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
FFMPEG is a core technology. You literally cannot do anything with video without touching FFMPEG at multiple places in the stack.
The fact that we have billions of dollars of revenue flowing through that software every day, but we rely on VOLUNTEERS to maintain it shows exactly how hollow the whole SV entrepreneur culture really is.
Bunch of fucking posers wouldn’t know performance code if it kicked them in the face.
The fact that we have billions of dollars of revenue flowing through that software every day, but we rely on VOLUNTEERS to maintain it shows exactly how hollow the whole SV entrepreneur culture really is.
Exactly: I’m not mad about important things being run by volunteers – arguably, that’s a good thing because it means project decisions are made uncorrupted by profit motive – but I am mad about the profit being reaped elsewhere on the backs of their free labor.
@grue @vzq this is such an interesting space. The general public has no idea how much of their software relies on open source code and voluntary community contributions. There have been so many attempts to figure out a way to compensate these maintainers, but it doesn’t seem like anything has really become the defacto solution. Open Collective and Tidelift are the closest things I can think of.
OBS seems to be funded by the likes of Meta, Google, Amazon, AMD, Nvidia, etc. despite being unaffiliated.
They’re not going to invest in it if they don’t own it, and frankly I’m happy they don’t.
Those same companies tell you that their products that you paid for don’t belong to you. You are just buying a license to use them. Sadly, this asinine concept is spreading even to hardware markets.
I think it’s fair to ask them to take their own bitter pill. They should also invest without owning.
Bunch of fucking posers wouldn’t know performance code if it kicked them in the face.
You mean JavaScript right?
These days it’s all about Python, with AI being the hype and all. JS can at least try to compete.
“A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” -Someone hopefully working on ffmpeg.
“A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
Wow now that is a quote I’m going to steal. Wondering if “A failure to understand on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” has the same punch or is as relevant… anyway, thanks for sharing!
Does that go for the xz vulnerability too? Wasn’t it a Microsoft dev who discovered that?
In this case, it’s actually Microsofts fault. There is no bug in ffmpeg, Microsoft just didn’t properly use it
the xz vulnerability was done through a superflous dependency to systemd, xz was only the library that was abused to use systemd’s superflous dependency hell. sshd does not use xz, but systemd does depend on it. sshd does not need systemd, but it was attacked through its library dependency.
we should remove any pointless dependencies that can be found on a system to prevent such attacks in future by reducing dependency based attack vectors to a minimum.
also we should increase the overall level of privilege separation where systemd is a good bad example, just look at the init binary and its capability zoo.
The company who hired “the” systemd developer should IMHO start to really fix these issues !
so please hold your “$they have fixed it” back until the the root cause that made the xz dependency level attack possible in the first place has been really fixed =)
Of course pointing it out was good, but now the root cause should be fixed, not just a random symptom that happened to be the first visible atrack that used this attack vector introduced by systemd.
Alternative answer: "We understand your issue and will fix it as time and priorities allow. Please note that customers paying for support always get higher priority. Given MS contributions to the project, this ticket was ranked 42nd in our priority list.
Have a pleasant day! FFMPEG support team"
the FFmpeg version is currently used in a highly visible product in Microsoft. We have customers experience issues with Caption during Teams Live Event.
This seems like a “you” problem, Microsoft, and since you employ thousands of programmers with the experience to solve your problem and commit the change back to the FOSS project, I think this is also very easily a “you” solution as well.
Use -data_field first as decoder option in CLI. Default value was changed from first to auto in latest FFmpeg version.
It seems like ffmpeg made a breaking change to their API, and I expect a lot of users to have problems.
On one hand that’s fair, but on the other hand Microsoft is the biggest name in software development and ffmpeg is a volunteer gig, this is probably a problem the megacorp can handle.
But then it’d cost them money.
It is frustrating that people no longer stop and think about the money anymore :(
It’s so ridiculous that this isn’t even brought up:
The Command you provided worked fine. Thank you so much for the help! Really appreciated! We are going to proceed to make a release today and test with customers. Will post the updates here.
Gotta love being a forced beta tester… I mean customer.
That does kind of admit what we all suspected about Microsoft’s QA since they fired the whole testing team in 2014.
If the live version is already broken, there isn’t much to lose deploying the fix as soon as possible. Not sure what else they could have done here.
Man, must be rough to be an MS engineer and do work in public. Ignoring the financial aspect, can’t say I’ve never had a similar ticket and resolution.
Maybe microsoft should try reinstalling windows.
I love how that PM brings up the fact that this is needed for a product launch. Like who cares?
Need to add a ‘not for use with Microsoft products, including operating systems’ clause for a version or two.
