[HN Gopher] Saying goodbye to FFmpegKit
___________________________________________________________________
Saying goodbye to FFmpegKit
Author : ericdiao
Score : 129 points
Date : 2025-02-14 21:53 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (tanersener.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tanersener.medium.com)
| ericdiao wrote:
| FFMpegKit at https://github.com/arthenica/ffmpeg-kit is
| discontinued by the author
| bsimpson wrote:
| Paying contractors to support your free GitHub project is wild.
|
| Open source is beautiful and broken at the same time.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| I don't see this being broken in the slightest! What's the
| issue with paying someone to write code you don't want to?
| bsimpson wrote:
| Feeling obligated to appease unseen internet freeloaders.
|
| If you do it because you want it for your stuff, cool.
|
| If you do it because you feel obliged to appease "the
| community" who takes for granted that you support them,
| that's a symptom of the broken model that is open source.
|
| Has echos of the Linux for Apple Silicon guy last week who
| used to be a Wii modder, tired of the support tickets from
| entitled pirates, moved to a niche Linux distro, and
| discovered a similar sense of entitlement in the issue
| tracker.
| kelnos wrote:
| In general, nothing, but it made me a bit sad that the
| maintainer believed he "owed" the community (likely 99% full
| of people who were using his work for free) to the point that
| he spent money for someone else to do work that he couldn't
| find time to do himself. Instead of just shuttering the
| project earlier, and saving that money.
|
| I _really_ hope the "significant sum" he paid was out of
| donations to the project, and not his own money. Even then,
| it sounds like he's poured a ton of his time and energy into
| the project over the years, so even if it was all donated
| money, he certainly could have kept it for himself without
| any moral/ethical concerns.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Ah, it's MPEG-LA again, the reason why we can't have nice things.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| FTFY the laws that allow MPEG-LA to exist are the reason why we
| can't have nice things.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| It can be both - just because it's legal for MPEG-LA to act
| that way it doesn't require them to do so
| kelnos wrote:
| No, but human nature is such that all it takes is a handful
| of unscrupulous people who see laws that they can use to
| their financial advantage. We can certainly assign blame to
| the people who work for MPEG-LA/Via-LA, but ultimately
| there will _always_ be organizations like that as long as
| the law allows or incentivizes that sort of thing.
|
| If we care about outcomes, the only thing to do is get the
| law changed so companies like that can't exist. Not because
| they are banned, but because there's no business model
| there.
| amiga386 wrote:
| > However, in 2023, MPEG LA was acquired by Via-LA, and
| everything changed. When I reached out to Via-LA in late 2024 to
| confirm FFmpegKit's position under their terms, I received no
| response.
|
| The real reason. Greedy bastards, and the risk of your business
| being set on fire by greedy bastards, even if they don't have a
| right to anything - they can still threaten to waste your time
| and money and offer a shakedown instead.
|
| I've never used FFmpegKit (I've mostly just used the command-
| line, or indirectly via yt-dlp and Handbrake) but just hearing
| about it now, the maintainer sounds like an awesome person who
| really went above and beyond to support free software, so hooray
| for them! I bet it was useful for thousands of other projects,
| and those people are all grateful too.
| cm2187 wrote:
| From the article, Via-LA just didn't respond to the author,
| that doesn't really say anything about their position. It's a
| bit premature to call them greedy bastard. The author is doing
| this out of an abundance of caution, not in response of a legal
| action.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Considering that MPEG-LA and in turn Via-LA only provides
| non-commercial licenses with the hardware which can
| encode/decode the codecs under their umbrella, and (Via-LA)
| stays silent on a matter so they can snipe people from the
| distance, they are the de-facto greedy ones.
|
| ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42736254
| amiga386 wrote:
| If I write to the Mafia asking to confirm they won't burn my
| store to the ground, they won't write back saying "no".
|
| They're not obligated to respond, and they enjoy the fear,
| uncertainty and doubt their non-response creates.
| bobbob1921 wrote:
| Its unfortunate that more corporations don't contribute to the
| same open source that they make use of for profit. (I know some
| do however).
| Gormo wrote:
| It seems really strange that a library that wraps FFMpeg is being
| discontinued due to patent concerns with the underlying codecs,
| but those codecs are only implemented in FFMpeg itself, which
| continues along without issues.
| amiga386 wrote:
| ffmpeg, VLC and its associated projects are hosted in France.
| There aren't any US companies for the MAFIAA to shakedown, and
| if they tried to file for software patent infringement in
| France, the French courts would tell them to fuck off.
|
| So they go after ffmpeg's US-based users/customers instead.
