[FFmpeg-user] Yes or No? About the processing pipeline.

[Mark Filipak]

On 19/06/2025 18.09, Rob Hallam wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jun 2025 at 15:04, Mark Filipak
> <markfilipak.imdb-at-gmail.com at ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> 
> The internet runs on Linux. Phones run on Linux. Embedded devices run Linux.

Come on, Rob. The Internet doesn't run on Linux any more than companies run on Oracle.
And what runs on phones and appliances could hardly be called operating systems.

>>> ... If you stop paying
>>> a subscription to Adobe, what happens to software like Adobe Photoshop
>>> / Illustrator- can you keep doing your graphic design job, or do they
>>> just stop working?
>>
>> What happens if you stop putting gasoline in your car? Does it stop working?
> 
> Um, no. It continues to work with the gas it has.

Until the gas runs out, just like a software use license.

> 
>> a time when you could actually *buy* software
> (emphasis mine)
> 
>> That's milking the cow.
> 
> Quite so.
> 
>>> Folks who work on Free software do so either at the behest of their
>>> employer...
>>
>> Really? People are working writing free software at the behest of their employer? Or by "on Free
>> software" do you mean _using_ free software?
> 
> Both are true but I meant the former, and I used Free as in freedom,
> not free as in beer.

Yeah, I've read what the FOSS principles -- I can't remember their names -- wrote about FOSS, as in 
"freedom". It didn't make any sense to me and I don't really think anybody buys into it except them. 
"Free" means free, no cost.

> 
>>> ... or to do things that they want to do...
>>
>> There you go, Rob. People work on FOSS because they want to. I've never figured out why they do it.
>> Why would I?
> 
> That's a huge question. You say you've never fighted out why- can you
> not think of any reasons people might? If you were to read things
> written (in English, not code) by FOSS contributors, whether prominent
> or obscure, you'd find some interesting motivations. I came up with
> about a half dozen good reasons off the top of my head.
> 
>>> ... If you want to convince
>>> them to change their approach,...
>>
>> That will never happen until their living is affected by your arguments. And that will never happen
>> until there are bosses and standards and money. You will never get volunteers to cooperate so long
>> as volunteering is unpaid. Unfortunately, Socialism doesn't work but devolves into "the rule of the
>> strong."
> 
> Volunteering does work. Of course socialism works- see how much money
> is taken as tax and given out as welfare businesses so they can keep
> operating...

That's not actual socialism. That's welfare.

>... Or perhaps you meant something else; that's often the case
> when words aren't defined before use.

Are you asking me to define socialism? Collective ownership of the means of production. There's hard 
and soft socialism. The US and the EU have soft socialism, or informal socialism. They call it the 
social safety net. That's what you're citing. Welfare is not socialism. Soft socialism works because 
business and commerce supports it. On the other hand, hard socialism, Socialism as government, 
doesn't work because the rulers ultimately try to assure national cohesion to keep them in power, 
and they do it by enforcing their idea of social conformity. It's like religion, like Iran or the 
Taliban or ISIS. The first thing that's taken away is free choice. I don't wear a MAGA hat, but I 
understand what motivates them.