I think adoption of the JSLint license’s ”This software can oly be used for good and not evil" clause would cover that. I hear IBMs lawyers had issue with it lol
Yes, but they were satisfied when IBM was given a license to use JSLint for evil.
I wonder if these trillion dollar companies offer support contracts for astroturfing on social media on their behalf. I can’t think of any other way so many people are supporting their sociopathic attitude.
Cognitive dissonance.
For a lot of people, either they accept “this trillion dollar corporation that controls all my computers, and the programming languages I use, and my code editor, is evil”. Or they accept “this trillion dollar company does lots of good things for me and is good”.
One is easier to accept than the other.
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,
Use -data_field first as decoder option in CLI. Default value was changed from first to auto in latest FFmpeg version. Or modify AVOption of same name in API for this decoder.
Thanks @Elon for the reply, This is the command we are currently using: ffmpeg.exe -f lavfi -i movie=flvdecoder_input223.flv[out+subcc] -y -map 0:1 ./output_p.srt
I will be looking to see any updates in the FFmpeg documentation. Can you please elaborate and provide pointers the right decoding options or the right FF command er can use. Thank you!
ffmpeg.exe -data_field first -f lavfi -i movie=flvdecoder_input223.flv[out+subcc] -y -map 0:1 ./output_p.srt
Got that’s fucking brutal. This isn’t even asking them to fix a bug, it’s just basic help-desk shit.
I’m sure Microsoft has some good devs that are a net benefit to the open source projects they use, but this is not one of them.
Lmao even after providing a well explained answer, they still had to manually add the flag to their command for them.
I’m sure Microsoft has some good devs that are a net benefit to the open source projects they use, but this is not one of them.
Found the guy who created the FFMpeg ticket on LinkedIn. Job title: “Principal software engineer at Microsoft”, saying they are “A detailed, analytical Software Engineer with Eighteen years of experience”. 18 years?! Fuck me dead…
That’s the level of an intern that has never even seen a command. Imagine not being able to literally cat a string with another string, aka. add -data_field first to a command.
Raymond Chen. Hilariously enough, his best blog posts involve him jumping through hoops for MSFT customers with support contracts.
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.
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.
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.
Imagine if you gave away some old clothes to some Charity and they called you and said “Some of the socks have holes in them and we need you to come over here and fix those holes ASAP because we want to sell them in our used clothes store”. What would be your reaction to that?
The expectation of payment is not for the software (which MS already has and is already using, free of charge, same as everybody else), it’s for getting priority in bugfix and maintenance work, or in other words, it’s for dictating other people’s work rather than merelly getting the product of work they, of their own choice and in their own timings, did and gave away for free.
Free software is a social relationship, not a business relationship: the users get what they get because somebody chose to put their own time into it and is giving it out for free. Such relationship does not entitle the recipients of the goodwill of others to make demands on their time, especially if said recipients are actually profiting from what those other people gave away. If they want the right to get to use other people’s time as they see fit, then they have to get into a business relationship and that’s only going to happen in business terms that both parties are willing to have.
Further, nobody is stopping MS from using their own programmers to fix that problem themselves.
Imagine if you gave away some old clothes to some Charity and they called you and said “Some of the socks have holes in them and we need you to come over here and fix those holes ASAP because we want to sell them in our used clothes store”. What would be your reaction to that?
I think your hypothetical scenario doesn’t match the issue being discussed in a few key aspects.
You’re giving old clothes with no expectation of return. Why then get pissed because someone is using your clothes without paying you for them?
Then,if you make it your point to put up a system for everyone to file tickets pointing problems with the clothes you’re giving away, why are you whining that the system is being used as it was designed to be used?
It’s perfectly fine if you feel the need to prioritize your work based on your criteria alone, and anyone else’s input is at most a suggestion. That’s what everyone expects of it, too. But don’t throw a tantrum when someone uses your work precisely as you told the world to use it.
Found the PM
The point of my comment seems to have missed you, turned around and done another pass and missed you again.
I don’t think you are able to grok the actual issue, which is a big corp demanding free work, then demanding a pittance to complete the work, then being buthurt when people refuse to work with them.
So is the real analogy …
You gave some old clothes to charity, expecting nothing back. However you spotted a lawyer wearing your old clothes so walked up and demanded money?
No no no lawyer came knocking at my door begging me to darn a sock
Where did they demand it?
Learn how to read man.
I get that you’re dyslexic but take the time to read what was written before responding.
I’m not really sure what you’re saying here. Microsoft have every right to fix the bug themselves and the maintainer has every right not to. Open source software doesn’t come with a warranty in most licensed.
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.
