Greedy tech should pay. No question about it.
They should either get GPL’d or forced to pay.
That was an incredibly interesting read, and I learned a lot! Thank you for posting it!
It’s genuinely infuriating that so much labor is simply stolen, in so many different ways, from people with a passion for what they do, and turned into profit for some mega corp, with the vast majority funneled to a few people completely unrelated to
theany work.The fucking gas lighting in this response
Google provides more assistance to open source software projects than almost any other organization, and these debates are more likely to drive away potential sponsors than to attract them
“We ran AI that may or may not have found a legitimate issue, and you’re not looking into it for us fast enough. That’s going to drive away new volunteers that we need”
If I had an open source program that is being used by fuckers like Google, who can afford to pay but don’t, and then come in and demand shit. I’d just ignore them and pretend they don’t exist and continue with my life. Let them bark until they’re blue in the face. But first I’d put this as the first line in the README.md “if you’re a big corporation and need help, come with money. Otherwise, please don’t bother me”.
Not only that they have the money, but Google is actively working to lock down their streaming platform (YouTube) against third-parties and they have basically yanked the rug for their OS platform, while adding requirements for developers to sideload.
Their entire direction is antagonistic and in opposition to the core concepts of FOSS
The problem is that some small but non-zero fraction of these bugs may be exploitable security flaws with the software, and these bug reports are on the open internet. So if they just ignore them all, they risk overlooking a genuine vulnerability that a bad actor can then more easily find and use. Then the FOSS project gets the blame, because the bug report was there, they should have fixed it!
The main issue there is that project zero, where if you ignore what Google has reported, they will just go ahead and disclose the issue.
Could be worse, at least Google isn’t opening tickets as high priority asking basic questions on how to use ffmpeg.
Unlike the Microsoft teams devs: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/10341 Really funny to go “this is a high priority ticket” as if they’ve paid to use ffmpeg in teams.
The last reply is great.
I presume that’s not actually Elon Musk in the replies…
That is actually Fellon Flask!
It is not
Jesus christ lmao
They should just call this an incomplete AI output. If the AI is so good, it should create the fix, add tests, and ensure nothing else breaks.
They’re profiting from FOSS, nobody is trying to prevent them from doing so, but they refuse to spend small amounts of money helping out part-time coders … and you know why. That money is going to the mid-level managers themselves.
Do the right thing and help your company in the medium run, or pocket chump change? Yeah, easy answer.
Surely Google has the resources to fix the bugs themselves. Most FOSS projects probably appreciate code contributions more than money.
I can’t say I’ve ever sent a security related bug report without at least some work done trying to understand how to fix it. Surely the caliber of people working for Project Zero can do that too, otherwise hi Google I’ll take one job please.
this would probably just lead to the corporation taking more and more of a role until thet take over development of the FOSS projects they care about, which is a particular nightmare I would prefer to avoid
was upset enough when Microsoft bought Github
there are some teams in companies like this where management doesn’t want to account for upstreaming and some engineers are happy to open a bug report, move the ticket to blocked, and move on to something else
I love you ffmpeg
Its insane just how important it is and the vast majority of the world doesn’t even know it exists. Truly unsung heroes (everyone who works on it).
I’m surprised nobody posted the xkcd comic. I think Randall had ImageMagick in mind (he names it in the alt text) but it applies to ffmpeg as well.
I always used to think about curl when I see that comic. Maybe less important in recent years but still a corner stone.
Ffmpeg has been such cool software to learn. Simple filter chains can do incredible things
Please, go on!
Well for instance you can use it to apply tranparencys or other effects using the geq filter. It applies a formula to every pixel in the input and can adjust alpha, rgb values, and gamma. You can also use conditionals in your formula and have access to the current pixels location and value, so you can apply your transforms only to specific regions if you want, or do an adjustment keyed only to a specific color.
You’re talking about green screen right? :D
Have you seen this? Green screen on crack.
With how short a time they give, if I wanted to cause chaos and previously had to do hard work to find big flaws, now all I have to do is sit back and wait for google to hand me the keys to someone else’s system now.
this is the correct attitude against these bastards.
