Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi James

On Fri, Jan 17, 2025 at 03:48:15PM -0300, James Almer wrote:
> On 1/17/2025 2:39 PM, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 14, 2025 at 03:40:42PM -0300, James Almer wrote:
> > > On 1/14/2025 2:06 PM, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
[...]
> 
> > and from that a community committee is elected yearly of 5 judges which behind
> > closed doors and no record and no allowed defense, no trial, decides whatever
> > it likes about whoever it liks. Also just this year the CC decided that its
> > power will be expanded beyond interpersonal conflicts to control all finance
> > of everyone.
> 
> This is not true, so why even say it?

It is true that there where plans to expand the power of the CC. I could quote a
private mail from a member of the CC if i find it again.


> If you're talking about SPI/STF, the
> CC didn't intervene on any request or project approval. You are working in
> one said project, as is Niklas.

The mere possibility that the CC could "intervene" about anything has a very
chilling effect. Few people will touch finances in such an environment.
Bascially this will make use of money in the future more difficult.
In the past we just all tried to do the right thing for the project
but if theres a possibility the CC could declare anything "wrong" many
people will think twice if its worth it.

I think we need to clearly declare that the CC follows the principle of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-retroactivity

and that its powers are limited to what is explicitly agreed
by the community and i would think this would require some consensus
not a 50%+1 if its expended


> 
> > 
> > really ? thats a democracy ?
> 
> Yes, it's a democracy. People participate in it, vote, and a majority wins.
> The problem is in the structure we came up with it, as you put it below.
> 
> > you want that ? (i mean if you are not "inside" as in if whatever party you
> > like less, is in charge of this)
> > 
> > 
> > > 
> > > You're being incredibly dismissive of the people who are keeping the project
> > > alive by giving them labels like the above.
> > 
> > no, not the people. The people are FFmpeg, teh project would be nothing
> > without the people.
> > 
> > Iam dismissive about the political structure we created.
> 
> You're displeased with the toothless CC that was replaced last month, and
> not with the overall structure itself. And I'm in part at fault for it not
> acting when it should have. I have said it before.
> The new CC hasn't yet put to test, so at the very least lets do that.
> 

> Now, if all fails, you and anyone else can suggest a new structure. It could
> to be disband the CC and replace it with something else. It could be to
> clearly define that ML temporary bans and thread moderation can be handed by
> ML admins (With a modicum of common sense to choose when to act) while the
> CC deliberates on any relevant report. It could be to increase the amount of
> people in the committee. It could be anything we can agree on, and the way
> we agree on it is with a majority vote.

I do think the CC is a problematic entity in a community where there are
complex friendships and hatred. And then the members of this CC come from this
small group and mainly judge members of this same group


> 
> Similarly, you can suggest to increase, or decrease, the bar to enter the
> GA. I'd expect you asking for the latter, because i recall that you some
> time ago mentioned how said bar was in fact too low. But then even less
> people would make it in, which doesn't seem like something you'd like seeing
> how you insist the 2000+ ML subscriptors, even if they only lurk and never
> even talk, should be considered.

I do see the threshold based system as fragile, I dont think changing
the threshold fixes this. On one side its slighty more people and even
easier to get vote power on the other its harder to get vote power per
person but fewer people. This would result in a even smaller group.
Neither really sounds great to me


> 
> Also, it can also be made that certain votes require a special majority and
> not a simple 50% + 1. Anything, and everything, can be changed.


> The only
> thing that should remain a constant is to keep the project a community
> managed one.

keep community managed, yes

thx

[...]

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

There will always be a question for which you do not know the correct answer.

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

The mere possibility that the CC could "intervene" about anything has a very
> chilling effect. Few people will touch finances in such an environment.
> Bascially this will make use of money in the future more difficult.
> In the past we just all tried to do the right thing for the project
> but if theres a possibility the CC could declare anything "wrong" many
> people will think twice if its worth it.
>

So the current situation where "Michael does what he wants without
consequence" as with libpostproc is better? Representing the project to get
STF money for work the community does not want because it's already been
done?

It's funny how all roads appear to end up going to "Michael does what he
wants".

Kieran

>
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Michael Niedermayer
> Sent: Thursday, January 2, 2025 3:18 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> Hi all
> 
> I was working in the last few days a little on drafting a
> democratization process

Hi,

After two years of absence I've just come back and read through just few conversations to realize how much I haven't missed this.

Reading those ideas about "democratization" makes we wonder how it can happen that fundamentally intelligent people can fall for the illusion that this could even have a chance to work in a reasonable way. It's sufficient to read through the conversations about it to realize that it cannot work out.

Nothing against democracy, but in this case it is aiming to extend and intensify something that is already the biggest problem in this project and the most toxic barrier for others to join and contribute:

The fact that everybody thinks they must have a say in everything. This is what's causing endless discussions and makes this project to appear hostile, non-welcoming in unpleasant for any developer to contribute to the project.
In case of contributions, nobody is able to provide guidance in a constructive manner, all reviews are solely focused on objections and nitpickings with the only silent agreement being not to contradict objections by others. This is destructive and non-productive. During the past two years, I have talked to several developers about contributions to ffmpeg, who said all something similar to this: "Yes, I've tried once or twice, but it seems almost impossible to get anything reviewed and merged, so I've just given up on it. What? You got commits merged? How the hell did you manage to do that?"

This project doesn't need more people talking into everything, it doesn't need more discussions, community involvement and voting about every single nit.

What this project needs instead is LEADERSHIP!

There need to be positions who are in charge and responsible for certain areas (codecs, formats, filters, tools or whichever separation might be reasonable) which are above individual maintainers and can overrule them.

And then there needs to be one person who is in charge and has the last say in everything - not silently, but executing this where necessary for bringing the project forward.

The people for those positions can be elected in a democratic process - like every 2 or 4 years, but that's all that is needed on the side of democracy.
During all the time in-between there's no need and no place for any such discussion anymore and the project can move forward without continuing to focus on its self-destruction.


This is obviously not a very innovative model. But it's one that is proven to work in zillions of cases.

Sw

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

IMHO (as myself and not representing the CC).

The project already has technical leaders.
The project already has great talent.
The project has some semblance of democratic processes.

The project is hard to work with or seemingly "hostile, non-welcoming"
because we are using ancient workflows that aren't conducive to new innovation,
or iterative development.

Sure, there are grievances between people as there will be in any team.
But what I feel is that these grievances get exacerbated, or
productivity is lost,
because it is 2025 and we have outgrown the tooling in use.

That does not mean there can't be bridges to the ML pattern or integrations
to give people the experience they like.

But I think people would feel a lot less stressed and more productive
if our tooling is modernized.

Just my 2 cents.
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

All this time people send back and forth emails attacking each other or the
project could have spent toward investing in modern DevOps infrastructure
or discussing other advancements.

It’s energy-draining to both read and write.

It makes me wonder do folks actually get enjoyment out of the drama?
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Marth64

> The project is hard to work with or seemingly "hostile, non-
> welcoming"
> because we are using ancient workflows that aren't conducive to new
> innovation,
> or iterative development.

The workflow and tooling is archaic, yet it's just an entry barrier, but it's not what causes the "hostile, non-welcoming" appearance.

> The project already has technical leaders.

Not in a way that they are able to properly execute real leadership. 

As a contributor, I'm expecting my contributions to:

- Not be ignored
- Receive one of these three responses:
  1. OK (and get merged in a timely manner)
  2. No (for whichever reason)
  3. Ok but needs changes

Case 3 is the crucial one and should include

- An indication that the aim and direction of the contribution is
  generally acceptable

- Guidance on which changes should be made to become accepted,
  most importantly not only pointing at what is wrong but how 
  it should be done instead to become acceptable

This is what leadership means in a software project and anybody who isn't able to provide this kind of guidance cannot fulfill the role of a technical leader. 

There are always many ways to do certain things in software development, and it cannot be expected from contributors to provide countless different implementations until nobody will object anymore. This is software development, not a quiz show.

Objections on details which are lacking suggestion for how to change it, should be considered invalid in general. If somebody wants to have a say in something, this cannot just mean the right to voice an objection, it also has to include the responsibility and obligation to advise in a constructive way.

And that's the ill aspect of what those "democratization" ideas are going for: Most people appear to be longing for having rights - but without taking responsibility, and the primary understanding of those rights is the ability of objecting to any decision.
All this would just further grow the awful culture of nay-saying.

This is just the opposite of what the project needs. It needs few people who are in charge, who take responsibility and who are saying yes to everything that brings the project forward.

sw 


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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Marth64 (12025-01-20):
> The project already has technical leaders.

No, we do not. The leader we had, who was doing an excellent job, was
bullied into resigning. Unfortunately, his major flaw as a leader is to
be too agreeable to realize the proper way to deal with these bullies
when is to kick them out, not try to please them.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Gyan Doshi]

On 2025-01-20 11:14 pm, Soft Works wrote:
> - An indication that the aim and direction of the contribution is
>    generally acceptable

This the crux of the matter. There appear to be two camps at odds with 
one another:

1) a conservative camp which wants to avoid features or changes which 
don't neatly fit within a conventional pure architecture with clear 
separation of roles and duties, or features which are of use only to 
some users

and,

2) a broadband camp which accepts features which are niche or which 
require some hybrid accommodation in its implementation.

