Microsoft opens a "high priority" bug ticket in ffmpeg, attempting to leech the free labour of the maintainers - eviltoast

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

  • lysdexic@programming.devEnglish
    619·
    8 months ago

    I don’t think the ffmpeg maintainer is complaining that Microsoft is using ffmpeg, rather that they are opening “high priority” bug reports based on customer complaints.

    Users can only assign priority to issues they create themselves if they are explicitly authorized to assign priorities.

    If you provide access to that field but then complain that bug reporters use that field, you’re complaining about how you misconfigured your service, not how end users are using it.

    Are there any other people targeted in this sort of complain, or is a specific company being singled out just because some low-level grunt filled in a field in a bug report?

    • Oliver Lowe@apubtest2.srcbeat.com
      31·
      8 months ago

      or is a specific company being singled out just because some low-level grunt filled in a field in a bug report?

      FYI they’re not a “low-level grunt”. The bug author’s job title is Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft with (at least) 18 years’ experience.