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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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[–] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

FFMPEG is a core technology. You literally cannot do anything with video without touching FFMPEG at multiple places in the stack.

The fact that we have billions of dollars of revenue flowing through that software every day, but we rely on VOLUNTEERS to maintain it shows exactly how hollow the whole SV entrepreneur culture really is.

Bunch of fucking posers wouldn’t know performance code if it kicked them in the face.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The fact that we have billions of dollars of revenue flowing through that software every day, but we rely on VOLUNTEERS to maintain it shows exactly how hollow the whole SV entrepreneur culture really is.

Exactly: I'm not mad about important things being run by volunteers -- arguably, that's a good thing because it means project decisions are made uncorrupted by profit motive -- but I am mad about the profit being reaped elsewhere on the backs of their free labor.

[–] jrthreadgill@mastodon.social 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@grue @vzq this is such an interesting space. The general public has no idea how much of their software relies on open source code and voluntary community contributions. There have been so many attempts to figure out a way to compensate these maintainers, but it doesn't seem like anything has really become the defacto solution. Open Collective and Tidelift are the closest things I can think of.

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

OBS seems to be funded by the likes of Meta, Google, Amazon, AMD, Nvidia, etc. despite being unaffiliated.

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They're not going to invest in it if they don't own it, and frankly I'm happy they don't.

[–] technom@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

Those same companies tell you that their products that you paid for don't belong to you. You are just buying a license to use them. Sadly, this asinine concept is spreading even to hardware markets.

I think it's fair to ask them to take their own bitter pill. They should also invest without owning.