For most of ffmpeg history, the latter has been the dominant camp. But 
not in recent history.
Tweaking the structures or procedures of governance can't ultimately 
bridge this chasm. It's almost like these camps should be part of 
different projects.

Regards,
Gyan
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi,

Re: Softworks,
> As a contributor, I'm expecting my contributions to:
> - Not be ignored
> - Receive one of these three responses:
>  1. OK (and get merged in a timely manner)
>  2. No (for whichever reason)
>  3. Ok but needs changes

The contribution is more likely to be ignored or responded to with a heavy
tone.

And I still blame our infrastructure.
The process is annoying, so people’s time is wasted, then they get annoyed,
then the mood isn’t great.

Who wants to spend the time to decipher say, 30 commits as individual
emails or learn custom software to do this, just to review PRs? And then
try to respond line by line in dull monospace emails.

This is all time wasted. By the time it’s over I’d have spent 50% of the
time trying to parse the different pieces of the patch and then with the
remaining time actually reading, reviewing, and testing patch. And if it
were my patch, and someone told me to fix some issues, I have to go through
the whole rebasing and patch production process again. Even if it takes 15
minutes per patch, it’s such a waste of time. It adds up.

Now imagine a scenario where there is a modern workflow, possibly with even
bots that can point out nit issues, or with discussion features where one
can point comfortably to a syntax highlighted line. Or one where you ask me
to fix something and it’s not a big deal, I just push a new commit to my
pull request and everything gets updated and can get squashed. The preview
and review process is then much faster.

So of course patches get ignored. Because there’s a lot of process overhead
that’s unnecessary. Then of course people lose patience, because the
overhead is a waste of time.
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi, Nicolas George:

> No, we do not.

I disagree.

There are people who have specialty areas.
They are the de facto leaders of their domains.
If you gave me constructive feedback on a patch in your domain, I’d look at
you as a technical thought leader in the space.

There is also a Technical Committee.
People can say what they want about the TC, but it’s there. We spent time
voting for them. They spend significant time in this project.

Why can’t they be considered technical leaders?
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Marth64
> Sent: Monday, January 20, 2025 7:19 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> And I still blame our infrastructure.
> The process is annoying, so people’s time is wasted, then they get
> annoyed,
> then the mood isn’t great.
> 
> Who wants to spend the time to decipher say, 30 commits as individual
> emails or learn custom software to do this, just to review PRs? And
> then
> try to respond line by line in dull monospace emails.
> 
> This is all time wasted. By the time it’s over I’d have spent 50% of
> the
> time trying to parse the different pieces of the patch and then with
> the
> remaining time actually reading, reviewing, and testing patch. And if
> it
> were my patch, and someone told me to fix some issues, I have to go
> through
> the whole rebasing and patch production process again. Even if it
> takes 15
> minutes per patch, it’s such a waste of time. It adds up.

I've said all of the same things 3 years ago, so I'm the very last person needing to be convinced 😊

I created a stop-gap solution which allow submission via GitHub PRs,
it's back up working again now: https://github.com/ffstaging/FFmpeg

Instructions: https://github.com/ffstaging/FFmpeg/wiki

Discussion: https://www.mail-archive.com/ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org/msg123029.html
https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2021-December/290237.html

sw 

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Marth64 (12025-01-20):
> There are people who have specialty areas.
> They are the de facto leaders of their domains.

They are *potential* leaders. To be actual leaders, they would need to
act as such, and the members of the project would need to respect them
as much.

> There is also a Technical Committee.

Leadership is about policy more than it is about technical matters. The
CS was voted upon based on the latter.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Marth64 (12025-01-20):
> Who wants to spend the time to decipher say, 30 commits as individual
> emails or learn custom software to do this, just to review PRs?

What custom software? The point is precisely that anybody is free to use
the software of their choosing.

>								  And then
> try to respond line by line in dull monospace emails.

Well, code is indented, reading it in non-monospace font is a recipe for
catastrophe.

> This is all time wasted.

Setting up tools to interact properly with Git and mailing-list is time
*invested*. It is only wasted for somebody who intends to work on the
project until the next job opportunity and then leave. For somebody who
intends to stick around, the time invested is profitable in the extra
efficiency it brings.

And I need to emphasize here that our process should favor long-term
contributors over drive-by contributors.

Furthermore, the time we are speaking of right now is negligible in
comparison of the time needed to achieve the kind of familiarity with
the code necessary to review patches with any kind of relevance.

> Now imagine a scenario where there is a modern workflow

I have still to be shown a “modern” workflow where “modern” is not
synonym mostly with clicking randomly on things in a web browser.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Nicolas George
> Sent: Monday, January 20, 2025 9:50 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> Marth64 (12025-01-20):
> > There are people who have specialty areas.
> > They are the de facto leaders of their domains.
> 
> They are *potential* leaders. To be actual leaders, they would need
> to
> act as such, and the members of the project would need to respect
> them
> as much.

+1 

> > There is also a Technical Committee.
> 
> Leadership is about policy more than it is about technical matters.

+1

The lacking ability to express agreement or disagreement without sending a message is also a substantial shortcoming of the Mailing List approach.

sw 
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Gyan Doshi (12025-01-20):
> This the crux of the matter. There appear to be two camps at odds with one
> another:
> 
> 1) a conservative camp which wants to avoid features or changes which don't
> neatly fit within a conventional pure architecture with clear separation of
> roles and duties, or features which are of use only to some users
> 
> and,
> 
> 2) a broadband camp which accepts features which are niche or which require
> some hybrid accommodation in its implementation.

This is a good point, and I agree with your analysis.

> For most of ffmpeg history, the latter has been the dominant camp. But not
> in recent history.

Let us add that the camp that wants more stability than originality
already tried to become the dominant camp in the last years of the 2000s
decade, with the same strategy of bullying Michael. They eventually had
to split into their own project, but it died.

> Tweaking the structures or procedures of governance can't ultimately bridge
> this chasm. It's almost like these camps should be part of different
> projects.

I agree with that too. Or at least different and separate branches of
the same project.

But an important point: the stable-without-originality branch needs to
be downstream of the creative branch.

It is the same as Debian: you do not make Debian unstable by adding
features to Debian stable, you make Debian stable by freezing and
polishing Debian unstable.

The libav fork failed in part because it tried to be the upstream (and
pretend it was alone). I would say it amounts to about half the reason
it failed, the other half being the personality of its de-facto leaders.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi Nicolas,

Re: Tooling

I am suggesting that there can be a middle ground somewhere.
I am not fond of modern heavy web GUIs myself and fully understand
that more senior developers have advanced needs.

The custom tooling I am referring to is Patchwork.
A neat tool, but is this not also a web GUI?

The frustrations I have are somewhat centered around technical
iterations/patches being email driven.

GUIs have merit too and there can be value added even if it mostly
benefits some senior developers
but a lot of mid-term or short-term developers too. And if not the
GUI, CI/CD automations or linters that
can be leveraged to help. Everyone can make mistakes.

---

Re: Leaders

> They are *potential* leaders. To be actual leaders, they would need to
> act as such, and the members of the project would need to respect them
> as much.

This is a fair point. But there are areas where knowledge is sparse
and this is a big project.
In these cases the best we have is subject matter experts, but if we
can't attract talent then I'm not sure what else we can get.

Thank you
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi Nicolas (+),

> Let us add that the camp that wants more stability than originality
> already tried to become the dominant camp in the last years of the 2000s
> decade, with the same strategy of bullying Michael.

Just to reaffirm,
I have no such intention and am not in this camp.
Folks have been welcoming to me including Michael.
I have no ill feelings toward anyone.

However, I have started to care about FFmpeg even as a user.
I just think the ML process is too tedious, and I don't think I am alone.
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi

On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 10:38:17AM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
> All this time people send back and forth emails attacking each other or the
> project could have spent toward investing in modern DevOps infrastructure
> or discussing other advancements.
> 
> It’s energy-draining to both read and write.
> 

> It makes me wonder do folks actually get enjoyment out of the drama?

not me

but what can i do? People keep attacking me

Lets just pick one example from today: (I at no point where anyway involved in this IRC debate)

"<RadicalLeader> ffmpeg-security is reserved for only leader and close friends"

For reference heres when ffmpeg-security membership is described:
https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2017-February/206827.html

IIRC you are a member of the CC, can you/the CC look into the IRC quote from
"RadicalLeader" aka Paul
I think this violates our CoC and i dont think this tone is good
for FFmpeg, the FFmpeg team or how FFmpeg is percieved

Also given that paul forked and changed the license so his code cannot be
reused in LGPL FFmpeg, Iam not sure if its ok for him to try to spread
more hate in ffmpeg.

thx

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Some people wanted to paint the bikeshed green, some blue and some pink.
People argued and fought, when they finally agreed, only rust was left.

