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zxspectrum1982 | 3 months ago

Easy: ffmpeg discontinues or relicenses some ffmpeg functionality that AWS depends on for those product alines and AWS is screwed. I've seen that happen in other open source projects.

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NewsaHackO|3 months ago

But if it gets relicensed, they would still be able to use the current version. Amazon definitely would be able to fund an independent fork.

deaddodo|3 months ago

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 workers.

wewtyflakes|3 months ago

Sounds like it would be a lot of churn for nothing; if they can fund a fork, then they could fund the original project, no?

schainks|3 months ago

It still takes expensive humans to do this so they are incentivized to use the free labor.

eptcyka|3 months ago

Oh the irony - we don't want to pay for ffmpeg's development, but sure can finance a fork if we have to.

8note|3 months ago

something more dangerous would be "amazon is already breaking the license, but the maintainers for now havent put in the work to stop the infringement"

portaouflop|3 months ago

Wouldn’t that only affect new versions and current versions are still licensed under the old license ?

astrange|3 months ago

ffmpeg cannot relicense anything because it doesn't own anything. The contributors own the license to their code.

colonwqbang|3 months ago

Relicensing isn't necessary. If you violate the GPL with respect to a work you automatically lose your license to that work.

It's enough if one or two main contributors assert their copyrights. Their contributions are so tangled with everything else after years of development that it can't meaningfully be separated away.

fweimer|3 months ago

They can switch from LGPLv2.1 to GPLv2 or GPLv3 for future development because the license has an explicit provision for that.

deaddodo|3 months ago

I don’t know about ffmpeg, but plenty of OSS projects have outlined rules for who/when a project-wide/administrative decision can be made. It’s usually outlined in a CONTRIB or similar file.