FFmpeg to Google: Fund us or stop sending bugs

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"

Nothing says solid industry better than having 3 majors product lines from a trillion dollar company depending of unpaid volunteer labor.

I think if you look a bit deeper, all product lines from said trillion dollor company rely on open source to some degree. They should be spending hundreds of millions in sponsorship of OS projects. They should put the maintainers on their payroll. Not even reporting to a manager, just pay them a salary for their OS work.

I have a feeling that if they do this, the economy would be hurt (somehow).

None of us want the economy to be hurt, right?