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi Gyan

On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 11:44:41PM +0530, Gyan Doshi wrote:
> 
> 
> On 2025-01-20 11:14 pm, Soft Works wrote:
> > - An indication that the aim and direction of the contribution is
> >    generally acceptable
> 
> This the crux of the matter. There appear to be two camps at odds with one
> another:
> 
> 1) a conservative camp which wants to avoid features or changes which don't
> neatly fit within a conventional pure architecture with clear separation of
> roles and duties, or features which are of use only to some users
> 
> and,
> 
> 2) a broadband camp which accepts features which are niche or which require
> some hybrid accommodation in its implementation.
> 
> For most of ffmpeg history, the latter has been the dominant camp. But not
> in recent history.
> Tweaking the structures or procedures of governance can't ultimately bridge
> this chasm. It's almost like these camps should be part of different
> projects.

We need plugins
please lobby for a plugin architecture

thx

[...]

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

z(9) = an object that transcends all computable functions describable
in finite terms. - ChatGPT in 2024

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi

On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 09:00:57PM +0000, Soft Works wrote:
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > Nicolas George
> > Sent: Monday, January 20, 2025 9:50 PM
> > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> > 
> > Marth64 (12025-01-20):
> > > There are people who have specialty areas.
> > > They are the de facto leaders of their domains.
> > 
> > They are *potential* leaders. To be actual leaders, they would need
> > to
> > act as such, and the members of the project would need to respect
> > them
> > as much.
> 
> +1 

You have worded this well

Id like to add that this matches my understanding of what maintainers should
be. (actual "leaders" in their areas)

As side effect this would make things more scaleable too.

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happen to say it
by chance, they would not even known they had done so. -- Xenophanes

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi Michael,

> I do think the CC is a problematic entity in a community where there are
> complex friendships and hatred. And then the members of this CC come from this
> small group and mainly judge members of this same group

I am not from this group. I volunteered for the role to help the culture
of the community which is somewhat troubled. This is how I want to
make a difference.
I am not participating in any financial element in the role.

> IIRC you are a member of the CC, can you/the CC look into the IRC quote from
> "RadicalLeader" aka Paul

I will process how to respond and then reach out offline.

Thank you
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Michael Niedermayer
> Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2025 1:41 AM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> Hi Gyan
> 
> On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 11:44:41PM +0530, Gyan Doshi wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 2025-01-20 11:14 pm, Soft Works wrote:
> > > - An indication that the aim and direction of the contribution is
> > >    generally acceptable
> >
> > This the crux of the matter. There appear to be two camps at odds
> with one
> > another:
> >
> > 1) a conservative camp which wants to avoid features or changes
> which don't
> > neatly fit within a conventional pure architecture with clear
> separation of
> > roles and duties, or features which are of use only to some users
> >
> > and,
> >
> > 2) a broadband camp which accepts features which are niche or which
> require
> > some hybrid accommodation in its implementation.
> >
> > For most of ffmpeg history, the latter has been the dominant camp.
> But not
> > in recent history.
> > Tweaking the structures or procedures of governance can't
> ultimately bridge
> > this chasm. It's almost like these camps should be part of
> different
> > projects.

Well, as long as ffmpeg remains to be camp (2)... ;-)

George's suggestion sounds much better to me, if that would give everybody what they want, keeping both camps under a single hood.

> We need plugins
> please lobby for a plugin architecture

I'd love to see an extensibility model, I have one or two things for which there's clearly no place in the ffmpeg codebase.
But this can't be a remedy for those problems above:

- Plugins cannot change the behavior of existing components
- Many changes/additions cannot be applied via an extensibility model
- Eventually it would create even more room for rejecting contributions
  by saying it should be done as a plugin
- Nothing is won for anybody when you end up having dozens of plugins which you need to compile for another dozen of platforms

A plugin model should serve as a way for serving very specific individual use cases, but not as a means for rejecting contributions which provide common value for many users.

Anyway we already have a kind of plugin model - at compile time at least
./configure allows fine grained control of what to include and what not, that I wonder whether this couldn't be leveraged for controversial cases - to achieve some middle ground between both "camps"?

Like:

- Old or niche-audience codecs and formats could be declared "unsupported", moved to an 'unsupported' subfolder and excluded from the ./configure default
- New contributions where there is doubt about the size of audience or whether the contributor/maintainer will stay on track over time, could be added on a trial basis, declared as "experimental" and not be included in the default compile config for a certain amount of time.

(play the maintenance card? >> use modern tools for refactoring where it doesn't matter if it's 100 or 1000 codecs to make a change to) 

sw 


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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Michael Niedermayer (12025-01-21):
> You have worded this well

Thanks (assuming you are not saying it to the “+1”).

> Id like to add that this matches my understanding of what maintainers should
> be. (actual "leaders" in their areas)
> 
> As side effect this would make things more scaleable too.

Indeed. But I do not think FFmpeg is big enough to require this kind of
scalability yet.

On the other hand, an authority is still needed above the maintainers to
arbiter when they disagree with each other or when a change affects
multiple areas or not a specific one.

That authority cannot be democratic, unless we want FFmpeg to continue
to devolve into a corporate cash cow without a shred of creativity.

That authority should be you. You had it and you made an excellent job
of it. You just need to accept that it is not possible to please, and to
realize that the people who do not take it with grace are precisely the
people who have been bullying you, and have as such lost their moral
rights to be listened to. Focus on the people you enjoyed hacking
together with who respect your leadership.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Nicolas George
> Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2025 9:51 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> Michael Niedermayer (12025-01-21):
> > You have worded this well
> 
> Thanks (assuming you are not saying it to the “+1”).
> 
> > Id like to add that this matches my understanding of what
> maintainers should
> > be. (actual "leaders" in their areas)
> >
> > As side effect this would make things more scaleable too.
> 
> Indeed. But I do not think FFmpeg is big enough to require this kind
> of
> scalability yet.

When considering scalability in a sense that not everything should land on Michael's plate, then I do think it is required.

Yet the idea I was heading for something else that I hadn't detailed further. More specifically it would mean to 

- Dissolve the TC
- Install a number of "Positions" or "Roles" instead
- People can volunteer and apply or campaign for those positions
- And get elected by the community for a certain period (like 2 or 4 years)
- One person can apply and be elected for a single position only
- Roles could be technical or organizational
  - Technical Positions
    - are above maintainers and can overrule them
    - are overseeing maintainers
    - are responsible for making sure submissions get reviewed by maintainers,
      review submissions by themselves or both
    - are bound to a certain area (codecs, formats, filters, tools or similar)
  - Organizational Positions
    - for things like maintaining infrastructure, financial matters, 
      community management, etc.
- Finally, there needs to be one on top of the technical positions who
  has the last say. There can be only one captain on a boat and there
  are very good reasons why every boat has a captain. A boat where each
  decision would be subject to voting from the crew would never arrive at
  its destination. 

No need to bite into details. The primary point I want to make is that the installment of the TC (and GA and CC) just focuses on a single aspect: the delegation of rights to make decisions. And that's not a sane nor effective way to bring the project forward. If somebody wants to play a role in the project and have the right to make decisions, they also need to actively fulfill such a role, which comes not only with rights but also with responsibility and obligations - like in any other kind of organization in the world, no matter whether it's business, non-profit or community driven. 

> That authority should be you. You had it and you made an excellent
> job
> of it. You just need to accept that it is not possible to please, and
> to
> realize that the people who do not take it with grace 

My vote would go on Michael as well, but it cannot mean doing all the work alone and all decisions alone. It requires a stable and efficient organization and collaboration of a team of people, where it just happens rarely that overruling is needed.

Giving the GA an ability to appeal a decision would still be a reasonable element on top.

sw







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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Hello,

Le tiistaina 21. tammikuuta 2025, 2.36.47 UTC+2 Michael Niedermayer a écrit :
> Hi
> 
> On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 10:38:17AM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
> > All this time people send back and forth emails attacking each other or
> > the
> > project could have spent toward investing in modern DevOps infrastructure
> > or discussing other advancements.
> > 
> > It’s energy-draining to both read and write.
> > 
> > 
> > It makes me wonder do folks actually get enjoyment out of the drama?
> 
> not me
> 
> but what can i do?

For example, you actually could:

- Stop complaining about FFmpeg community members attending conferences and 
discussing FFmpeg (e.g. VDD 2024).
- Stop making inflammatory metaphores about community members (ditto).
- Stop attacking conference organisers and hosts for not accomodating you 
(e.g. Kwangwoon university faculty).
- Stop posting insulting AI-generated pictures about other OSS projects on 
social media (e.g. VideoLAN, on X).
- Stop making seemingly false claims about colleagues (e.g. Josh and Marvin),
- Stop removing FFmpeg committer access rights at your discretion (e.g. 
Vittorio's).
- Stop making utter lame excuses for the previous point (ditto, and causing 
James to figuratively lose it).
- Stop defending other admins censoring the mailing list outside of oversight 
and without even notifying other admins (e.g. Compn).
- Stop victimising yourself on the mailing list (e.g. this thread).
- Stop misconstruing people defending themselves, others or their different 
opinion as "attacks" against you.
- Stop criticising some of your business and/or business partners on the 
mailing list (i.e. FFlabs).
- Stop demeaning the GA members, or the active voters within it,

For the record, those are just suggestions for future reference, not personal 
attacks. Still every single one of those bullet point have (very predictably) 
attracted negative responses from a variety of people in the recent past.

