ffmpeg had a schism just over a decade ago and the splinter group forked off into libav.
One of the splinter group members happened to be the now-former ffmpeg maintainer in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories and switched them from ffmpeg to libav. Yes, this was done purely for ideological reasons.[1]
So this bullshit happens in the open source world just like in the closed source world. In a way, I would argue it's even worse in the open source world because when it happens the driving factor is oftentimes ideological dogma instead of something simpler like lack of money or interest.
The crucial difference is that with FOSS, unless a piece of software has some particularly gnarly and/or finicky dependencies, you can easily bypass whatever is in your package manager's repositories and just use the version you want (by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility), regardless of what the maintainers of the aforementioned repositories do. With proprietary software, you simply do not have this option.
"(by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility),"
This is fine for those of us who know how to compile the source or find a ready-to-use version. Trouble is, I've often been in situations without updated sources being available and or where maintainers haven't been contactable.
Ordinary users are in a worse position as most wouldn't know how to go about compiling code even if available. It's a significant problem.
That's why ordinary users they pay for Windows. And iPhones. They couldn't be bothered with "you should learn to compile arbitrary programs from source for the particular version of a particulr linux distirbution with particular library versions and available software".
In all fairness I, as a programmer, couldn't be bothered to do that either.
It is not detachment from reality. Those of us that are comfortable with compiling some of the programs we use from source don't by any means expect ordinary users to be capable of doing the same. It's an option that works for us and that's fine for many of us, though I personally would prefer if regular users had options as well.
It's also a straw man. Compiling from source is just one option (that is particularly relevant for the HN demographic), but many (most?) notable apps, the kinds regular users would be using anyway, seem to provide ready-to-use versions that can be downloaded from their site and run without even having to be installed. This is a very convenient workflow that even regular users would be capable of using, and is quite reminiscient of what people often do on proprietary desktop operating systems.
"...though I personally would prefer if regular users had options as well."
I must agree with that. Whilst I've written code and compiled it—even Assembler—when it comes to using compiled programs without source, MSO for instance, then I am essentially in the same position as the average user.
I've lost count of the times that I've wished I could change a program to alter a feature or provide one that was missing. Like the average user I'm powerless to change it in any practical sense as it'd be so difficult and timeconsuming (even with source, it could still be very challenging and not worth the effort).
I think that there is a lot of room for compassion and donated time and effort here. I have helped family and friends adopt foss on many occasions, and it has been worth my time.
> So this bullshit happens in the open source world just like in the closed source world.
The detail is what happens after this happens. In a closed source world, most of the cases, that's it. No more builds for any reason, it's dead. You want to change it? Then first reverse engineer it.
But if it's open source, I can if I must, pull down the source code myself and build it. It can continue to live, if someone wants.
Absolutely true. This is why we have hundreds of Linux distros, which is fine for us who can sort our way through but average users throw their hands up in desperation. I've the same problem in supermarkets when confronted with dozens of brands of an item in that they all seem the same.
> This is why we have hundreds of Linux distros, which is fine for us who can sort our way through but average users throw their hands up in desperation.
This is probably a good thing for those who want something very particular.
For example, something like Ubuntu for the desktop, but without snaps everywhere - that'd be Linux Mint. Or maybe something like RHEL, but without necessarily having to (or being able to) pay - that'd be Rocky Linux or Alma Linux.
On the other hand, this also means that the community's efforts are spread thin, there's lots of fragmentation and the whole experience is just way more messy.
Instead of writing install instructions for The One True Linux Distro, you now need to write those for many, deal with multiple packaging formats and repositories, or just live with the reality that something available in one distro won't be available in another. I even had that issue with WireGuard, where it worked in Ubuntu but not Debian for a particular use case, shortly after it came out.
For as niche the types of BSD OSes are, they feel more coherent. I wonder what things would be like if we'd have similarly focused efforts for Linux, even stuff like one audio solution that's made to always work everywhere, one display server/compositor, one desktop that scales back to run as fast as XFCE or be as pretty as KDE.
But that's not how humans work and instead we'll just get new packages replacing older ones, sometimes for the better, but not always.
The very same thing applies to many FOSS software packages out there, but in a sense it's still better than some closed source package being abandoned and nobody ever being able to do anything about it.
ffmpeg kept being available and developed. It is a good example that shows that whatever reasons are behind, it is never worse in the open source world.
