Microsoft Speeds Up Mesa VA-API Video Acceleration For FFmpeg

[sinepgib]

I don't understand what MS is getting out of this. It's a nice patch but I can't help but wonder why they're doing it.

Maybe they intend to support video playback in WSL2 and they want their users to have an acceptable experience.

It puts you naive M$ believers in 'we're stupid camp'. This is nothing in comparison to MS benefits from Open Source.

Which is true of pretty much all major players in open source, and yet not all receive the same amount of hate.

[intelfx]

I don't understand what MS is getting out of this. It's a nice patch but I can't help but wonder why they're doing it.

Because it benefits their WSL-g support (graphics inside WSL) which they've been steadily working towards for more than a year now?

[Volta]

Which is true of pretty much all major players in open source, and yet not all receive the same amount of hate.

What a surprise. Get the facts (TM).

[birdie]

Evil corporation, evil improvements. Do not touch!

[Danny3]

If it's that good, I hope somebody will extend it to work on Intel and AMD drivers too.

[Vistaus]

Michael please remove this article, it puts us, Microsoft haters, in an awkward position.

Who is "us"? I'm not a hater.

[Volta]

Evil corporation, evil improvements. Do not touch!

Don't even touch it with a stick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft

Critics have alleged that Microsoft has used funding to drum up support from think tanks and trade organizations such as the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI), the Independent Institute, and Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL). During the antitrust case United States v. Microsoft, ATL sent a poll to 19 state attorneys general purporting to show that "the public believes state AGs should devote their energy to causes other than Microsoft".^[78] Also during the case the Independent Institute ran full-page advertisements in The New York Times and The Washington Post defending Microsoft, which was later revealed to have funded the ad campaign.^[79] The institute published Winners, Losers, and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology shortly thereafter.^[80]

In June 2002, the AdTI published a report, quickly pulled under the argument that it was a draft version, which contained criticism of the copyleft model and the GNU General Public License. A May 2002 press release for the report stated that it would contain arguments suggesting that governments could be threatened by hackers and terrorists (who could study potential vulnerabilities due to source availability) if it used open source software. However, the draft contained no references to these topics. Open Source Initiative (OSI) founder Bruce Perens felt that the report had "Microsoft's paws all over [it]".^[81][82] Microsoft argued that its funding was for AdTI's operations as a whole, and not relevant to any specific research by the organization.^[81]

"Champagne", a 2002 British television advert for the Xbox, received 136 complaints from viewers to the Independent Television Commission (ITC) over its content. The advert featured a newborn baby being launched out of its mother—aging as it flies through the air, and crashing into a gravestone. It contained the tagline "Life is short, play more." The advert was banned from television by the ITC, who considered it to be "offensive, shocking and in bad taste", noting complaints citing the advert's themes of death and the "traumatic experience" the person was facing in the ad.^[83][84]

In August 2004, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ordered Microsoft to pull ads in Britain that claimed that the total cost of ownership of Linux servers was ten times that of Windows Server 2003. The comparison included the cost of hardware, and put Linux at a disadvantage by installing it on more expensive but poorer-performing hardware compared to that used for Windows.^[85][86]

On January 22, 2007, Rick Jelliffe made a claim on his blog^[87] that a Microsoft employee offered to pay him to make corrections in English Wikipedia articles concerning Office Open XML. Microsoft spokesperson Catherine Brooker expressed the belief that the article had been "heavily written" by IBM employees who supported the rival OpenDocument format, though she provided no specific evidence. Internet entrepreneur and Wikimedia Foundation founder Jimmy Wales described Microsoft's offer as unethical.^[88]

In 2009, it was found that a photo on the Polish version of Microsoft's business productivity website—which depicted three people of various races during an office meeting—had been edited to replace the head of an African-American man with that of a Caucasian, whilst also failing to edit the person's hand to match the different skin color. Microsoft apologized and quickly removed the image.^[89][90]