> People keep attacking me

As far as I can tell, most actual attacks against you on this mailing list in 
recent times were in response to your own critics or complaints.

Possibly you are attacked elsewhere. But in that regard, this ML is most 
certainly not the right place to rant about it: instead of addressing your 
problem, it would most likely anger and demotivate people.

Br,

-- 
雷米‧德尼-库尔蒙
http://www.remlab.net/



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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le maanantaina 20. tammikuuta 2025, 20.14.41 UTC+2 Gyan Doshi a écrit :
> On 2025-01-20 11:14 pm, Soft Works wrote:
> > - An indication that the aim and direction of the contribution is
> > 
> >    generally acceptable
> 
> This the crux of the matter. There appear to be two camps at odds with
> one another:
> 
> 1) a conservative camp which wants to avoid features or changes which
> don't neatly fit within a conventional pure architecture with clear
> separation of roles and duties, or features which are of use only to
> some users
> 
> and,
> 
> 2) a broadband camp which accepts features which are niche or which
> require some hybrid accommodation in its implementation.

As far as I can tell, there are actually three camps.

Michael frequently insists on keeping everything and everyone together. He is 
also a partner at a business whose clients are ostensibly in what you call 
camp 1. And he proposes camp 2 features. So I can't pin him in either camps. 
(I don't mean to pick on Michael here; he just happens to be the most obvious 
person not to fit in your dichotomy.)

Maybe what you call two camps would be happy divorcees. But that would leave 
the third camp very sad. In fact, I personally believe that if FFlabs had not 
incorporated, or Michael had not been a part of that venture, then the two 
camps they would quite likely be separate as you surmise.

Then again, with ifs, one can remake the world.

-- 
雷米‧德尼-库尔蒙
http://www.remlab.net/



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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Rémi Denis-Courmont (12025-01-24):
> For the record, those are just suggestions for future reference, not personal 
> attacks.

Rule of thumb: messages that needs to clarify they are not personal
attacks are personal attacks.

-- 
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le 24 janvier 2025 23:02:05 GMT+02:00, Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> a écrit :
>Rémi Denis-Courmont (12025-01-24):
>> For the record, those are just suggestions for future reference, not personal 
>> attacks.
>
>Rule of thumb: messages that needs to clarify they are not personal
>attacks are personal attacks

That's a lie, a false accusation and a personal attack. Not that I'd expect any less from you.
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 8:37 PM Rémi Denis-Courmont <remi@remlab.net> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Le tiistaina 21. tammikuuta 2025, 2.36.47 UTC+2 Michael Niedermayer a
> écrit :
> > Hi
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 10:38:17AM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
> > > All this time people send back and forth emails attacking each other or
> > > the
> > > project could have spent toward investing in modern DevOps
> infrastructure
> > > or discussing other advancements.
> > >
> > > It’s energy-draining to both read and write.
> > >
> > >
> > > It makes me wonder do folks actually get enjoyment out of the drama?
> >
> > not me
> >
> > but what can i do?
>
> For example, you actually could:
>
> - Stop complaining about FFmpeg community members attending conferences
> and
> discussing FFmpeg (e.g. VDD 2024).
> - Stop making inflammatory metaphores about community members (ditto).
> - Stop attacking conference organisers and hosts for not accomodating you
> (e.g. Kwangwoon university faculty).
> - Stop posting insulting AI-generated pictures about other OSS projects on
> social media (e.g. VideoLAN, on X).
> - Stop making seemingly false claims about colleagues (e.g. Josh and
> Marvin),
> - Stop removing FFmpeg committer access rights at your discretion (e.g.
> Vittorio's).
> - Stop making utter lame excuses for the previous point (ditto, and
> causing
> James to figuratively lose it).
> - Stop defending other admins censoring the mailing list outside of
> oversight
> and without even notifying other admins (e.g. Compn).
> - Stop victimising yourself on the mailing list (e.g. this thread).
> - Stop misconstruing people defending themselves, others or their
> different
> opinion as "attacks" against you.
> - Stop criticising some of your business and/or business partners on the
> mailing list (i.e. FFlabs).
> - Stop demeaning the GA members, or the active voters within it,
>

👏👏👏👏👏👏
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2777 bytes --]

Hi Soft Works

On Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 06:52:27AM +0000, Soft Works wrote:
[...]
> > We need plugins
> > please lobby for a plugin architecture
> 
> I'd love to see an extensibility model, I have one or two things for which there's clearly no place in the ffmpeg codebase.
> But this can't be a remedy for those problems above:
> 

> - Plugins cannot change the behavior of existing components

existing components could have callbacks (like a log callback or
a call to motion estimation) but yes you are correct in general


> - Many changes/additions cannot be applied via an extensibility model
> - Eventually it would create even more room for rejecting contributions
>   by saying it should be done as a plugin
> - Nothing is won for anybody when you end up having dozens of plugins which you need to compile for another dozen of platforms
> 
> A plugin model should serve as a way for serving very specific individual use cases, but not as a means for rejecting contributions which provide common value for many users.
> 

> Anyway we already have a kind of plugin model - at compile time at least
> ./configure allows fine grained control of what to include and what not,

yes, we really just need to allow each to be taken from external repositories

its also then not "more" compiling

That would then maybe be the simplest solution to plugins


> that I wonder whether this couldn't be leveraged for controversial cases - to achieve some middle ground between both "camps"?

The problem is a social one not a technical one.
Of course you are correct and that would work on a technical level but i think not a social one

People dont reject code saying "iam ok because it can be disabled at compile time"
They try to block it with some "argument" and the need to go through this is what kills
these projects. A contributor cannot say "i dont care what your oppinon is, ill apply this
ill maintain this, you wont maintain this, you wont use this, let me just work on my code."

If one simplfifies this down to the absolute minimum, whats needed is that the
contributor/maintainer has write access and others do not. Then the problem is solved.
I dont see how anything less than this solves it

Maybe we could just have 2 repositories but the conservative/restrictive one
would always die.
We could try this though if people want.
Just to make it clear i will make releases from the repository with all features
and thats the repository i will maintain security fixes for.

thx

[...]

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Complexity theory is the science of finding the exact solution to an
approximation. Benchmarking OTOH is finding an approximation of the exact

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3950 bytes --]

Hi CC

please see my complaints inline below

On Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 09:36:50PM +0200, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Le tiistaina 21. tammikuuta 2025, 2.36.47 UTC+2 Michael Niedermayer a écrit :
> > Hi
> > 
> > On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 10:38:17AM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
> > > All this time people send back and forth emails attacking each other or
> > > the
> > > project could have spent toward investing in modern DevOps infrastructure
> > > or discussing other advancements.
> > > 
> > > It’s energy-draining to both read and write.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > It makes me wonder do folks actually get enjoyment out of the drama?
> > 
> > not me
> > 
> > but what can i do?
> 
> For example, you actually could:
> 
> - Stop complaining about FFmpeg community members attending conferences and 
> discussing FFmpeg (e.g. VDD 2024).

I have not complained about "FFmpeg community members attending conferences and
discussing FFmpeg". Your statement suggests i did that, which i think is not ok


> - Stop making inflammatory metaphores about community members (ditto).

Can you provide links to your implied accusation ?


> - Stop attacking conference organisers and hosts for not accomodating you 
> (e.g. Kwangwoon university faculty).

I have not attacked "Kwangwoon university faculty", this is a strange way
to deflect blame for VDD2024. In a room with several dozend
microphones noone recorded the meeting, its not the fault of the room or
who provided the room.
Also it is not an attack (you can also see that i very intentionally do
not name anyone personally). FFmpeg is a free software project. We have a
open community and are welcoming to new members, meetings should be
open to everyone local and remote and should be recorded so everyone can
listen to them even when they are unable at the exact moment the meeting
happens


> - Stop posting insulting AI-generated pictures about other OSS projects on 
> social media (e.g. VideoLAN, on X).

I have not done that.
I had posted one joke on my personal twitter that i deleted a few hours later
as people seem to have misunderstood it.

Its interresting how a joke on my personal twitter that maybe less than 5 people
saw before it was deleted is used here.
(not to mention it is a copyright violation to spread my art/joke in a way it
 was not intended. It was intended to make people smile and have a laugh. And
 maybe think about issues but not to hurt people)

> - Stop making seemingly false claims about colleagues (e.g. Josh and Marvin),

Can you provide links to your implied accusation ?


[...]

> - Stop making utter lame excuses for the previous point (ditto, and causing 
> James to figuratively lose it).

That sounds like an insult to me


> - Stop defending ...

not sure i did but really, defending someone is reason i get attacked?


