Mastodawn

Siddhesh Gunjal Apr 4, 2024

The xz fiasco has shown how a dependence on unpaid volunteers can cause major problems. Trillion dollar corporations like Microsoft expect free and urgent support from ffmpeg volunteers. They posted on a bug tracker full of volunteers that their issue is "high priority". After politely requesting a support contract from Microsoft for long term maintenance, they offered a one-time payment of a few thousand dollars instead. Full story here https://x.com/ffmpeg/status/1775178803129602500?s=46

FFmpeg (@FFmpeg) on X

The xz fiasco has shown how a dependence on unpaid volunteers can cause major problems. Trillion dollar corporations expect free and urgent support from volunteers. @Microsoft @MicrosoftTeams posted on a bug tracker full of volunteers that their issue is "high priority"

X (formerly Twitter)

nixCraft 🐧Apr 4, 2024

Microsoft is the same business that is investing 100 billion dollars in openai for generative AI to build the giant AI supercomputer and steal every content created ever without paying anyone anything. They refuse to buy support contracts for open source projects where they used project work exclusively to build the MS Teams product. They are abusing the system. This shaming is necessary.

Océane Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft Looks like Bill Gates's “open letter to hobbyists”, but predictably reverse.

Océane Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft Looks like Bill Gates's “open letter to hobbyists”, but predictably reverse.

Kenneth Henderick Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft I wonder whether support contracts would be good for the maintainers. Not sure about the maintainer structure behind ffmpeg, but if there are a couple of volunteers, it might be hard to organise a support contract, as this might force some obligations to individuals that for example have a full time job and family besides ffmpeg. Maybe a recurring sponsorship without obligations for the maintenance team together with short-lived paid contracts for fixing certain bugs would be better

Thomas Casteleyn Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft Wasn't it also an employee from that same company who discovered and disclosed the xz 'fiasco'?

Oblomov Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft BTW to add insult to injury the closed caption decoding is needed for the AI stuff.

Arthur Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft similar to this tweet
https://twitter.com/AdamRackis/status/931195056479965185

Adam Rackis (@AdamRackis) on X

Company: "We'd like to use SQL Server Enterprise" MS: "That'll be a quarter million dollars + $20K/month" Company: "Ok!" ... Company: "We'd like to use Babel" Babel: "Ok! npm i babel --save" Company: "Cool" Babel: "Would you like to help contribute financially?" Company: "lol no"

X (formerly Twitter)

miket330 Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft They ruthlessly crush or buy their competitors...phuck windoze!

Sparky Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft Is there an alternate source for the full story? Twitter only shows the initial Tweet for people without an account.

nixCraft 🐧Apr 4, 2024

@Bright5park sadly no as all other 3rd party sites killed by twitter. So i am afraid you can’t read further without log into twitter. I know it sucky situation

Sparky Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft Goddamn it, Elon!

Jonathan Apr 4, 2024

@Bright5park @nixCraft

Yeah the man child broke it.

Here's the thread ffmpeg linked to
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/10341#comment:4

#10341 ([Intel Caption] Microsoft RTMP Ingest - FFmpeg fails to decode closed-caption to srt/webvtt) – FFmpeg

Jonathan Apr 4, 2024

@Bright5park @nixCraft

Oops I should have kept scrolling. Someone posted the whole thread through thread reader down below.

viq Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft
Not great, but https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1775178803129602500.html shows a bit more.
@Bright5park

Thread by @FFmpeg on Thread Reader App

@FFmpeg: The xz fiasco has shown how a dependence on unpaid volunteers can cause major problems. Trillion dollar corporations expect free and urgent support from volunteers. @Microsoft @MicrosoftTeams posted on a bug...…

Luna Lactea Apr 5, 2024

@viq @nixCraft @Bright5park aw, better than nothing. Thank you!

draeath Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft @Bright5park maybe if everyone stopped reporting on Twitter posts it'll finally die the rest of the way.

(Let me have my fantasy lol)

Melroy van den Berg Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft one million dollar one-time payment would be acceptable from such company.

Instead of (few) thousand dollars they are willing to pay now.

Which is like 0.01 dollar for you and me, relatively speaking. 1 million is like 1 dollar for you and me.

Andy Piper Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft it’s a shame that’s posted on Twitter. For an OSS project like ffmpeg it would great to have them on fedi.

MarkD Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft The gaul of Microsoft is staggering. It was not long ago that they were disparaging all things Linux/Unix and now they expect slavish responses to their demands to fix Linux packages? Stunning.

We Open Source developers need to ignore the siren call of big corps coming on board our projects.

It may polish an ego to know a trillion dollar company depends on you, but it's invariably an abusive relationship.

We should learn to respond only to those who give more than they get.

robinslave Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft
what bunch of bastards

@nixCraft I don't use Twitter anymore so they only show me one post instead of the thread, any links to thread that isn't on Twitter?

Daniele Pantaleo 🦥

@matty @nixCraft https://social.hackerspace.pl/@viq/112212101052186356

viq (@[email protected])

@[email protected] Not great, but https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1775178803129602500.html shows a bit more. @[email protected]

Warsaw Hackerspace Social Club

tag my other account instead Apr 4, 2024

「セル」cell (سل)Apr 4, 2024

@eal @nixCraft it's a ❤️ not a 💰 for a reason

🌺 Cat Pöñíçkøvā Apr 4, 2024

@eal @nixCraft i have seen like five microsoft branded backpacks on my metro trip this morning, no open source tho

satire Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft Did Microsoft try rebooting? 😬

Thomas 🇪🇺Apr 4, 2024

@nixCraft Might be better to starve than taking money from mikroweich.

bloxxer02 Apr 6, 2024

This pisses me off