1065
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
223 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 282 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

the FFmpeg version is currently used in a highly visible product in Microsoft. We have customers experience issues with Caption during Teams Live Event.

This seems like a "you" problem, Microsoft, and since you employ thousands of programmers with the experience to solve your problem and commit the change back to the FOSS project, I think this is also very easily a "you" solution as well.

[-] catch22@startrek.website 68 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

This is pretty funny, kinda suggests they have no faith in the engineers they work with... ffmpeg is an awesome piece of work, but if it's a bug they can repeat to some level, then like you said, it 100% a them problem!

E: oh, was thinking it was a pm raised it, but seems it was possibly one of their developers, brutal....

[-] Thann@lemmy.ml 36 points 7 months ago

Use -data_field first as decoder option in CLI. Default value was changed from first to auto in latest FFmpeg version.

It seems like ffmpeg made a breaking change to their API, and I expect a lot of users to have problems.

[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 64 points 7 months ago

On one hand that's fair, but on the other hand Microsoft is the biggest name in software development and ffmpeg is a volunteer gig, this is probably a problem the megacorp can handle.

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 7 months ago

But then it'd cost them money.

[-] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

It is frustrating that people no longer stop and think about the money anymore :(

[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

They offered a one time gift in the thousands of dollars. They were planning to do that anyway.

this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
1065 points (95.9% liked)

Programming

17314 readers
59 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Rules

  • Follow the programming.dev instance rules
  • Keep content related to programming in some way
  • If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
snowe@programming.dev
Ategon@programming.dev
MaungaHikoi@lemmy.nz