> - Stop victimising yourself on the mailing list (e.g. this thread).

That sounds like an insult to me


> - Stop misconstruing people defending themselves, others or their different 
> opinion as "attacks" against you.

That sounds like an insult to me


> - Stop criticising some of your business and/or business partners on the 
> mailing list (i.e. FFlabs).

seriously, really, criticising buisness partners is the problem ?


> - Stop demeaning the GA members, or the active voters within it,

I dont think i have done that
I complain about the structure not the people within.


[...]

> As far as I can tell, most actual attacks against you on this mailing list in
> recent times were in response to your own critics or complaints.

Looking just at the mail you wrote here. Did i cause you to write it ?

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your
right to say it. -- Voltaire

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le lauantaina 25. tammikuuta 2025, 22.26.44 UTC+2 Michael Niedermayer a écrit 
:
> On Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 09:36:50PM +0200, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> I have not complained about "FFmpeg community members attending conferences
> and discussing FFmpeg". Your statement suggests i did that, which i think
> is not ok

You did and this was indeed pointed out by Anton under the previous CC.

Your implication that I am lying is what is not OK here.

> > - Stop making inflammatory metaphores about community members (ditto).
> 
> Can you provide links to your implied accusation ?

It's on the mailing list archive (e.g. the mail quoting a certain Lebanese 
terrorist organisation).

> > - Stop attacking conference organisers and hosts for not accomodating you
> > (e.g. Kwangwoon university faculty).
> 
> I have not attacked "Kwangwoon university faculty", this is a strange way
> to deflect blame for VDD2024.

So you did attack the VDD conference organisers, and through them, the hosts, 
which is exactly what the quote says.

> > - Stop posting insulting AI-generated pictures about other OSS projects on
> > social media (e.g. VideoLAN, on X).
> 
> I have not done that.

There is both recorded evidence of it and earlier admission from you, which 
makes that sentence a lie.

> > - Stop making seemingly false claims about colleagues (e.g. Josh and
> > Marvin),
> Can you provide links to your implied accusation ?

It's in the mailing archive.

> > - Stop making utter lame excuses for the previous point (ditto, and
> > causing
> > James to figuratively lose it).
> 
> That sounds like an insult to me

Since there is no insult, that sounds like defamatory accusations from you 
against me.

> > - Stop defending ...
> 
> not sure i did but really, defending someone is reason i get attacked?

Defending the indefensible and/or supporting bullies is likely to get yourself 
counter-attacked, unsurprisingly.

Also, I see what you did there - cutting out the reference from the original 
mail to obscure the evidence.

> > - Stop victimising yourself on the mailing list (e.g. this thread).
> 
> That sounds like an insult to me

That sounds like a defamatory libellous false accusation to me.

> > - Stop misconstruing people defending themselves, others or their
> > different
> > opinion as "attacks" against you.
> 
> That sounds like an insult to me

That sounds like a defamatory libellous false accusation to me.

> > - Stop criticising some of your business and/or business partners on the
> > mailing list (i.e. FFlabs).
> 
> seriously, really, criticising buisness partners is the problem ?

I already warned that it was illegal under French business law, did I not? 
Does that not make it a problem?

> > - Stop demeaning the GA members, or the active voters within it,
> 
> I dont think i have done that

And yet other people already rightfully called you out for it.

This is gaslighting.

> I complain about the structure not the people within.

> [...]
> 
> > As far as I can tell, most actual attacks against you on this mailing list
> > in recent times were in response to your own critics or complaints.
> 
> Looking just at the mail you wrote here. Did i cause you to write it ?

It should be obvious.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
Tapio's place new town, former Finnish Republic of Uusimaa



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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le lauantaina 25. tammikuuta 2025, 22.26.44 UTC+2 Michael Niedermayer a écrit 
:
> I had posted one joke on my personal twitter that i deleted a few hours
> later as people seem to have misunderstood it.

It is completely irrelevant whether you intended it as a joke or not. How 
would you react if somebody made a joke that you, or a group of people 
including you, were vultures or grim reapers? Are you sure you wouldn't claim 
that it is an attack against you and/or report it to CC?

If you had not deleted it, that post most likely would have qualified as public 
insult against VideoLAN and its members (including a number of people on this 
ML), which is a fellony, were it a joke or not.

And even that is not the point. The point is obviously that, if you do that 
sort of things - that joke or any of the other bullet point - you will piss 
people off. And those people will rightfully reproach you for it.

And then empirical evidence is that, in such circumstances, you will paint 
those legimate reproaches as attacks against you, and paint yourself as the 
victim. That is known as victimisation.

TBH, the fact that you now accuse me of attacking you for bringing this up 
underlines the argument.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
Tapiolan uusi kaupunki, Uudenmaan entinen Suomen tasavalta



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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hello,

I would like to call for this thread to dissolve, it's getting ugly.
It's become a swirl of different grievances and the tone is toxic all around.

What is this good for besides draining away energy?
The thread's original scope has been outgrown.

We have some unresolved issues, sure.
Can we pivot this energy into a bulleted list of discussion topics and
channel it real time in a moderated IRC meeting or similar ?
Or at least tackle one actual issue at a time and not tackle each other?
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hello Michael,

Complaint acknowledged. In the spirit of moving forward and de-escalating:

Would you be open to a scheduled IRC meeting where we can talk through
some of the project issues in real time?
Ideally it is moderated by a neutral party to keep it civil and to the
point of project problems without interpersonal arguments.

On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 2:26 PM Michael Niedermayer
<michael@niedermayer.cc> wrote:
>
> Hi CC
>
> please see my complaints inline below
>
> On Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 09:36:50PM +0200, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Le tiistaina 21. tammikuuta 2025, 2.36.47 UTC+2 Michael Niedermayer a écrit :
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 10:38:17AM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
> > > > All this time people send back and forth emails attacking each other or
> > > > the
> > > > project could have spent toward investing in modern DevOps infrastructure
> > > > or discussing other advancements.
> > > >
> > > > It’s energy-draining to both read and write.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > It makes me wonder do folks actually get enjoyment out of the drama?
> > >
> > > not me
> > >
> > > but what can i do?
> >
> > For example, you actually could:
> >
> > - Stop complaining about FFmpeg community members attending conferences and
> > discussing FFmpeg (e.g. VDD 2024).
>
> I have not complained about "FFmpeg community members attending conferences and
> discussing FFmpeg". Your statement suggests i did that, which i think is not ok
>
>
> > - Stop making inflammatory metaphores about community members (ditto).
>
> Can you provide links to your implied accusation ?
>
>
> > - Stop attacking conference organisers and hosts for not accomodating you
> > (e.g. Kwangwoon university faculty).
>
> I have not attacked "Kwangwoon university faculty", this is a strange way
> to deflect blame for VDD2024. In a room with several dozend
> microphones noone recorded the meeting, its not the fault of the room or
> who provided the room.
> Also it is not an attack (you can also see that i very intentionally do
> not name anyone personally). FFmpeg is a free software project. We have a
> open community and are welcoming to new members, meetings should be
> open to everyone local and remote and should be recorded so everyone can
> listen to them even when they are unable at the exact moment the meeting
> happens
>
>
> > - Stop posting insulting AI-generated pictures about other OSS projects on
> > social media (e.g. VideoLAN, on X).
>
> I have not done that.
> I had posted one joke on my personal twitter that i deleted a few hours later
> as people seem to have misunderstood it.
>
> Its interresting how a joke on my personal twitter that maybe less than 5 people
> saw before it was deleted is used here.
> (not to mention it is a copyright violation to spread my art/joke in a way it
>  was not intended. It was intended to make people smile and have a laugh. And
>  maybe think about issues but not to hurt people)
>
> > - Stop making seemingly false claims about colleagues (e.g. Josh and Marvin),
>
> Can you provide links to your implied accusation ?
>
>
> [...]
>
> > - Stop making utter lame excuses for the previous point (ditto, and causing
> > James to figuratively lose it).
>
> That sounds like an insult to me
>
>
> > - Stop defending ...
>
> not sure i did but really, defending someone is reason i get attacked?
>
>
> > - Stop victimising yourself on the mailing list (e.g. this thread).
>
> That sounds like an insult to me
>
>
> > - Stop misconstruing people defending themselves, others or their different
> > opinion as "attacks" against you.
>
> That sounds like an insult to me
>
>
> > - Stop criticising some of your business and/or business partners on the
> > mailing list (i.e. FFlabs).
>
> seriously, really, criticising buisness partners is the problem ?
>
>
> > - Stop demeaning the GA members, or the active voters within it,
>
> I dont think i have done that
> I complain about the structure not the people within.
>
>
> [...]
>
> > As far as I can tell, most actual attacks against you on this mailing list in
> > recent times were in response to your own critics or complaints.
>
> Looking just at the mail you wrote here. Did i cause you to write it ?
>
> thx
>
> [...]
> --
> Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB
>
> I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your
> right to say it. -- Voltaire
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

On Sat, 25 Jan 2025, 21:49 Rémi Denis-Courmont, <remi@remlab.net> wrote:

> Le lauantaina 25. tammikuuta 2025, 22.26.44 UTC+2 Michael Niedermayer a
> écrit
> :
> > I had posted one joke on my personal twitter that i deleted a few hours
> > later as people seem to have misunderstood it.
>
> It is completely irrelevant whether you intended it as a joke or not. How
> would you react if somebody made a joke that you, or a group of people
> including you, were vultures or grim reapers? Are you sure you wouldn't
> claim
> that it is an attack against you and/or report it to CC?
>

Hi Remi,

Are you not aware than when Michael does something inflammatory like that
it's a "joke", but any criticism of his behaviour is an "attack"? Just
wanted to be sure you understood the correct terminology used on this ML.