It’s not that they made a big report. It’s that they, a multi-billion dollar company, had the nerve to mark it as “High Priority” and request that a volunteer fix it for them so their proprietary commercial product would work. It’s that they do nothing for the project but expect the world from it. That’s the problem.
I’ve got nothing against bug reports, infact I’ve made some myself, they help development. Demanding they are fixed is a different thing entirely.
Sorry if my previous comment sounded like an insult.
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.
You still are not reading what I said correctly. The problem is they said in the bug report that it is “High Priority”. That’s a bit pushy. It’s up to the maintainers to work out what’s “High Priority”. You completely missed the point.
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. This might be a high priority problem for Microsoft but that does not make it so for ffmpeg.
The license allows Microsoft to use ffmpeg but they aren’t entitled to demand free labor from the project. Really, no one is entitled to do so, but Microsoft being a large company who can definitely afford to put money or talent on the problem makes it only that much more egregious.
edit: I would note that asking for help or reporting a bug is usually welcome, the problematic part is demanding help because it’s a high priority issue for YOUR customers.
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?
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.
It’s not that Microsoft isn’t allowed to use ffmpeg, it’s that they start demanding quick service. When you use an open source product, you get what you get. You can politely ask for a fix somewhere, you can fix it yourself and make a merge request, but being amongst the biggest corporations in the world, you don’t go without a support contract yet make demands and then maybe toss in a few thousand dollars, that is just insulting.
Had this been a non Foss product, MS would have a support contract. This just shows Microsofts typical greed.
It’s not that Microsoft isn’t allowed to use ffmpeg, it’s that they start demanding quick service.
I’m not sure what experience you have in maintaining any somewhat popular FLOSS project, but as I said in other posts the way random users demand features and fixes in these circles already became a meme in FLOSS circles. We’re talking about insults and belligerent attitudes towards whole projects in abstract and maintainers in particular, to the point maintainers end up burning out and quitting.
Knowing this, complaining that a particular request was described as high-priority as if this was unacceptable, fully knowing that this doesn’t even represent a remark that’s out of line given the baseline, is something that makes no sense at all. It sounds as an lame attempt to be outraged about something.
Where did they demand?
There’s a difference between creating something and giving it to the world and being on the hook to help them solve their business problems. A libre or permissive license does not commit the person who released it to making it work for anyone, for any reason. It is in fact the first line in those licenses.
They don’t want to get paid for it being used. They want to get paid to continue working on it by people who need them to continue working on it.
There’s a difference between creating something and giving it to the world and being on the hook to help them solve their business problems.
I think you’re extrapolating things that aren’t there. If you had any experience contributing to any semi-successful floss project you’d be ver aware that asking for fixes is as common as filing bug reports. This is not a Microsoft problem, it’s a staple of FLOSS project management.
Why do you think it’s reasonable to single out a whole company for doing exactly what the community contribution process was designed to be and achieve? On any case you see FLOSS proponents arguing that filing bug reports and troubleshooting problems counts as contributions to improve a project. Yet, here we are attacking someone for doing just that, because of what exactly? Do you think ffmpeg would be in a better shape if the likes of Microsoft didn’t reported bugs?
I have experience contributing to a semi successful FLOSS project, one that I’m 100% certain you use daily. Why do people just assume they know you on the internet? What is it, law of averages? “The likelihood this person arguing with me is a nobody is high enough I can assume it.” “If they disagree with me it means they don’t know what they’re talking about.” How does this mentality work? You’re the third person in a week on Lemmy (which makes it particularly funny) that has just assumed I don’t have experience contributing to FOSS software. Do you have experience contributing to FLOSS software? Have you ever been expected to solve other peoples problems for free? I’m asking because I don’t know. Maybe you have. I wouldn’t want to get egg on my face assuming something.
I have experience contributing to a semi successful FLOSS project, one that I’m 100% certain you use daily.
I’m not talking about contributing. A drive-by PR does not make you a maintainer, nor gets you to triage bugs. The problems I mention are the bread and butter of maintainers engaged in community support, which you would know if you had any semblance of experience in the subject.
And the truth of the matter is that your choice to use weasel words as seaways to a rant to go off on a tangent demonstrates your complete lack of insight and experience in the subject.
Completely disagree. This is how it works, Microsoft get software for free but they have no authority to prioritise other people’s scheduling
Completely disagree. This is how it works, Microsoft get software for free but they have no authority to prioritise other people’s scheduling
I don’t know where you’re getting the prioritization issue. Anyone in the world who is able to create an issue in a bug tracker can claim anything, but it’s always the people doing the bug triages who determine priorities. It means exactly as it means: nothing.
The “is this fixed yet” posts in bug reports by now is a meme in the floss world.
I think you’re trying too hard to find something to be outraged over.
The scheduling demand thing is referring specifically to the project manager going “we need this for an upcoming major product launch, so you need to fix this before the launch.” It feels like Microsoft cracking the whip to try getting free labor, because it is.
If they truly can’t do without it for their product launch, they can fork it and fix the bug themselves. Surely Microsoft has the resources and brainpower to do so. But the PM didn’t want to do that, because it means they’d be spending their own time and resources on it.
They made a demand, based on a product launch time line. This is absurdly rude, abd basically treating open source like slave labor instead of commons.
They made a demand, based on a product launch time line.
If you read the same bug report I read, you wouldn’t make that claim. They expressed their personal needs, which are their own and theirs alone, and don’t extend beyond their personal roadmap.
This is absurdly rude (…)
The issue stated they found a bug that they had to get fixed. They said it was important to them for their own personal reasons. It’s laughable to describe what amounts to a run-of-the-mill bug report as “absurdly rude”.
Do you actually work on software for a living?
treating open source like slave labor
I’m sorry, what? Do you even pay attention to what you’re writing?
The problem isnt that ms was using it The problem is that ms wanted special treatment for free because of their timetable, which wasnt even ‘oh shit everything broke’ but for a fucking product launch as if the maintainers should care about that, treating a fucking charity like a contractor, and really highlighting how all this proprietary bullshit can only exist because of the work provided by open source people.
Microsoft needs to see serious consequences from the open source community for this.
special treatment for free
They filed a bug report, with a reproducible bug.
Some guides on how to contribute to FLOSS projects even go as far as listing this as one of the main ways to contribute to projects.
But here you are, describing a run-of-the-mill bug report, filed among hundreds of bug reports, in a ticketing system explicitly opened to the public so that everyone and anyone in the world could file bug reports, as a request for “special treatment for free”.
Do you think every single person filing a bug report is asking to be given special treatment for free? Everyone’s bug is very important to them too. What makes you think this case is special or even any different?
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.
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?
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.
A trillion dollar company using your product in one of their flagship products without a support contract can fuck right off.
Microsoft should be putting up money via the support contract to support the creators in maintaining and further development of their product.
A one off payment might be technically sufficient, it is not ethically or morally sufficient. And to put it in terms shareholders understand… support contract is cheaper than the cost of an alternative.
The maintainer is a human that needs to eat every day, and not just whenever their services are needed. So at least, the sum of money would need to be a few times higher than whatever labour the fix takes.
But then, the maintainer’s ability to fix these bugs doesn’t come from nowhere. They worked on this project for likely a long time, which would also need to be taken into account when agreeing on a sum.
Further, this would be business to business. And those contracts often include the value that the client gets out of the software. So if Microsoft makes billions from this open source library, then the maintainer’s - as a business - should receive a payment that reflects this for the fix.
All that implies that a few thousand is not nearly enough. Maybe 100k and the maintainer would budge.
The maintainer is a human that needs to eat every day, and not just whenever their services are needed.
That’s perfectly fine.
But the maintainer is indeed explicitly making his work available to the public for free and without any expectation of retribution of any kind, isn’t it?
And this isn’t exactly something new or recent or novel, right? That’s been going on for many years.
What changed? Did anything changed at all, even?
Microsoft is no longer able to outcompete the Free Software commons. That’s all.
You might want to re-read the thread and think about how you sound, by the way. You’re coming off as a concern troll, not as a member of the Free Software community.
Companies hate giving out cash. Even if it’s for software they critically need.
Companies hate giving out cash. Even if it’s for software they critically need.
I think for most cases getting the cash is the easy part, and the hard part is getting all the paperwork in place to validate payments to random external entities. If that was easy, nothing would stop any low-level manager from making cash payments to random users with a GitHub account.
If you look up Zied Aouina (issue creator), he’s a principal SWE at MS. Seems within his power to read the codebase and figure out his question if he claims he can’t find the documentation.
Doesn’t really change anything for me, I can’t really hate Microsoft anymore than I already do
lmao didn’t know Elon Musk is an ffmpeg maintainer
I wonder if it’s the real Elon Musk?
Wtf is a real elon musk? He is not elon musk of tesla. But is not uncommon for multiple people to have the same name.
Poor man it must be annoying to have to introduce yourself as “elon musk, no not that elon musk” all the time?
11 months ago
The tweet is from today. The ffmpeg team felt like it needed to be said.
Thanks for additional context. I don’t open Twitter links anymore because 3/4 of the time the link doesn’t work after Musk made changes
I don’t get why they don’t propose a fix themselves.
