Hi
Thanks for the message.
What you are getting “for free” is the result of hours (or rather man-years or even man-centuries) people have spent collectively with a common goal : a framework to make it easier to deal with multimedia (usually to create an application/idea you had). And the best way to do that was doing it collectively.
It is true a lot of us started doing it “for fun”, having an itch to scratch, wanting to write a video editor (it’s a trap, you’ll end up like Wim and myself tackling low-level stuff), wanting to understand how multimedia works, … and not wanting to reinvent the wheel. But also a lot of companies also wanted to avoid reinventing the wheel because they wanted to develop a product where the core focus is not how multimedia is handled (GStreamer), but how it is used (their product).
Whether hobbyist or business, I believe what has made GStreamer thrive is the underlying principles of free software, and especially the LGPL. The code we wrote (and the time we spend on documentation, chat, reviewing issues/mr) is given to you for free with a lot of liberties … but if you improve on this code and ship a product using it, you have to give back to the community the improvements you made. I don’t think I would have ever come this far, or even persevered participating in GStreamer if there wasn’t this principle of “I’m giving people this code/time because I know I will get back something in return (feedback, improvements, more ideas, …)”. i.e. We are a community and not a “dump that code out there, use it as you want” loose collection of people. That fundamental social perspective is what made GStreamer work, maybe even more than the technical aspect.
So, how about the money, we live in the real world, right ? Throughout the years, a lot of companies have trusted this model and contributed back to GStreamer and quite a few have even become active members of this community. They have helped bring their knowledge, feedback, expertise into the collective pool. Whether directly (because they had the expertise in-house) or via the various consulting companies you see contribute to GStreamer.
Does everybody who use GStreamer contribute back ? No, absolutely not. But I believe those who did got a lot more in return. And it’s always a blast to see more and more people (hobbyist or professionals) use GStreamer and share their feedback.
Here’s to another 25 years of GStreamer