Regards,
Kieran Kunhya

>
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 6549 bytes --]

Hi Marth64

On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 04:40:00PM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
> Hello Michael,
> 
> Complaint acknowledged. In the spirit of moving forward and de-escalating:
> 
> Would you be open to a scheduled IRC meeting where we can talk through
> some of the project issues in real time?
> Ideally it is moderated by a neutral party to keep it civil and to the
> point of project problems without interpersonal arguments.

as you say "project issues"
I believe discusion about ffmpeg should be public and on the mailing list
where everyone can participate
Also as you say "without interpersonal arguments" I see no reason
for it not to be on the public mailing list

The CC also had no problems banning nicolas and paul for basically
doing nothing (compared to this) and not asking the people complaining
to join a IRC meeting to talk about some project issues.
And complaints about members and friends of the CC are ignored since several years.
Now they have become so bold to make outright false claims

And still no action, no really, the CC should do its job or the CC should be disolved.
People asked for the new CC to be given a chance, this is the CCs chance.
So far i see more offensive mail being posted after the CC is notified not less.

The CC can stop this, or the CC can allow people to create a pretext for a fork.
(the whole "michael is evil" is such a pretext if its not obvious to anyone)

If the CC takes a clear action, this whole drama simply stops. Otherwise
i suspect it will lead to a fork eventually. In the fork case they will leave with
several others. I think thats a much bigger loss

In fact the longer this continues the more people will leave
And the final outcome will still not differ, people doing these attacks still
will likely be lost to the project.

thx

> 
> On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 2:26 PM Michael Niedermayer
> <michael@niedermayer.cc> wrote:
> >
> > Hi CC
> >
> > please see my complaints inline below
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 09:36:50PM +0200, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > Le tiistaina 21. tammikuuta 2025, 2.36.47 UTC+2 Michael Niedermayer a écrit :
> > > > Hi
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 10:38:17AM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
> > > > > All this time people send back and forth emails attacking each other or
> > > > > the
> > > > > project could have spent toward investing in modern DevOps infrastructure
> > > > > or discussing other advancements.
> > > > >
> > > > > It’s energy-draining to both read and write.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > It makes me wonder do folks actually get enjoyment out of the drama?
> > > >
> > > > not me
> > > >
> > > > but what can i do?
> > >
> > > For example, you actually could:
> > >
> > > - Stop complaining about FFmpeg community members attending conferences and
> > > discussing FFmpeg (e.g. VDD 2024).
> >
> > I have not complained about "FFmpeg community members attending conferences and
> > discussing FFmpeg". Your statement suggests i did that, which i think is not ok
> >
> >
> > > - Stop making inflammatory metaphores about community members (ditto).
> >
> > Can you provide links to your implied accusation ?
> >
> >
> > > - Stop attacking conference organisers and hosts for not accomodating you
> > > (e.g. Kwangwoon university faculty).
> >
> > I have not attacked "Kwangwoon university faculty", this is a strange way
> > to deflect blame for VDD2024. In a room with several dozend
> > microphones noone recorded the meeting, its not the fault of the room or
> > who provided the room.
> > Also it is not an attack (you can also see that i very intentionally do
> > not name anyone personally). FFmpeg is a free software project. We have a
> > open community and are welcoming to new members, meetings should be
> > open to everyone local and remote and should be recorded so everyone can
> > listen to them even when they are unable at the exact moment the meeting
> > happens
> >
> >
> > > - Stop posting insulting AI-generated pictures about other OSS projects on
> > > social media (e.g. VideoLAN, on X).
> >
> > I have not done that.
> > I had posted one joke on my personal twitter that i deleted a few hours later
> > as people seem to have misunderstood it.
> >
> > Its interresting how a joke on my personal twitter that maybe less than 5 people
> > saw before it was deleted is used here.
> > (not to mention it is a copyright violation to spread my art/joke in a way it
> >  was not intended. It was intended to make people smile and have a laugh. And
> >  maybe think about issues but not to hurt people)
> >
> > > - Stop making seemingly false claims about colleagues (e.g. Josh and Marvin),
> >
> > Can you provide links to your implied accusation ?
> >
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > - Stop making utter lame excuses for the previous point (ditto, and causing
> > > James to figuratively lose it).
> >
> > That sounds like an insult to me
> >
> >
> > > - Stop defending ...
> >
> > not sure i did but really, defending someone is reason i get attacked?
> >
> >
> > > - Stop victimising yourself on the mailing list (e.g. this thread).
> >
> > That sounds like an insult to me
> >
> >
> > > - Stop misconstruing people defending themselves, others or their different
> > > opinion as "attacks" against you.
> >
> > That sounds like an insult to me
> >
> >
> > > - Stop criticising some of your business and/or business partners on the
> > > mailing list (i.e. FFlabs).
> >
> > seriously, really, criticising buisness partners is the problem ?
> >
> >
> > > - Stop demeaning the GA members, or the active voters within it,
> >
> > I dont think i have done that
> > I complain about the structure not the people within.
> >
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > As far as I can tell, most actual attacks against you on this mailing list in
> > > recent times were in response to your own critics or complaints.
> >
> > Looking just at the mail you wrote here. Did i cause you to write it ?
> >
> > thx
> >
> > [...]
> > --
> > Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB
> >
> > I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your
> > right to say it. -- Voltaire
> 

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated
form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. -- Plato

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

> If the CC takes a clear action, this whole drama simply stops. Otherwise
> i suspect it will lead to a fork eventually. In the fork case they will leave with
> several others. I think thats a much bigger loss

I agree, Anton is gone because of your inflammatory behaviour
(banning, censorship etc) and the CC should have dealt with it.

Kieran
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le sunnuntaina 26. tammikuuta 2025, 17.06.28 UTC+2 Michael Niedermayer a écrit 
:
> I believe discusion about ffmpeg should be public and on the mailing list
> where everyone can participate
> Also as you say "without interpersonal arguments" I see no reason
> for it not to be on the public mailing list

> The CC also had no problems banning nicolas and paul for basically
> doing nothing

I cannot speak for actions taken by the previous CC, since most of them were 
not published or even notified to complainants.

The current CC has already dealt with and resolved one case privately. 
Generally speaking, I agree that CC decision should be public. But in this 
particular case, no actions or sanctions were taken and neither involved 
parties seemed to want to go public (they are welcome to correct me).

>  (compared to this)

I don't know what "this" is and therefore how it compares.

Just in case though, I don't need to remind you that you asked "but what can 
[you] do" to stop people attacking you, and I _suggested_ that you stop doing 
a whole bunch of the things you _have_ done in the past 6 months. I even 
provided references and, since it was a sensitive discussion, explicitly 
clarified that it was a suggestion.

I tried to point out how your own behaviour is indirectly causing what you 
complain about, and how you could alleviate that.

End result? You then accused me of insulting and slandering you. To support 
that, you conveniently selectively quoted my message, stripping most 
references, to make it look like I was making unsubstantiated accusations 
against you.

That form of argumentation is misleading and lame. It is also defamatory and I 
have every moral and legal rights to hold you responsible for it.

Besides you seem to be doubling down on your defamatory accusations against my 
person:

> (...)
> And complaints about members and friends of the CC

Who are those multiple "friends" of the CC that we ignored complaints about?

I don't think that I even have friends in common with Marth, and the only two 
complaints that I have chosen to ignore so far were:
- 1x from you about one person making fun of me on the ML.
- 1x from a third person about me being attacked by a fourth person.
- 1x from myself against that same fourth person that I did not push further.

Not both of the "accused" were my friends by any measure.

There are other outstanding complaints, but they are not ignored as of yet.

> are ignored since several years.

Well, you were on the CC in the previous year, unlike Marth and I. I don't any 
better, so *IF* Anton's resignation message is to be trusted, you were partly 
responsible for that.

> Now they have become so bold to make outright false claims

What claim from whom?

FWIW, it is my honest-to-the-flying-spaghetti-monster belief that there was no 
vote to approve STF funding for libpostproc. If I recall incorrectly, or 
somehow received neither the voting material nor voting results, then I will 
gladly withdraw and present apologies for my hypothetically false claim, and 
leave it to the rest of the CC to suspend me for however long they see fit.

> And still no action, no really, the CC should do its job or the CC should be
> disolved. People asked for the new CC to be given a chance, this is the CCs
> chance. So far i see more offensive mail being posted after the CC is
> notified not less.