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Do French courts enforce patents differently?
| amiga386 wrote:
| France was one of the first countries in Europe to ban
| software patents, in 1968.
|
| France is also a party to the European Patent Convention,
| which specifically states that programs for computers are
| not patentable.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Eu
| r...
|
| Software patents are mainly a US-only thing.
| palata wrote:
| US people coming to complain about European regulations
| in 3... 2... 1...
| imglorp wrote:
| The LPF tried to warn everyone. /r/stallmanwasright
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20031013020204/http://progfre
| e.o...
| jcranmer wrote:
| There are over 300 French patents in the H.264 license
| pool, and the very first one looks like a software patent
| to me, and I suspect most of the rest are the software
| patents that you confidently claim don't exist.
| palata wrote:
| Are those patents for Europe? I guess a French could file
| for a US patent, right?
| amiga386 wrote:
| Maybe the examiner erred in issuing it then, and it needs
| to be cancelled because it's non-patentable subject
| matter as per Article 52 of the European Patent
| Convention.
|
| I don't know how I can be clearer about that. It's
| literally not allowed, and you think the first one you've
| looked at has somehow escaped the very direct statement
| that programs for computers are _not patentable subject
| matter_
|
| Perhaps if you'll cite any of those French patents (I
| note you alluded to "over 300" but managed not to cite
| _any_ ), we can get started on the cancellations
| jcranmer wrote:
| The first patent I found was EP3975559 (https://patentima
| ges.storage.googleapis.com/08/b8/01/acb4bfe...)
|
| The complete list of patents in the MPEG-LA for H.264 is
| here: https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-
| February-1-2...
| amiga386 wrote:
| The first patent you found is Danish - though is issued
| in several jurisdictions simultaneously via the EPO.
|
| And yes, it is carefully written to not imply it's
| patenting a computer program, and yet try to get the
| maximum "I'll sneak this past the examiners because I
| really want to patent computer programs" without actually
| breaching their direct rules about what are and aren't
| computer programs (and what is and isn't a technical
| solution, and what is and isn't novel).
|
| So if you want to say "looks like a software patent", the
| EPO would disagree directly with you, as they literally
| followed their rules saying don't do that - but the
| adversary is also trying their best to get software-
| implementation-fucking patent claims _despite_ those
| rules. I 'd like the EPO to be even stricter, and reject
| even more claims.
| kelnos wrote:
| I'm a little confused what your argument is, then. You
| claim that software is not patentable in the EU, but then
| accept that some companies manage to get software
| patented in EU countries by writing their patents
| creatively.
|
| So... software _is_ patentable in the EU, at least in
| some circumstances. That 's the end result, even if
| technically it's not allowed.
|
| Unless these patents in question don't actually cover
| video codec software, which it seems they do?
|
| The ultimate test, of course, is if these patents would
| stand up in court. But it seems no one has challenged
| them? Which indicates to me that either a) people
| believes they would hold up in court, and so they don't
| try to challenge them, or b) no one is sure, and is
| afraid to find out. Either outcome has the end result of
| "software can be patented in the EU sometimes".
| speedgoose wrote:
| Either those patents are invalid or they are not French.
|
| Article L611-10:
|
| ... 2. Ne sont pas considerees comme des inventions au
| sens du premier alinea du present article notamment :
|
| a) Les decouvertes ainsi que les theories scientifiques
| et les methodes mathematiques ;
|
| b) Les creations esthetiques ;
|
| c) Les plans, principes et methodes dans l'exercice
| d'activites intellectuelles, en matiere de jeu ou dans le
| domaine des activites economiques, ainsi que les
| programmes d'ordinateurs ;
|
| d) Les presentations d'informations.
