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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 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I think you've done a fair summary that deconstructed the simple narrative of "evil corporation steals from the poor". Well, for me it did ;)

to me this clearly looks like a "different culture" problem.

That is a key point. To me it is surprising that a developer of such supposed seniority was not aware of (or doesn't care about, or is so pushed for time, or just insensitive to?) the culture differences. That surprise made me jump to conclusions, leading to outrage and frustration.

Deep in my soul I believe Microsoft really is an evil corporation that steals from the poor. But in this specific instance, your summary made me think of Hanlon's razor.