On 28.12.2025 20:51, Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel wrote: > On Wed, Dec 24, 2025 at 4:56 PM Sara Tazari via ffmpeg-devel > wrote: >> >> Hi FFmpeg maintainers, >> >> I’m Sara, a member of the open source team at Spotify, along with Dave >> Zolotusky, Principal Engineer. In 2022, we started the Spotify FOSS Fund >> >> as >> a way of giving back to the open source community and to provide >> maintainers with funds that will allow them to continue the maintenance of >> their projects. Recipients were nominated and voted on by Spotify employees >> and selected by an internal committee. >> >> We’re excited to let you know that FFmpeg has been selected as a recipient >> of the 2025 Spotify FOSS Fund! >> >> We are in the process of providing you, the maintainers, with 30,000 Euros >> to put towards maintaining and continuing the success of FFmpeg. We will be >> announcing the winners on our public Spotify channels by the end of January >> 2026. For the purposes of our announcement, could you provide responses to >> any of the following questions: > > Hello, > > Thank you for your donation! > Here are my comments (which hopefully are a fair reflection of the > opinion of the community) > >> What is the vision for the project? > > FFmpeg aims to play every multimedia file ever made. As a result of > this goal it is used widely, from both hobbyists encoding their > personal videos to some of the largest streaming services like > Youtube, Netflix, X, Spotify etc. > >> How will these funds go toward supporting the future of the project? > > FFmpeg is written almost entirely by volunteers and so funding is important. > Funding will be used for: > > Hardware purchases > Travel to conferences > Funding development projects > >> What kind of impact do you think FOSS funds have on the open source >> ecosystem in general? Is any amount welcome? In addition to the money, does >> exposure from the fund provide value, as well? > > Many FOSS projects like FFmpeg are developed by volunteers and so > funding helps pay for day-to-day expenses. > > FFmpeg has received donations from well known names like Spotify, > Bloomberg and Zerodha and their association helps increase awareness > of the importance of FFmpeg. It also provides value to these companies > as it shows they care about the wider open source projects they rely > upon in their businesses. > >> What are other ways you think the community and/or companies can better >> support open source? > > While we are extremely thankful for the donation from Spotify, there > continues to be sustainability challenges in open source projects, > especially with long-term and reliable funding to pay for full-time > developers. We hope companies can provide dedicated developers and/or > repeatable funding to pay for this. > > Regards, > Kieran Kunhya Fully agree with all of these. Would maybe explicitly add Hosting Cost to the list, since Hardware isn't commonly just ran from someones home.