FFmpeg to Google: Fund us or stop sending bugs • Hacker News Board

Re: FFmpeg to Google: Fund us or stop sending bugs

#911

Post by maybewhenthesun » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 11:58 AM UTC

okayjustonemore wrote: post #787

fukka42 wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being allowed to contribute to open source is a privilege, not a right. You could also just pay for it.

“Pay my way or take the highway” is as close to the closed-source ethos as you can possibly get. Collaboration is not feasible if the barrier of entry is too high and those involved make no effort to foster a collaborative environment.

Yes, because with a closed source you can also just download the source and add your own patches and maintain your own fork... /s

Most open source projects have way more patches contributed than the core developers can handle, so they tend to only accept those from the friendliest contributors or with the highest code/documentation quality.

Re: FFmpeg to Google: Fund us or stop sending bugs

#912

Post by iscoelho » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 8:18 PM UTC

strictnein wrote: post #893

iscoelho wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my understanding that the commenters in FFMPEG's favor believe that Google is doing a disservice by finding these security vulnerabilities, as they require volunteer burden to patch, and that they should either: 1) allow the vulnerabilities to remain undiscovered & unpatched zero-days (stop submitting "slop" CVEs.) 2) supply the patches (which i'm sure the goalpost will move to the maintainers being upset that…

No one is saying #1. No one is arguing against #2. #3 is something all companies with significant reliance on OSS projects should help do. The only thing that defies logic is how poorly your strawman is constructed.

It appears we are not reading the same thread.

Re: FFmpeg to Google: Fund us or stop sending bugs

#913

Post by deaddodo » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 11:28 AM UTC

rs186 wrote: post #685

deaddodo wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the argument for refusing to just pay ffmpeg developers gets even more flimsy. The entire point here is to pay for the fixes/features you keep demanding, else the project is just going to do as it desires and ignore you. More and more OSS projects are getting to this point as large enterprises (especially in the SaaS/PaaS spheres) continue to take advantage of those projects and treat them like unpaid worker…

Heard of OpenSearch? There are many reasons, often good ones, not to pay money for an open source project but instead fund your own projects, from a company's perspective.

Yes, if FFMpeg suddenly made a corporate-incompatible license change, it would 100% make sense to fork it.

I don’t see how that at all relates to the point, but sure, you got me.