|
| https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0
| 000...
|
| DeepL translation:
|
| 2. The following in particular shall not be regarded as
| inventions within the meaning of the first paragraph of
| this Article
|
| a) discoveries as well as scientific theories and
| mathematical methods ;
|
| b) aesthetic creations
|
| c) plans, principles and methods for carrying out
| intellectual activities, games or economic activities, as
| well as computer programs;
|
| d) Information presentations.
| jcranmer wrote:
| My suspicion is that software is no less patentable in
| France (or the EU as a whole) than it is in the US. Which
| is to say, throw in a generic processor and it's kosher
| enough to get granted. (Even in the US, Alice says that
| "do it on a computer" isn't enough to get granted but...
| that's exactly what happens, and given the long, long
| list of European patents in the video codec space, it's
| clearly happening just as much in the EU).
| speedgoose wrote:
| My suspicion is that patent offices are accepting obvious
| invalid patents for money.
| somat wrote:
| Which is why you always present your patent as if it were
| a mechanical machine. Then in court you need to prove how
| their mechanism of instructions for a general purpose
| solver(software) is the same as your patent mechanism.
|
| This is sort of a half-joke, But honestly I would not
| have a problem with software patents if they had to be
| filed in this manner. The problem I have is with patents
| that are "existing device (on a computer)" as if putting
| it on a computer was novel.
|
| I feel that patents are a critical legal device. I think
| having economic exploitation protection for your novel
| mechanism is an important thing. However there are enough
| people exploiting the patent system itself that it does
| need some reform. However I am uncertain what that reform
| should be. A stricter interpretation of novel? a tighter
| interpretation of infringement? Honestly I am worried
| about the law of unintended consequences here.
| amiga386 wrote:
| > I think having economic exploitation protection for
| your novel mechanism is an important thing.
|
| Sure. But if it's software: fuck off and use copyright.
| If people copy you, you're injured, you can show they
| copied you and obtain damages/injunctions. But if you
| want monopoly control over an _idea_ , no matter who else
| comes up with it... that's rent-seeking.
|
| Patents don't offer monopolies for fun, they're supposed
| to advance society by offering incentives for disclosure.
| The amount of incentive, and the likelyhood of non-
| disclosure was very different in the past, it certainly
| doesn't fit for computer software, so soceity shouldn't
| continue to offer that pact for computer software.
| rs186 wrote:
| Part of me wish that there are teams in China or Russia who
| can take over the development and ignore all the idiotic
| demands from these associations.
| doawoo wrote:
| Having dealt with MPEG-LA before, it makes me so wildly angry
| that a company composed of nothing but lawyers can suck money out
| of any product that wants to use a widely supported, arguably
| critical video codec.
|
| The process for reporting to them for sales is also horrible.
| Uploading excel spreadsheets to an ASP.NET backend that's barely
| holding together. It's minimal effort from them to leverage all
| possible legal action over you. Horrible.
| chefandy wrote:
| As an artist, this sort of shit makes me apoplectic. I'm
| frustrated that society has no way to compensate people that do
| creative work for a living other than the same mechanism that
| virii like this extract money from other people's work using a
| paper turnstile and heavy penalties for violations. And between
| the two kinds of entities, only one realistically even has the
| significant resources needed to engage the mechanism. I
| understand that a lot of folks in tech consider both of these
| usages to be largely equivalent but that's a different
| conversation.
| echelon wrote:
| > I'm frustrated that society has no way to compensate people
| that do creative work for a living other than the same
| mechanism that virii like this extract money from other
| people's work using a paper turnstile and heavy penalties for
| violations.
|
| Steam, YouTube, Instagram, Patreon, BandCamp, commissions...
| The creator economy is booming and is on the rise. I've seen
| some metrics say it's got a 40% CAGR.
