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I've been working on VideoLAN (VLC, x264, other...) for most of my professional life. For a long time, I had other jobs, working at startups around video, and
by jbk 6y ago
I've been working on VideoLAN (VLC, x264, other...) for most of my professional life.
For a long time, I had other jobs, working at startups around video, and doing VLC at nights and weekends and holidays.
And now, I built a couple of companies around Open Source multimedia, where we do consulting, integration, custom development around software, applications development, licensing, support and so on.
Those companies are now paying around 25 FTE. It's not too bad, but not impressive either...
The employees are working most of their time on improvements of the open source software, working for clients is a minority of their time.
But I've worked a lot, and by a lot, I really mean a fuckton... And the rewards are not big.
- jlengrand 6y agoMan, VLC, you and the 25 FTE you created in a sustainable way are much more impressive to me than any Uber, Facebook or other hockey stick growth giant. You folks rock, and thanks for that
- koheripbal 6y agoAgreed - and we don't do enough to support groups like this. I would totally by VLC branded swag. Coffee cup, underwear, "I supported VLC and all I got was this t-shirt"... etc... Or maybe stuff more on brand, like bluetooth ear buds or something? Lots of good will to be had by such a giant fan-base. EDIT: Looks like they're already thinking about that. Hope they launch before xmas! http://www.videolan.org/goodies.html#clothing http://www.videolan.org/goodies.html#clothing
- nojvek 6y agoWould pay quite a bit for VLC branded underwear. That cone is a solid brand. Haha!
- james_s_tayler 6y ago>But I've worked a lot, and by a lot, I really mean a fuckton... And the rewards are not big VLC is like a part of culture at this point.
- londons_explore 6y agoPart of your reward is that traffic cone will stay in people's minds for decades or maybe centuries longer than the products of most of us here.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago> Part of your reward is that traffic cone will stay in people's minds for decades or maybe centuries longer than the products of most of us here. > VLC is like a part of culture at this point. Pretty much, as soon as he said he worked on VLC I saw the cone in my head, and then remembered how many times I installed into people's machines so they would stop having codec issues using default software. Thanks for working a fuckton, OP!
- AdrianB1 6y agoI tried to pay part of the rent with something like that and it never worked. What am I doing wrong?
- unityByFreedom 6y agoIMO building a sustainable business on open source is more impressive than getting $x million for an AI startup. I doubt all of HN sees it this way but if you’re happy with what you do and what you get out of it then that’s what matters most.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dbeley 6y ago> And the rewards are not big. At least in France you and VideoLAN are generally one of the first replies when someone ask about libre software and opensource in general. But yeah exposure don't pay the bills, unfortunately.
- xchip 6y agoVLC is awesome, thanks!!!!
- zozbot234 6y ago> Those companies are now paying around 25 FTE. It's not too bad, but not impressive either That's actually really impressive, that software of such outstanding quality can be built and maintained so efficiently. It means that great things could be achieved if people bothered to fund FLOSS more, or if effective funding models (a combination of paying for ongoing support + crowdfunding for general development, most likely) became more widespread.
- rbultje 6y agoThis response reminds me of: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1258531455220609025 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1258531455220609025 Opensource/free software powers most of the stuff we take for granted. The software and their maintainers are equally taken-for-granted.
- generalpass 6y agoI agree that the vast majority of people take a lot of open source for granted. However, a lot of open source projects are, frankly, extremely rude to users. Instead of some copy-paste "kindly please direct your question to this resource over here" the users get "GET THE @#%% OUT OF HERE STUPID N00b" and this is from people directly with the project (e.g., domain email address). If you think this doesn't impact your donations and recognition, please rethink that a little bit further.
- prepend 6y agoI’d like to see some nice analysis on this because my experience was completely the opposite. I don’t work on open source much (a few lines over 20 years), but the only patch I made was super welcoming and a dev bent over backwards to teach me how to diff and submit patches. I just assumed this was common.
- amenod 6y agoThis is also my (limited) experience, though one does find... less than welcoming maintainers. :) It depends a lot in how you approach the project though. Being humble and careful not to waste maintainers' time more than necessary goes a long way. Remember, it's their free time they are donating to you, so make sure that you went extra mile to really prove that the bug is in the project and not in your code.
- vnorilo 6y agoSir, you work on a different definition of "impressive" than I.
- AsyncAwait 6y agoJust wanted to say thanks. As someone who would not be where I am today without FLOSS, I really appreciate people like you.
- saagarjha 6y agoI am extremely impressed that you’ve managed to pay for a team of 25. Congrats!