Sorry. JB and myself have been exceptionally after the end of the year 
celebrations, and James and Anton left for the time being blaming you, leaving 
Marth alone. I hope to make some progress within the next week and report 
before the winter vacation season.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
Villeneuve de Tapiola, ex-République finlandaise d´Uusimaa


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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi Michael,

> I believe discusion about ffmpeg should be public and on the mailing list
> where everyone can participate
It should be public and people should participate. It can also be
real-time and on IRC.
Clearly this was done in the past.

Literally on the front page of TRAC, there is a section titled "FFmpeg
Developer Meetings"
with a list of meetings that happened in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020.
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/
Why can't it happen again?

> Also as you say "without interpersonal arguments" I see no reason
> for it not to be on the public mailing list
I see every reason for these to NOT be on the mailing list.

These types of threads continue to digress into an airing of
interpersonal arguments.
It's not healthy. It makes people look bad. People get upset.

It is toxic by all accounts. To aggravate this, such email threads
drag on eternally.
This is why I have asked for a real-time session over IRC.

> And still no action, no really, the CC should do its job or the CC should be disolved.
> People asked for the new CC to be given a chance, this is the CCs chance.
> So far i see more offensive mail being posted after the CC is notified not less.
When I volunteered to be part of the CC, my opening point was to be an
"effective de-escalator and diplomat".

That includes applying situational judgement. I am not without a spine
to stand up and say
"Folks, let's have a meeting and hash this out." It is called de-escalating.

I am trying to request that the community has a healthy discussion and
DIFFUSE tensions.
People do that in the real-world by making an agenda and talking through issues,
setting up frameworks for improvements and meeting in the middle.

Does it always work? No.
But I also do not see us having tried beyond inflammatory and chronic
email threads.

> The CC also had no problems banning nicolas and paul for basically
> doing nothing (compared to this) and not asking the people complaining
> to join a IRC meeting to talk about some project issues.
I am not from the previous CC organization.

I do not believe that just outright banning people is a solution.
I will not just give into peer pressure, snap my fingers, and call to
ban people because someone XYZ said so.

If that were the case, in January alone I would be advocating for at
least a handful people to be banned.
I will not be a sitting duck that gives into every request.

Instead I have tried to encourage people to simmer down and be a
positive influence.
There are ways to talk and sort through problems.

> In fact the longer this continues the more people will leave
> And the final outcome will still not differ, people doing these attacks still
> will likely be lost to the project.
Exactly.
And the longer people don't talk, the longer this becomes

> the CC should be disolved
If the community wants me fired, fine.
But please realize that I am trying to establish some sense of
diplomacy by breaking this bad norm of email flame wars.

> And complaints about members and friends of the CC are ignored since several years.
> Now they have become so bold to make outright false claims
Like Rémi said, I was not in the CC last year so I do not have access
to last year's manifest of issues.

Also like Rémi said, the rest of the team had been busy (which is
fine) so I have been doing my best to cover in the meantime.
I volunteered to do the job so I was not going to just sit by idly.

Thank you,
Marth64
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

I am only trying to be a voice of reason.

Please consider if we can have a community IRC meeting or in some other fashion
discuss a framework improvement in a safe space.
I would be happy to put together an agenda.
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Gyan Doshi]

On 2025-01-26 11:37 pm, Marth64 wrote:
> I am only trying to be a voice of reason.
>
> Please consider if we can have a community IRC meeting or in some other fashion
> discuss a framework improvement in a safe space.
> I would be happy to put together an agenda.

Will the activity of these meetings be recorded and available publicly?

Regards,
Gyan

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi Gyan,
> Will the activity of these meetings be recorded and available publicly?
If we have a meeting, I would expect it to be recorded and available
publicly just like here:
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/FFmeeting/2020-12

Looks like the process was established before :)
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi Marth64

On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 11:34:37AM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
> Hi Michael,
> 
> > I believe discusion about ffmpeg should be public and on the mailing list
> > where everyone can participate
> It should be public and people should participate. It can also be
> real-time and on IRC.
> Clearly this was done in the past.
> 
> Literally on the front page of TRAC, there is a section titled "FFmpeg
> Developer Meetings"
> with a list of meetings that happened in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020.
> https://trac.ffmpeg.org/
> Why can't it happen again?

Having a meeting between people to talk about a common goal like
FFmpeg makes sense.

What we have here is different.


> 
> > Also as you say "without interpersonal arguments" I see no reason
> > for it not to be on the public mailing list
> I see every reason for these to NOT be on the mailing list.
> 
> These types of threads continue to digress into an airing of
> interpersonal arguments.
> It's not healthy. It makes people look bad. People get upset.
> 
> It is toxic by all accounts. To aggravate this, such email threads
> drag on eternally.
> This is why I have asked for a real-time session over IRC.

I remember such a IRC session before the libav fork.
It is very similar to this here
4+ people, who simply accuse me of everything (on IRC though)
this serves no purpose. There is no common ground here

As long as the people belive or claim iam the cause for them attacking others
(and everything else) there is nothing to discuss.
They are adults and they have to take responsibility for what they do


> 
> > And still no action, no really, the CC should do its job or the CC should be disolved.
> > People asked for the new CC to be given a chance, this is the CCs chance.
> > So far i see more offensive mail being posted after the CC is notified not less.
> When I volunteered to be part of the CC, my opening point was to be an
> "effective de-escalator and diplomat".
> 
> That includes applying situational judgement. I am not without a spine
> to stand up and say
> "Folks, let's have a meeting and hash this out." It is called de-escalating.
> 
> I am trying to request that the community has a healthy discussion and
> DIFFUSE tensions.
> People do that in the real-world by making an agenda and talking through issues,
> setting up frameworks for improvements and meeting in the middle.
> 
> Does it always work? No.
> But I also do not see us having tried beyond inflammatory and chronic
> email threads.

What i see today is people attacking me on the mailing list. (in fact out of
teh blue, there was nothing triggering that) And the CC
taking no action. The people are not warned, they are not moderated they
are not banned.

Instead iam being asked to join a chat.
This is something i may have considered if for example i saw the people
attacking me being banned.
As is. No, i see not the slightest sign of the CC doing its job or
providing a neutral or normal environment.
If the CC is not able or willing to do that on the ML, then it wont
on IRC either
I will not subject myself to this.
Everyone can just take a paper write my name on it and accuse and screem
towards it, thats gonna do the exact same.

thank you

[...]

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly 
accepts the penalty by staying in jail in order to arouse the conscience of 
the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the 
very highest respect for law. - Martin Luther King Jr

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

> I remember such a IRC session before the libav fork.
> It is very similar to this here
> 4+ people, who simply accuse me of everything (on IRC though)
> this serves no purpose. There is no common ground here

Hi Michael,

With Anton leaving the project because of you, Paul forking and James
leaving the CC because of your behaviour of banning and censoring,
have you ever considered the problem might be you?

Regards,
Kieran Kunhya
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

With my CC hat on,

Le sunnuntaina 26. tammikuuta 2025, 21.39.38 UTC+2 Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-
devel a écrit :
> With Anton leaving the project because of you, Paul forking and James
> leaving the CC because of your behaviour of banning and censoring,

Kieran, there is a fine line between citing other people's accusations and 
affirming those accusations without proof.

> have you ever considered the problem might be you?

You are entitled to your opinion, and you have the right to express criticism. 
But this phrasing unnecessarily constitutes an ad hominem attack.

I can tolerate having some level of public mockery at my expense. But 
violating the CoC is not OK even if your opponent also might have.

(The CC reserves the option of further actions.)

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
Tapio's place new town, former Finnish Republic of Uusimaa



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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 8:40 PM Rémi Denis-Courmont <remi@remlab.net> wrote:
>
> With my CC hat on,
>
> Le sunnuntaina 26. tammikuuta 2025, 21.39.38 UTC+2 Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-
> devel a écrit :
> > With Anton leaving the project because of you, Paul forking and James
> > leaving the CC because of your behaviour of banning and censoring,
>
> Kieran, there is a fine line between citing other people's accusations and
> affirming those accusations without proof.
>
> > have you ever considered the problem might be you?
>
> You are entitled to your opinion, and you have the right to express criticism.
> But this phrasing unnecessarily constitutes an ad hominem attack.
>
> I can tolerate having some level of public mockery at my expense. But
> violating the CoC is not OK even if your opponent also might have.
>
> (The CC reserves the option of further actions.)

Sorry I don't understand. The individuals mentioned have all stated on
the mailing list they left because of (or in part because of) Michael.
Paul continues to emphasise this with his choice of username on IRC.
The banning and censorship took place and again are on the mailing
list.

So what part of my statement is not false?

My intention is to point out Michael blames everyone else's actions
for people leaving the project ("In fact the longer this continues the
more people will leave"), yet people are leaving the project because
of his actions (banning and censorship) and have publicly said that.

Furthermore these actions appear to have no consequences (apart from
causing people to leave of course).