Google is trying to kill Android and take control of it, I wonder if such acts aren’t part of the same agenda.
?
I must know as much as I thought.
I thought they owned Android. Is that not true?
Nope. Android phones without google are a thing. Its the default when you install the OS yourself, actually
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-development-aosp-3538503/
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-sideloading-android-developer-verification-rules-3602811/ps: Have no doubt, every claim Google makes about restricting stuff for your own good is just them lying out of their asses.
So I guess more free open source projects won’t be able to be maintained by overworked volunteers, and they’ll get “rescued” by trillion-dollar corporations that will close-source everything, backdoor the shit out of it, and decide what you can and cannot have.
They do, but Android is open source, and now Google is trying to close it down.
How? Are they retroactively changing the license?
They’ve been moving more and more out of AOSP into their Play Services for a good while now. However I suspect OP was referring to their announcement that they’ll require developer verification, and apps to be signed with a certificate they issue, for any app install on a verified device (read any device sold with the Play Store). Long story short, no more building and distributing APKs without Google knowing who you are and that your app exists.
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-android-security.html
There is also the fact that Google used to have a public git with the beta source code of upcoming Android releases, but have recently stopped publishing that source code
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-development-aosp-3538503/
Not all at once, but I feel like since the beginning more and more stuff has moved to closed source components like the Google services framework. Even the launcher used to be open source and that’s not maintained now in favor of closed OEM (including Pixel) ones.
slowing down AOSP releases (why Graphene is looking into other phone options). Google is also trying to enforce developer signatures on apps, which would give google the power to kill small developers on 3rd party app stores and ruin sideloading, as you would have to go through google to be verified to make apks.
these are a few example that has popped up in the past year.
I don’t think so but it seems you two are mixing Android and AOSP.
Android is owned by Google. AOSP is not.
I might be wrong on this but it seems to me they’re replacing in Android, the OS shipped with many smartphones, parts that have open licenses, i.e. parts from AOSP. Like they are replacing open parts of code with privative parts of code.
slay
Has anyone read the article? I barely understand what the fuss is actually about, the text is meandering and repeats semi-relevant details (specifically the part about libxml2).
In a nutshell:
Google is spending a shitload of money to find bugs in FOSS projects, but then refuses to spend the fraction more it would cost to contribute an actual fix, rather than just a bug report.
Basically, they are willing a spend a ton on finding a bunch of work for FOSS developers to do, but not on actually getting any of it done.
Not just that the bug they reported only affects some obscure LucasArt codec which isn’t even included in the build by default. Plus I’m pretty sure Google heavily uses ffmpeg for YouTube.
Plus google doesn’t really care if the obscure LucasArt codec is actually fixed, they’re raising the bugs publicly to sell their AI. This is marketing, not security. The more bugs it finds the better, since sales doesn’t care about the quality of the bugs found.
To add to the other replies: This is what AI is for. Not to replace labor, but to enhance the ruling class’ ability to exploit labor.
As a convenient side effect: If you use AI to spam people with bug reports, you’re basically DDoSing them… unless they then decide to use AI to help triage the avalanche. And wouldn’t you know it, Google just happens to sell AI to help you solve this problem they made for you!
“Nice FOSS project you got there. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.”
And also also: If FOSS in general turns into a ghost town… where are you gonna turn to get that boilerplate code you need to do a common task? That’s right, AI baby! All roads lead to boiling the Great Lakes so Nvidia can pay itself back.
I read the article, and the title is a pretty decent summary. AI is being used to find a never-ending supply of bugs (a number of which are trivial at best). The issue that not only are the bugs being found by unlimited resourced AI, those same processes are revealing them to the public after a time. This is placing undue burden on unpaid volunteers. So “FFmpeg to Google: Fund Us or Stop Sending Bugs”.
and some are, apparently, obscure af:
“an issue with decoding LucasArts Smush codec, specifically the first 10-20 frames of Rebel Assault 2, a game from 1995.”
Great game
Great name
Yas Queen
