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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 Sibbo@sopuli.xyz to c/programming@programming.dev

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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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[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The problem isnt that ms was using it The problem is that ms wanted special treatment for free because of their timetable, which wasnt even 'oh shit everything broke' but for a fucking product launch as if the maintainers should care about that, treating a fucking charity like a contractor, and really highlighting how all this proprietary bullshit can only exist because of the work provided by open source people.

Microsoft needs to see serious consequences from the open source community for this.

[–] lysdexic@programming.dev 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

special treatment for free

They filed a bug report, with a reproducible bug.

Some guides on how to contribute to FLOSS projects even go as far as listing this as one of the main ways to contribute to projects.

But here you are, describing a run-of-the-mill bug report, filed among hundreds of bug reports, in a ticketing system explicitly opened to the public so that everyone and anyone in the world could file bug reports, as a request for "special treatment for free".

Do you think every single person filing a bug report is asking to be given special treatment for free? Everyone's bug is very important to them too. What makes you think this case is special or even any different?

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The report of the bug is not the problem. The prioritization, reasoning for the prioritization, and demand that it be fixed quickly for their product launch was the problem.

The fact that when asked, they offered pay for a spot fix rather than maintenance, essentially abusing the Commons for corporate profit, and being super fucking rude about it, was the problem.

[–] lysdexic@programming.dev 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The report of the bug is not the problem.

People in this thread are arguing otherwise.

The prioritization, (...)

Users filing tickets do not prioritize jack shit. That's not how it works. At best they mention an issue is important to them. Not even in big corporations dealing with internal tickets things work like that. The responsibility of prioritizing work lies on the project owners, exclusively.

and demand that it be fixed quickly (...

Literally what each and every single user affected by a problem asks in their bug reports.

Again, why do you feel this is something that warrants your outrage?

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

people in this thread are arguing otherwise

Okay so talk to one of them about it. I'm with you on this part. So bizzaire.