this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024

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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

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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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[–] TheMightyHUG@sh.itjust.works 71 points 7 months ago (74 children)

Can someone enlighten me why a one-time payment of a few thousand for a bugfix is unacceptable? I feel like I'm missing something.

[–] BaskinRobbins@sh.itjust.works 126 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (54 children)

I think the maintainer just viewed the bug report as tone deaf. Microsoft is a trillion dollar company and apparently relying on this library without a support contract. Then they a open a high priority bug item. The maintainer saying it's unacceptable is them basically saying they won't prioritize any work unless there's an existing support contract and that they don't do one off payments for bug fixes, which I think is fair.

[+] lysdexic@programming.dev -70 points 7 months ago (53 children)

I think the maintainer just viewed the bug report as tone deaf. Microsoft is a trillion dollar company and apparently relying on this library without a support contract.

I think this mentality shows a clear dissonance between how maintainers are licensing their software and what are their expectations in terms of retribution from users of their software.

If they release a software package with a license that explicitly states that they allow the whole world to use it freely without any expectation if return, they cannot complain afterwards that some particular people in the world end up using it.

Likewise for bug reports.

If they want to get paid because the software they have been releasing to be used freely by everyone is being used freely by a specific company then they need to get their shit together and release it under a license where they explicitly state their terms. This is crítical for everyone involved, specially end users, because we need clarity on these terms.

[+] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 76 points 7 months ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[+] lysdexic@programming.dev -18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Microsoft have every right to fix the bug themselves and the maintainer has every right not to.

Yes, it does. You do too, and so do I.

Does it make sense to you for me to attack you for this?

And how about any person submitting a bug report? Is it ok to pile up on them for not fixing it themselves?

If you change the names, is your attitude any different? If it is, then you have a problem on your hands, and it's a personal problem.

[+] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 24 points 7 months ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[+] lysdexic@programming.dev -6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It’s not that they made a big report. It’s that they, a multi-billion dollar company,

Why do you think this is even relevant? Again, does your attitude towards a run of the mill ticket change if you change who filed it? Why are you outraged because some random grunt from company A or B filed an issue instead of random joe X? Would you be commenting here if the very same person who filed the issue had done so with a personal account without identifying or disclosing their employer?

It’s that they do nothing for the project but expect the world from it.

I'm sorry, where does ffmpeg demand contributions or retributions from anyone who downloads or distributes their project? Aren't they explicitly distributing their work without asking anyone to do or give anything in return? I mean, isn't that the whole point of FLOSS?

More surprisingly, we see guides on how to contribute to FLOSS projects which state in no uncertain terms that filing bug reports and even run exploratory tests to give feedback to maintainers counts as contributing to the project, but somehow you've flipped over even the core principles to make it sound like a cash grab.

[–] bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You are right, nothing is relevant except bootlicking corps

[–] lysdexic@programming.dev -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This is really not about "corps".

You eager-to-be-outraged types are desperately trying to make a storm in a tea cup over a normal bug report filed among hundreds of bug reports.

Again, if you replaced the name of those filing the bug report with "random joe", would you still have faked all this outrage? Would you throw the same tantrum if it was even any other business?

[–] bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

I'm not outraged, I'm telling you "Your position that they are acting normally, or ethically, or optimally or whatever your position is, is dumb."

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