- dueF7un3 6y agoI wonder : do you have the same engineer turn over than "regular" companies, that is developers leaving after two or three years max? Everywhere around me, I see companies who expected to go big and profit on IPO failing. Nothing new, but I get the feeling it's getting harder to attract investors in that model (this was already a feeling I had before lockdown). This kind of company you're building, who focus on profitability from contract work while working on the big picture between two contracts, may just be the most stable kind of company one may build, especially if you happen to have a low turn over.
- zozbot234 6y agoYes, that whole "go big or go home" model only ever made sense for highly-scalable, user facing services. Open source development and support is in many ways the polar opposite of that. Even many B2B services don't really make sense as something where "take lots of outside investment" is the focus. And if you do need some sort of one-time big push to develop something, that's what Kickstarter and other crowdfunding models can support most directly.
- jbk 6y ago> I wonder : do you have the same engineer turn over than "regular" companies, that is developers leaving after two or three years max? We don't. Clearly not. People leaving is very rare. But also, our recruitment is very different from normal companies. :)
- bergstromm466 6y ago> our recruitment is very different from normal companies. Please could you share a bit about what your recruitment strategies look like? And do you all work remote?
- rom1v 6y ago(I'm an employee at Videolabs) 2~3 years ago, I contacted j-b on IRC and got an interview. This was the first time I used IRC to find a job :)
- andreareina 6y agoYou're selling yourself short, 25 FTE is definitely impressive. Major props.
- dijit 6y agoNot sure if it means anything, but if I met you then you'd have unlimited guest time on my spare bed, and that would include food of course. Might not be much, but community respect and appreciation is something, it will definitely get you fed and beer'd. Although ideally you'd want to have the money not the admiration. :\
- jbk 6y ago> Although ideally you'd want to have the money not the admiration. :\ Admiration is un-valuable. :D
- oars 6y agoVLC has brought joy to my life and many others I know. In our short time in this world you literally helped make my and many others' lives better. Thank you.
- anticsapp 6y agoI love VLC. You're a lead on that? Cool.
- stonecharioteer 6y agoHoly fuck. You are amaze balls. I once discovered that you can network stream through VLC and this blew my mind. Before VLC I was installing the Media Player Classic everywhere. After VLC, there's nothing I'd rather use.
- ousmanedev 6y agoThank you for VLC
- madballster 6y agoHow is giving 25 people bread, water and shelter and most of all a job they enjoy not impressive?
- jbk 6y agoBecause, as soon as I wanted to raise money from VC to grow the business, it was very difficult to get anything. And we have a lot of research and projects, that we never get released, and other people use the tech, rewrap it and get the $$ :)
- madballster 6y agoI commend you for your personal ambition, but sometimes getting a different perspective can be a good thing. Your complaint basically is that you are having a hard time getting a VC investment for your (otherwise perfectly fine) running business that feeds a lot of mouths and - while not making a fortune - makes money. On a certain level that's akin to a tenured professor with a perfectly fine University career complaining he has little chance of ever being awarded the Nobel Prize. Ambition is great, but do not let it cloud your sense of pride in your achievements. If you're not content being 90th percentile, what gives you confidence you'd be happier being 99.9th percentile?
- jcampbell1 6y ago> On a certain level that's akin to a tenured professor You clearly haven’t run a small business. It’s more like being a dairy farmer where if you ever fail to make hay, every thing dies. There are good times and bad, but you are never free from the sword of Damocles.
- madballster 6y agoI have, for over 10 years. Nobody ever promised me as an entrepreneur it would be a fun and secure ride start to finish. It wasn't, yet I am very happy and content. For those who do not like the "risky" nature of it there are stable careers to choose from with monthly paychecks and health insurance. Who ever guaranteed each and every hardworking software/tech business owner a $100 million exit event handed to them on a silver plate by a VC firm? Entitlement is not a path to happiness.
- justplay 6y agoVLC is really awesome and i really respect your work. I never said this file wont open in my system, thanks to VLC.
- ddevault 6y ago25 FTEs is an incredible achievement, and you should be very proud. The rewards are enormous - VideoLAN has a massive impact on human culture, more so than 99% of all businesses. Taking on VC to "grow" may be difficult, but is it something you really need to do? What you've built is amazing, and if you can sustain it at its current size, you'd be doing wonderful work. Endlessly chasing growth is a fool's errand, and you'll probably end up making compromises you never wanted to in order to get there. I think one piece of wisdom I'd share about sustainable FOSS for this thread is: be happy with a smaller size. A FOSS business is probably not going to be a unicorn, but hey, that's okay, isn't it? If you're building software you and your users love, and you're putting food on your table, then you've got something to be proud of.
