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

  • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    The report of the bug is not the problem. The prioritization, reasoning for the prioritization, and demand that it be fixed quickly for their product launch was the problem.

    The fact that when asked, they offered pay for a spot fix rather than maintenance, essentially abusing the Commons for corporate profit, and being super fucking rude about it, was the problem.

    • lysdexic@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      The report of the bug is not the problem.

      People in this thread are arguing otherwise.

      The prioritization, (…)

      Users filing tickets do not prioritize jack shit. That’s not how it works. At best they mention an issue is important to them. Not even in big corporations dealing with internal tickets things work like that. The responsibility of prioritizing work lies on the project owners, exclusively.

      and demand that it be fixed quickly (…

      Literally what each and every single user affected by a problem asks in their bug reports.

      Again, why do you feel this is something that warrants your outrage?

      • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        people in this thread are arguing otherwise

        Okay so talk to one of them about it. I’m with you on this part. So bizzaire.