by shevy-java | 2025-11-11 20:52:54+00:00
Hmmmmmm. I can understand both points but ...

Google is under no obligation to work on FFmpeg.

Google leveraging AI to spam ffmpeg devs with bugs that range from real to obscure to wrongly reported may be annoying. But even then I still don't think Google is to be held accountable for reporting bugs nor is it required to fix bugs. Note: I do think Google should help pay for costs and what not. If they were a good company they would not only report bugs but also have had developers fix the bugs, but they are selfish and greedy, everyone knows that. Even then they are not responsible for bugs in ffmpeg. And IF the bug report is valid, then I also see no problem.

The article also confuses things. For instance:

"Many in the FFmpeg community argue, with reason, that it is unreasonable for a trillion-dollar corporation like Google, which heavily relies on FFmpeg in its products, to shift the workload of fixing vulnerabilities to unpaid volunteers"

How could Google do that? It is not Google's decision. That is up to volunteers. If they refuse to fix bug reports reported from Google then this is fine. But it is THEIR decision, not Google.

"With this policy change, GPZ announces that it has reported an issue on a specific project within a week of discovery, and the security standard 90-day disclosure clock then starts, regardless of whether a patch is available or not."

Well, many opinions here. I think ALL bugs and exploits should be INSTANTLY AND WITHOUT ANY DELAY, be made fully transparent and public. I understand the other side of the medal too, bla bla we need time to fix it bla bla. I totally understand it. Even then I believe the only truthful, honest way to deal with this, is 100% transparency at all times. This includes when there are negative side effects too, such as open holes. I believe in transparency, not in secrecy. There can not be any compromise here IMO.

"Many volunteer open source program maintainers and developers feel this is massively unfair to put them under such pressure when Google has billions to address the problem."

So what? Google reports issues. You can either fix that or not. Either way is a strategy. It is not Google's fault when software can be exploited, unless they wrote the code. Conversely, the bug or flaw would still exist in the code EVEN IF GOOGLE WOULD NOT REPORT IT. So I don't understand this part. I totally understand the issue of Google being greedy, but this here is not solely about Google's greed. This is also how a project deals with (real) issues (if they are not real then you can ask Google why they send out so much spam).

That Google abuses AI to spam down real human beings is evil and shabby. I am all for ending Google on this planet - it does so much evil. But either it is a bug, or not. I don't understand the opinion of ffmpeg devs "because it is Google, we want zero bug reports". That just makes no sense.

"The fundamental problem remains that the FFmpeg team lacks the financial and developer resources to address a flood of AI-created CVEs."

Well, that is more an issue in how to handle Google spamming down people. Sue them in court so that they stop spamming. But if it is a legit bug report, why is that a problem? Are ffmpeg devs concerned about the code quality being bad? If it is about money then even though I think all of Google's assets should be seized and the CEOs that have done so much evil in the last 20 years be put to court, it really is not their responsibility to fix anything written by others. That's just not how software engineering works; it makes no sense. It seems people confuse ethics with responsibilities here. The GPL doesn't mandate code fixing to be done; it mandates that if you publish a derivative etc... of the code, that code has to be published under the same licence and made available to people. That's about it, give or take. It doesn't say corporations or anyone else HAS to fix something.

"On the other hand, security experts are certainly right in thinking that FFmpeg is a critical part of the Internet’s technology framework and that security issues do need to be made public responsibly and addressed."

I am all for that too, but even stricter - all security issues are to be made public instantly, without delay, fully and completely. I went to open source because I got tired of Microsoft. Why would I want to go back to evil? Not being transparent here is no valid excuse IMO.

"The reality is, however, that without more support from the trillion-dollar companies that profit from open source, many woefully underfunded, volunteer-driven critical open-source projects will no longer be maintained at all."

Wait - so it is Google's fault if projects die due to lack of funding? How does that explanation work?

You can choose another licence model. Many choose BSD/MIT. Others choose GPL. And so forth.

"For example, Wellnhofer has said he will no longer maintain libxml2 in December. Libxml2 is a critical library in all web browsers, web servers, LibreOffice and numerous Linux packages. We don’t need any more arguments; we need real support for critical open source programs before we have another major security breach."

Yes, that is a problem - the funding part. I completely agree. I still don't understand the "logic" of trying to force corporations to have to do so when they are not obliged. If you don't want corporations to use your code, specify that in the licence. The GPL does not do that. I am confused about this "debate" because it makes no real sense to me from an objective point of view. The only part that I can understand pisses off real humans is when Google uses AI as a pester-spam attack orgy. Hopefully a court agrees and spits up any company with more than 100 developers into smaller entities the moment they use AI to spam real human beings.