- umvi 6y ago> 25 FTEs is an incredible achievement, and you should be very proud. I know this is a stupid question, but I tried googling and it wasn't obvious... what does FTE stand for? "Full Time Equivalent?" Does that mean they are paying for 25 full time employees?
- ddevault 6y agoFull-time employee, I presume.
- sgummaluri 6y agoYes, FTE means Full Time Emoloyee
- mkl 6y agoNot exactly, it's "Full Time Equivalent". If two employees are working half-time, together they make up 1 FTE, but not 1 full time employee (because there are two of them).
- Closi 6y agoI usually take it to mean full time equivalent... It usually means either 25 full time employees, or a number of part time and full time staff that equal the paid hours of 25 full time employees. e.g. 50 part time employees that work half the typical working week would be 25 fte
- atonse 6y agoVLC is one of those rare pieces of software that seems to play every single thing you throw at it, and just do it smoothly. I know whenever something fails, "VLC will play it" – and that's the advice I give if someone asks me how to open a file that isn't mp4, etc. Thanks for an awesome project and I am actually happy to hear that you have 25 people and what seems to be a sustainable business.
- alpaca128 6y agoVLC will sometimes even play damaged files that other players may not recognise as videos anymore. It definitely saved me a ton of troubleshooting within my family. Install VLC and the number of problems decreases noticably.
- Olaf-novice 6y agoVLC is really great! Thanks for working on it. Do other oppensource groups have more salaried employees? Is donnations the only way for VLC to make money ?
- xnyan 6y ago15 years ago I was on a date with a wonderful young lady. We had a picnic and I brought my (at the time) very modern projector to watch a movie, projected on a bedsheet in the woods. Windows Media Player refused to play the DVD. No internet access at all. I thought I had failed...until I remembered that I had installed VLC. Opened the VTS.VOB on the DVD directly and boom, the video started and played back without a single hitch. I was a tech hero that day. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for VLC!
- andrewjrhill 6y agoHow did you power the projector? Did you drag a generator into the forest too?
- huntertwo 6y agoHe busted out the old hand crank projector of course.
- code_duck 6y agoI'm envisioning a UPS. Good question.
- aasasd 6y agoMy bet is on ‘a car’. There are converters to power 220/110V appliances off a car battery.
- venatiodecorus 6y agothank you hacker news, asking the real questions here. i'll be very upset if we don't get the answer to this question. we must know every detail.
- karolist 6y agoInverter type, for example Honda 10i is portable and not that noisy :)
- saluki 6y agoWhen the Blair Witch Project came out, my Uncle took his son and a few of his friends (Jr. High Age) out in to the woods setup a generator and a TV and they watched the movie in the woods at night. My cousin said they were so scared, but his friends still talk about it to this day when they get together.
- benjoseph 6y agoThanks a ton for all the great work you and the team put in! P.S: Most people I know refer to traffic cones as VLC :D
- freakynit 6y agoI love VLC. In fact, we all love VLC! This is one media player software that has never, ever, let me down. Every other player has let me down in one way or the other, but not this. Building a software of such high quality is impressive beyond words. So many thanks to you for this..
- zerr 6y agoAnother thing with successful open source projects is that people dedicate their whole lives to it - don't you think you'd enjoy more if you had worked on lots of different projects, tech, companies, etc... instead of "just" VLC? For how long do you plan to continue working on it? There's a whole world outside video playback - do you happen to think about this time to time?
- jbk 6y ago> don't you think you'd enjoy more if you had worked on lots of different projects, tech, companies, etc... instead of "just" VLC? Well, to be honest, I'd love to extend what we're doing in VLC to other end-user applications like PDF reader, or the basic apps you have on Android and iOS.
- ta17711771 6y agoCheck out the "Simple" series of Android apps. You might find teaming with them could bring a huge boost to both sides!
- jbk 6y agoNice!
- deeblering4 6y agoFirst I want to say thank you for taking the harder road and providing such great software to the community. What are your thoughts about software crowdfunding approaches like patreon “$1 donation per donor, per version release” and similar?
- RedBeetDeadpool 6y agofwiw, I think VLC is absolutetly amazing. Thanks for all the work you put in it.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zeroego 6y agoI've been using VLC for many years. I've donated several times and am very appreciative of VLC's existence. Thank you for doing what you do!
- pabs3 6y agoDo those companies have careers/jobs pages? I'd like to add them to this page: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources