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FFmpeg to Google: Fund us or stop sending bugs

(thenewstack.io)
1124 points CrankyBear | 5 comments | 11 Nov 25 18:32 UTC | HN request time: 1.006s | source
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phkahler ◴[11 Nov 25 19:41 UTC] No.45891830[source]▶
From TFA this was telling:

Thus, as Mark Atwood, an open source policy expert, pointed out on Twitter, he had to keep telling Amazon to not do things that would mess up FFmpeg because, he had to keep explaining to his bosses that “They are not a vendor, there is no NDA, we have no leverage, your VP has refused to help fund them, and they could kill three major product lines tomorrow with an email. So, stop, and listen to me … ”

I agree with the headline here. If Google can pay someone to find bugs, they can pay someone to fix them. How many time have managers said "Don't come to me with problems, come with solutions"

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skhameneh ◴[11 Nov 25 21:46 UTC] No.45893320[source]▶
I've been a proponent of upstreaming fixes for open source software.

Why? - It makes continued downstream consumption easier, you don't have to rely on fragile secret patches. - It gives back to projects that helped you to begin with, it's a simple form of paying it forward. - It all around seems like the "ethical" and "correct" thing to do.

Unfortunately, in my experience, there's often a lot of barriers within companies to upstream. Reasons can be everything from compliance, processes, you name it... It's unfortunate.

I have a very distinct recollection of talks about hardware aspirations and upstreaming software fixes at a large company. The cultural response was jarring.

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fao_ ◴[11 Nov 25 23:47 UTC] No.45894483[source]▶
As yet, Valve is the only company I know of doing this, and it's paying off in dividends both for Linux and for Valve. In just 5ish years of Valve investing people and money into Linux- specifically mesa and WINE, Linux has gone from a product that is kind of shaky with Windows, to "I can throw a windows program or game at it and it usually works". Imagine how further the OSS ecosystem would be if Open Source hadn't existed, only FOSS; and companies were legally obligated to either publish source code or otherwise invest in the ecosystem.
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1. monero-xmr ◴[12 Nov 25 07:10 UTC] No.45897191[source]▶
Valve is so successful because it is a private company, and the CEO is the CTO and he is essentially the corporate equivalent of a religious monk. How else can you get 20+ years to slowly build a software business?

As a side note YC and tech startups themselves have become reality TV. Your goal should be Valve! You should be Gabe Newell! You don’t need to be famous! Just build something valuable and be patient

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2. fao_ ◴[12 Nov 25 13:44 UTC] No.45900077[source]▶
> How else can you get 20+ years to slowly build a software business?

It used to be normal to build a business slowly over 20 years. Now everyone grabs for the venture capital, grows so fast they almost burst, and the venture capital inevitably ends in enshittification as companies are forced by shareholders to go against their business model and shit over their customers in order to generate exponential profit margins.

3. red-iron-pine ◴[12 Nov 25 13:49 UTC] No.45900138[source]▶
Steam is the most dominant game tool on the planet and landed when there was not yet a market for it. Very few other projects will get to the level of success it has in any sector, anywhere.

GabeN was also a MS developer back in the day and likely would have been well off regardless, but he didn't need to play the YC A-B-let's-shoehorn-AI bullshit games that are 100% de rigeour for all startups in 2025.

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4. mikkupikku ◴[12 Nov 25 14:32 UTC] No.45900679[source]▶
Ironically, Gabe is more famous than the rest of whoever you're talking about, not because he seeks fame but just because he generally does right by his customers and makes himself accessible. Telling gamers to email him with questions, concerns, comments, anything, and then actually responding. Even though he's apparently spending most of his time hanging out on yachts, people love him because he makes an effort to be tuned in to what his customers want. If you do that, you'll be famous in a better way than what you can get from reality TV.
5. mikkupikku ◴[12 Nov 25 14:37 UTC] No.45900747[source]▶
From what I understand, Gabe/Valve almost went bust during Half Life's development. His gamble paid off when that turned into a runaway success, but he still could have lost it when he bet again on HL2 and Steam; at the time it was extremely controversial to make those a package deal. If Half Life 2 had been not quite as good as it turned out to be, it could have turned out to be a studio with a one hit wonder that burned their goodwill with some sketchy DRM sort of scheme on their second game.