|
| MrBeast, PsychicPebbles, VivziePop, Joel Haver - all made
| brands for themselves. The currency is personal brand. Most
| of the creators I follow these days are indies, not big
| studios.
|
| But even excepting that, you can always work for a big studio
| if you're not interested in the additional headache of
| working for yourself and building a personal brand. Gaming,
| film, and music are huge and there are companies hiring in
| these spaces.
| doawoo wrote:
| > all made brands for themselves
|
| Ah there's the magic word! You shouldn't have to be a
| "brand"... the people you listed are not who I would call
| "independent".
|
| Capitalism is the root of evil to all this. Sorry.
| echelon wrote:
| Every single indie band I like is a brand.
|
| Pardon my French, but get the stick out of your eye and
| lighten up a little bit about this.
|
| Not everything should be "kumbaya, my lord" neighborhood
| arts and crafts, string beads, hillbilly woodworking, or
| stay at home mom Etsy finds. You can enjoy things that
| have their own distinctive brand identity. Where the
| artist becomes inseparable from the art.
|
| Web comics, their own brands. Fan fiction authors, their
| own brands and followings. YouTubers and Twitch
| streamers, even the smallest of the small - duh. Brand.
| Bloggers. Columnists. Photographers. Even illustrators
| have their own brands. They don't want to be generic
| fungible goods. They want to be unique. That's what it is
| to be an artist and the name of the artist carries
| recognition, accolade, and following.
|
| So sorry there's an element of marketing and self
| promotion involved, but that's the name of the business
| for everyone. If you don't like it, you can work for
| somebody else and follow their brand guidelines and
| direction.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > Every single indie band I like is a brand.
|
| because they have to be.
|
| > Not everything should be "kumbaya, my lord"
| neighborhood arts and crafts, string beads, hillbilly
| woodworking, or stay at home mom Etsy finds.
|
| False dichotomy.
|
| The commenter is not bemoaning that it is impossible to
| make a living as a creative (though it is difficult);
| they are bemoaning that the mechanisms of enforcing, in
| law, that what is yours is yours requires a substantial
| amount of capital and legal expertise. If Ubisoft, for
| example, were to steal the IP of an indie developer and
| integrate it into their own game, is there a realistic
| path for that developer to take to get the dividends of
| their creation from Ubisoft? Yes, technically. But how
| much money, time, and work will it take? And how can it
| possibly be fair, when Ubisoft has an entire legal
| division at their disposal who's job it is to make sure
| they don't have to pay, and the indie developer has to
| _take time away from their job_ to do all of the same
| things?
| dbspin wrote:
| 'MrBeast' please don't compare this nonsense to creativity.
| He's a business man, and an extremely dishonest one
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dslLBsHkVzE]. A genius at
| 'optimising' 'content' for 'the algorithm'. The man has not
| one creative or artistic bone in his body.
|
| It's enormously disingenuous to compare the rise of
| hucksters like this to artists or creative professionals.
|
| Further - gaming has just seen the greatest layoffs in
| history, as all the major studios and publishers attempt to
| reduce costs and leverage 'AI', since the games as a
| service model is winner takes all. Independent film is all
| but dead since the franchise film has taken the box office.
| And music, are you kidding? Spotify has so cucked musicians
| that it's actively replacing them with AI generated mush,
| trained on their work, and the economic disparity is so
| great there's nothing they can do about it -
| https://www.fastcompany.com/91170296/spotify-ai-music
| chefandy wrote:
| You're conflating "content creators you're aware of" and
| the entire collection of industries that comprise
| commercial art. Indeed, the search engine optimizing
| celebrity influencer content creation market is booming-- a
| lot of it either being backed by legacy media, re-using
| other people's content directly, or being better at
| marketing AI knockoffs of other people's content than the
| original creators. Do you think that any of those content
| creators hesitate for a second to use copyright protections
| against someone gaining popularity using their
| scripts/footage/audio, etc to make the same kind of
| content? Beyond that, most commercial art isn't feasible to
| sell in those mediums. The people benefiting from this is
| so infinitesimally small compared to and not representative
| of the many commercial art markets at large-- everything
| from concept artists to graphic designers to dancers-- that
| it's entirely forgivable to exclude it from analysis
| altogether, let alone basing your analysis on it. You might
| as well deem someone with a gunshot wound perfectly healthy
| based entirely on their hair.