In 2011, Moneylife.in alleged that two "anonymous comments boosting their product"—one by a Nokia employee and another by a Microsoft employee—were posted on their review of Nokia Lumia 800, which was based only on the "technical specifications" and the reviewer "hadn't laid a finger on the phone".^[91] In conclusion, Charles Arthur argued "Nobody has come out of the episode looking good. Sapkale was accused of breaking his own site's privacy policy by posting the IP and email addresses of the commenters, while the commenting duo's failure to declare any interest looked, at best, like astroturfing."^[91]

In 2014 details on a partnership between Machinima.com and Microsoft came to light regarding a marketing campaign for Xbox One. Machinima would offer some of its users $3 per thousand views if the user showed 30 seconds of an Xbox One game and mentioned the system by name.^[92] Controversy arose when it was reported that, under the terms of the promotion, participants were not allowed to disclose that they were being paid for said endorsements, which Ars Technica said conflicted with FTC regulations requiring recipients to fully disclose when such actions occur.^[92] Machinima stated that the confidentiality clause only applied to the terms of the agreement, and not to the existence of the agreement, and Microsoft ended the promotion and directed Machinima to add disclosures to the videos involved.^[92] In September 2015, Machinima settled with the FTC over charges that the ad campaign failed to comply with FTC endorsement guidelines; the FTC decided not to take action against Microsoft since it already has "policies and procedures designed to prevent such lapses".^[93]

Privacy issues

Collaboration with the NSA on internet surveillance


See also: _NSAKEY


Microsoft was the first company to participate in the PRISM surveillance program, according to leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian^[107] and The Washington Post^[108] in June 2013, and acknowledged by government officials following the leak.^[109] The program authorizes the government to secretly access data of non-US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant. Microsoft has denied^[110] participation in such a program.

In July 2013, The Guardian elaborated that leaked documents show that:

• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to intercept web chats on Outlook.com and gave it unencrypted access to Outlook.com and Hotmail email.
• Microsoft provided the NSA with access to users' data on its cloud storage service OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive).
• After Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA tripled the number of Skype video calls being collected through PRISM.^[111]

In a statement, Microsoft said that they "provide customer data only in response to legal processes."^[111] Telemetry and data collection


Windows 10 was criticized on-launch for having default settings that send various information regarding user behaviors to Microsoft and its "trusted partners", such as data regarding user contacts and calendar events, location data and history, "telemetry" (diagnostics data);^[112] this could not be fully disabled on non-enterprise versions of Windows 10), an "advertising ID", as well as further data when the Cortana assistant is enabled in full.^{[113][114][115]}

Microsoft faced criticism from France's data protection commission and the European Union for its practices in regards to Windows 10. On subsequent iterations of the OS, Microsoft has clarified its data collection policies, and made its out-of-box experience provide clearer information on Windows privacy settings, and the effects they have on the overall user experience.^{[116][117][118][119]} Microsoft also simplified its "telemetry" options to only consist of "Basic" and "Full" modes, and reduced the amount of system information collected in "Basic" mode.^[120]

In November 2018, the Dutch government issued a report stating that telemetry implementations in Office 365 violated the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).^[121] In July 2019 the company tasked with investigating the privacy risks reported that Microsoft had adequately addressed these issues in Office 365 ProPlus, while the other concerns still remained.^[122]

Just the tip of the iceberg.

[Dukenukemx]

I wouldn't complain that Microsoft is helping because we could use it. Sure it's for their own benefits as well but at least they donated code.

@qarium where Apple with their help on Linux?

[kozman]

I don't understand what MS is getting out of this. It's a nice patch but I can't help but wonder why they're doing it.

I wonder this too. They aren't exactly benevolent. I guess time will tell? Still, nice win for Mesa. 22.3 is shaping up to be a killer release with tons of perf wins.

[kozman]

Don't even touch it with a stick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft

Just the tip of the iceberg.

<grabs popcorn>