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Microsoft opens a "high priority" bug ticket in ffmpeg, attempting to leech the free labour of the maintainers (trac.ffmpeg.org)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Microsoft employee:

Hi, This is a high priority ticket and the FFmpeg version is currently used in a highly visible product in Microsoft. We have customers experience issues with Caption during Teams Live Event. Please help

Maintainer's comment on twitter:

After politely requesting a support contract from Microsoft for long term maintenance, they offered a one-time payment of a few thousand dollars instead.

This is unacceptable.

And further:

The lesson from the xz fiasco is that investments in maintenance and sustainability are unsexy and probably won't get a middle manager their promotion but pay off a thousandfold over many years.

But try selling that to a bean counter

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There's a difference between creating something and giving it to the world and being on the hook to help them solve their business problems. A libre or permissive license does not commit the person who released it to making it work for anyone, for any reason. It is in fact the first line in those licenses.

They don't want to get paid for it being used. They want to get paid to continue working on it by people who need them to continue working on it.

[+] [email protected] -20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

There’s a difference between creating something and giving it to the world and being on the hook to help them solve their business problems.

I think you're extrapolating things that aren't there. If you had any experience contributing to any semi-successful floss project you'd be ver aware that asking for fixes is as common as filing bug reports. This is not a Microsoft problem, it's a staple of FLOSS project management.

Why do you think it's reasonable to single out a whole company for doing exactly what the community contribution process was designed to be and achieve? On any case you see FLOSS proponents arguing that filing bug reports and troubleshooting problems counts as contributions to improve a project. Yet, here we are attacking someone for doing just that, because of what exactly? Do you think ffmpeg would be in a better shape if the likes of Microsoft didn't reported bugs?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I have experience contributing to a semi successful FLOSS project, one that I'm 100% certain you use daily. Why do people just assume they know you on the internet? What is it, law of averages? "The likelihood this person arguing with me is a nobody is high enough I can assume it." "If they disagree with me it means they don't know what they're talking about." How does this mentality work? You're the third person in a week on Lemmy (which makes it particularly funny) that has just assumed I don't have experience contributing to FOSS software. Do you have experience contributing to FLOSS software? Have you ever been expected to solve other peoples problems for free? I'm asking because I don't know. Maybe you have. I wouldn't want to get egg on my face assuming something.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I have experience contributing to a semi successful FLOSS project, one that I’m 100% certain you use daily.

I'm not talking about contributing. A drive-by PR does not make you a maintainer, nor gets you to triage bugs. The problems I mention are the bread and butter of maintainers engaged in community support, which you would know if you had any semblance of experience in the subject.

And the truth of the matter is that your choice to use weasel words as seaways to a rant to go off on a tangent demonstrates your complete lack of insight and experience in the subject.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Again thinking you know me. Just stop, you're making yourself look stupid.