|
| The other direct-sell platforms you referenced have already
| been flooded by people bulk-creating AI knock-offs. The
| giant slop hose has already won the race to the bottom
| making it nearly impossible for people that aren't already
| established to get started. It's most obvious in stock
| photo markets, but in music, some of the creation tools
| specifically advertise generating output to avoid
| triggering copyright scanners.
|
| And no, you can't just go grab a job at the big studios
| because a) a lot of them are using, or assuming they'll
| soon be able to effectively use, the same AI tools that
| everyone else is based in other peoples labor and
| eliminating FTEs, b) since so many commercial artists have
| been displaced by tech companies essentially selling their
| work, everybody-- including former freelancers and indies--
| is shooting for the same dwindling set of jobs, and c)
| nobody in those industries is leaving their jobs because
| they know it might be the end of their career if they do.
|
| I don't expect you to understand the markets outside of
| your area of expertise, but I would appreciate your being
| less patronizing while you attempt to explain my career to
| me.
| duped wrote:
| I'm no lawyer but I feel like a company shouldn't have standing
| to contest a patent if they can't demonstrate damages, like a
| product losing sales because someone else is selling a
| competing product using technology under their patent.
|
| And "we paid for something and want ROI" are not damages.
| There's no legal right to profit from an investment. You gotta
| use it or lose it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| In this case though, licensing their code is their use of the
| product. Don't let your ire of patent trolls lump everyone
| together. I'm not saying MPEG/Via-LA are angels, but they own
| rights to code that is used by millions while holding active
| licenses with people using that code.
| duped wrote:
| I don't have ire for patent trolls, they exist within the
| system they create. I have ire for the patent _business_
| because I 've read and written a number of patent
| applications, and see the entire thing as mostly bogus.
|
| Normally you can't win a lawsuit without proving damages.
| My overarching point is that buying IP with no intent to
| use it _does not_ create damages when someone infringes it.
| And relicensing IP is not "using" the IP to me - you
| either use it, or lose it. Unless of course, you're the
| original author (and by author, I mean the humans, not
| businesses that paid them)
|
| The point of IP laws is to protect creators and encourage
| development. When the resulting markets do the opposite you
| have to ask if the design of those laws is flawed, and I
| really believe that.
| kelnos wrote:
| My ire for patent trolls is distinct.
|
| The patent "business" is just garbage. A company full of
| lawyers collecting rents on mathematical algorithms does
| not "promote the progress of science and useful arts".
|
| I think there is still a place for patents, but most of the
| time they seem to just stifle innovation and increase the
| cost of everything.
| DannyBee wrote:
| Unfortunately, patent rights are quite literally the right to
| exclude others from doing things. That's it.
|
| Patent owners don't even have the right to make the invention
| themselves (because it may infringe on other patents).
|
| So your problem is fairly foundational.
| webstrand wrote:
| The judiciary has decided to ignore the preamble "to
| promote the progress of science and useful arts". If that
| language was respected, the way parents currently work
| would be clearly unconstitutional.
| mjevans wrote:
| 'useful arts' in that era meant what we'd call 'trades
| skills' today.
|
| 'To promote the progress of science (total human
| knowledge) and skilled technical artisans.'
|
| Arguably, given the pace of technical innovation, and the
| clear effects on independent artisans, there shouldn't be
| patents at all. Copyright should also be re-evaluated,
| and if it still exists (it's so very easy to copy
| anything these days), and targeted towards maximum
| cultural diffusion of expressions of ideas within pop-
| culture cycles (20 years sounds LONG for such a
| timescale).
|
| Trade Marks, however, those are consumer protection and
| product reputation issues and call for registered (pay a
| fee to the government) marks that renew as long as paid.
