- Just yesterday there was a story on here about how Google found esoteric bugs in FFMPEG, and told volunteers to fix it.
- Another classic example, about how Google doesn't give a stuff about their user's security is the scam ads they allow on youtube. Google knows these are scams, but don't care because they there isn't regulation requiring oversight.
Fixed that for you. Google's public service was both entirely appropriate and highly appreciated.
Not by the maintainers it wasn't Mr. Google.
I'd highly appreciate even if the maintainers never did anything with the report, because in that case I would know to stop using ffmpeg on untrusted files.
Protecting their app store revenues from competition exposes them to scrutiny from competition regulators and might be counter productive.
Many governments are moving towards requiring tech companies to enforce verification of users and limit access to some types of software and services or impose conditions requiring software to limit certain features such as end to end encryption. Some prominent people in big tech believe very strongly in a surveillance state and we are seeing a lot of buy in across the political spectrum, possibly due to industry lobbying efforts. Allowing people to install unapproved software limits the effectiveness of surveillance technologies and the revenues of those selling them. If legal compliance risks are pushing this then it is a job for voters, not Google to fix.
