open source video player could be on an iPod near you as early as next week.