| DannyBee wrote:
| I'm not a fan of patents, but i'm not sure this is fair.
|
| That phrase had a fairly specific meaning back when it
| was written, and they seem to be hewing to it.
|
| It does not match today's colloquial understanding for
| sure, but that doesn't mean they are ignoring it.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" To get clarity, I consulted an IP law firm. Their review
| raised concerns about potential risks related to licensing and
| patents. They recommended retiring the project and removing older
| binaries as the safest option. They did suggest some alternative
| paths, but those options would have required significant time,
| effort, and money, neither of which I could commit."_
|
| Thanks to Taner Sener for putting in all the effort! I guess most
| technical people shudder at the mere thought of dealing with all
| the legal matters.
| jamesfmilne wrote:
| I was under the impression you can't ship FFMPEG in an app on
| iOS/tvOS/iPadOS anyway given FFMPEG is licensed as LGPL.
| lstamour wrote:
| While there might be incompatibilities with GPL and the App
| Store due to Apple's insistence that developers must accept
| Apple's terms to run Xcode and apps on developer devices, LGPL
| and other open source licenses are generally compatible with
| the App Store and Apple's licenses. You can ship programs that
| use open source or are themselves open source within closed
| ecosystems by providing source code to end users via a website
| linked to within credits within the app. This distinction is
| because LGPL in particular permits more usage than GPL,
| allowing you to use the library in non-open source apps or
| those licensed under different terms, so ffmpeg has been
| somewhat adopted by a variety of open and closed source apps
| when a shared codebase is desired or particular codecs or
| functionality is required. That said, Apple themselves would
| prefer that you use their audio/video frameworks, due to device
| performance optimization, binary sizes, licensing and ecosystem
| lock-in. As far as I know, ffmpeg has adopted some of these
| Apple optimizations when appropriate frameworks are detected
| and configured at compile time.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| "Guy gets tired of doing whole ass job in his spare time"
|
| Jk, thank you for your work!
| j1elo wrote:
| _Why #1_ : not enough time and money.
|
| The project had become a time sink, I get it. But that's exactly
| why OSS is a "What You See Is What You Get".
|
| Normally I'd encourage any OSS maintainer in this position to
| just announce their intentions and let the community (as small as
| it might be) decide to either inherit maintenance and development
| of the project, or let it languish. I don't see any reason to
| close the repos so dramatically, depriving potential future
| readers of reaching the source code and improving upon it, as is
| the spirit of OSS.
|
| The project had also become an actual cost, getting to the point
| of hiring contractors to make releases and please users (who
| would most probably have been unwilling to pay for that
| themselves, as my experience tells me most FOSS users are just
| freeloaders with no intention at all of supporting the project in
| any way or means). Well, what can I say, this conversation
| appears from time to time in HN. OSS maintainers need to have
| that special kind of ability to say "No" or even "I don't care"
| because otherwise the project (and its users) tend to absorb the
| author's attention, goodwill, wallet, and enthusiasm. It's very
| healthy, as a maintainer, to be able to ruthlessly point to the
| License file whenever someone complains and even _requires_
| attention. The "Provided on an AS-IS BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR
| CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND" phrase is wonderful.
|
| I understand the author. The feeling of attachment and goodwill,
| the desire to show the highest attention to detail and quality
| support for a project is always there. We all experience it. But
| it's important to remember at all times that OSS is just an act
| of generosity to the universe, it cannot become a self-induced
| hell.
|
| _Why #2_ : legal concerns around potential litigations.
|
| Yeah, I know it myself too: distributing FFmpeg binaries can be a
| legal risk if some codecs were enabled in the build.
|
| Still no reason to shut everything down... or is it? My gut
| instinct for this is to "just" (I know, not a trivial change, but
| not astronomically complicated either) change to a "provide your
| own FFmpeg executable, please" model. _Then_ , proceed with
| abandoning the project, as per the previous point.
|
| Or just move everything to an anonymous Chinese Git provider..
| and forget about receiving legal threats in there (just half-
| joking!)
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