Kieran
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 8:51 PM Kieran Kunhya <kieran618@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 8:40 PM Rémi Denis-Courmont <remi@remlab.net> wrote:
> >
> > With my CC hat on,
> >
> > Le sunnuntaina 26. tammikuuta 2025, 21.39.38 UTC+2 Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-
> > devel a écrit :
> > > With Anton leaving the project because of you, Paul forking and James
> > > leaving the CC because of your behaviour of banning and censoring,
> >
> > Kieran, there is a fine line between citing other people's accusations and
> > affirming those accusations without proof.
> >
> > > have you ever considered the problem might be you?
> >
> > You are entitled to your opinion, and you have the right to express criticism.
> > But this phrasing unnecessarily constitutes an ad hominem attack.
> >
> > I can tolerate having some level of public mockery at my expense. But
> > violating the CoC is not OK even if your opponent also might have.
> >
> > (The CC reserves the option of further actions.)
>
> Sorry I don't understand. The individuals mentioned have all stated on
> the mailing list they left because of (or in part because of) Michael.
> Paul continues to emphasise this with his choice of username on IRC.
> The banning and censorship took place and again are on the mailing
> list.
>
> So what part of my statement is not false?
>
> My intention is to point out Michael blames everyone else's actions
> for people leaving the project ("In fact the longer this continues the
> more people will leave"), yet people are leaving the project because
> of his actions (banning and censorship) and have publicly said that.
>
> Furthermore these actions appear to have no consequences (apart from
> causing people to leave of course).
>
> Kieran

I also forgot to mention Derek in that list.

Kieran
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2959 bytes --]

Hi Kieran

On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 07:39:38PM +0000, Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> > I remember such a IRC session before the libav fork.
> > It is very similar to this here
> > 4+ people, who simply accuse me of everything (on IRC though)
> > this serves no purpose. There is no common ground here
> 
> Hi Michael,
> 
> With Anton leaving the project because of you, Paul forking and James
> leaving the CC because of your behaviour of banning and censoring,
> have you ever considered the problem might be you?

do you realize, that iam working on several proposals to improve
the governance of FFmpeg ?
to make it more robust, more fair and to give a larger set of the community a
voice in the GA ?
And that i intend to propose these to the GA for several votes.
Thats how a democracy works, propose something and let people choose.
Either way iam not done with this, and i dont want to rush it.

About Anton, i talked with him, what he wanted is that the GA as it
is, make the decission on changes. Thats what i intend to do. He was
not at all against having some vote for changes.
Maybe he still leaves, the environment is super toxic so i would not be
surprised

About Paul, i talked with him through many mails over the last year
and really tried everything i could think of to convince him to return.
Trying to pin everything anyone does on me is very strange. It reminds
me of politics. "Whatever happens the other party is responsible"

About james, he is still in FFmpeg, still in FFlabs, I hope still
in the new CC. And I hope he will stay. And ive talked with him too
of course.

Also, have you considered that the problem is you and the people on "your side" ?
Just what you (plural) did to thilo. You surely noticed he is not
posting much on the mailing list anymore. And also he is not in FFlabs meetings
since a long time.
Some people are spreading the story that thilo is stealing money.
similar with me, in these threads, all kinds of random invented accusations

And many other people left over the years in relation to some aggression
from the very same people who attack thilo and me.

So, iam sorry to be blunt, but as long as people here attack and accuse
everyone they dont like. The responsibility lies on their side.

There really are 2 ways forward. We can move forward together or people
can fork/leave.
Its really that simple, do you (plural) want to be in the same project as
me ? Thats something you have to awnser. But you know I wont disappear
from these accusations. Its just a way to recruite more people for a fork

The community does not want the project to split again. Why dont you
put the community above your personal ambitions ?

thx

[...]

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

it is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make
their appearance in the world. -- Aristotle

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 9:24 PM Michael Niedermayer
<michael@niedermayer.cc> wrote:
>
> Hi Kieran
>
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 07:39:38PM +0000, Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> > > I remember such a IRC session before the libav fork.
> > > It is very similar to this here
> > > 4+ people, who simply accuse me of everything (on IRC though)
> > > this serves no purpose. There is no common ground here
> >
> > Hi Michael,
> >
> > With Anton leaving the project because of you, Paul forking and James
> > leaving the CC because of your behaviour of banning and censoring,
> > have you ever considered the problem might be you?
>
> do you realize, that iam working on several proposals to improve
> the governance of FFmpeg ?
> to make it more robust, more fair and to give a larger set of the community a
> voice in the GA ?
> And that i intend to propose these to the GA for several votes.
> Thats how a democracy works, propose something and let people choose.
> Either way iam not done with this, and i dont want to rush it.

Just so I understand correctly, the person who censored and banned
someone during an election is lecturing me on "how a democracy works"?

> About Anton, i talked with him, what he wanted is that the GA as it
> is, make the decission on changes. Thats what i intend to do. He was
> not at all against having some vote for changes.
> Maybe he still leaves, the environment is super toxic so i would not be
> surprised
>
> About Paul, i talked with him through many mails over the last year
> and really tried everything i could think of to convince him to return.
> Trying to pin everything anyone does on me is very strange. It reminds
> me of politics. "Whatever happens the other party is responsible"
>
> About james, he is still in FFmpeg, still in FFlabs, I hope still
> in the new CC. And I hope he will stay. And ive talked with him too
> of course.

For Anton and Paul, those claims are demonstrably false from a simple
browse of the ML.
James resigned from the old and new CC because of your ban and censorship.

> Also, have you considered that the problem is you and the people on "your side" ?
> Just what you (plural) did to thilo. You surely noticed he is not
> posting much on the mailing list anymore. And also he is not in FFlabs meetings
> since a long time.

The operations of FFlabs are internal and unrelated to this discussion.

> Some people are spreading the story that thilo is stealing money.
> similar with me, in these threads, all kinds of random invented accusations
>
> And many other people left over the years in relation to some aggression
> from the very same people who attack thilo and me.
>
> So, iam sorry to be blunt, but as long as people here attack and accuse
> everyone they dont like. The responsibility lies on their side.
>
> There really are 2 ways forward. We can move forward together or people
> can fork/leave.
> Its really that simple, do you (plural) want to be in the same project as
> me ? Thats something you have to awnser. But you know I wont disappear
> from these accusations. Its just a way to recruite more people for a fork
>
> The community does not want the project to split again. Why dont you
> put the community above your personal ambitions ?

The project is already split because of anti-democratic actions of
banning and censorship (during an election).
Suggesting I or anyone else is recruiting for a fork (Paul
notwithstanding) is a defamatory accusation.

Kieran

> thx
>
> [...]
>
> --
> Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB
>
> it is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make
> their appearance in the world. -- Aristotle
> _______________________________________________
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi,

That is what I am imagining when I mean have a meeting, suggesting
that maybe we should try a different communication medium that can be
facilitated more rapidly.

I was thinking an IRC meeting would be more beneficial than email
because email is hard to moderate.
In IRC, there are more easily applicable tools to use for managing
tricky conversations.

For example, a meeting can start with everyone having voice +v mode
(and channel with +m mode) and we can set boundaries to say "please
don't do XYZ".
Then, if someone impulsively breaks the rule, a set of chosen level
headed moderator(s) can revoke the offending user's voice for 5 mins,
10 mins, permanently based on severity, etc.
These moderators do not have to be CC. All of their mode set actions
are public and logged in the same channel which is convenient.

Agenda can be in phases. Not one meeting would solve all problems.
But in this way I am thinking we can encapsulate and redirect tough
conversations to real time discussion and maybe make more progress one
small item at a time.

I see it this way (hypothetical as an example),
(1) Weekly email threads about problems -> chain emails that take
mental bandwidth every day to get through -> 1-2 hours lost daily
(2) Scheduled meeting cadence for people to vent, discuss concerns ->
1 concentrated hour every 2 weeks

With (2) people can have time to buffer and better articulate thoughts
in between meetings, and if moderated on IRC impulsive behavior can be
addressed right away.
It also gives a chance to set agendas. For example if one person has a
proposal we can block out time for it and dedicate it to
questions/answers.

I am sorry some of these problems are out of scope for me but I am
just trying to suggest different ways to handle conflict resolution
that might yield results.

Thank you
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 10:24 PM Michael Niedermayer <michael@niedermayer.cc>
wrote:

> Hi Kieran
>
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 07:39:38PM +0000, Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel
> wrote:
> > > I remember such a IRC session before the libav fork.
> > > It is very similar to this here
> > > 4+ people, who simply accuse me of everything (on IRC though)
> > > this serves no purpose. There is no common ground here
> >
> > Hi Michael,
> >
> > With Anton leaving the project because of you, Paul forking and James
> > leaving the CC because of your behaviour of banning and censoring,
> > have you ever considered the problem might be you?
>
> do you realize, that iam working on several proposals to improve
> the governance of FFmpeg ?
> to make it more robust, more fair and to give a larger set of the
> community a
> voice in the GA ?
>

No? All we've seen is that you changed your mind on "democratization" and
want to roll back any chance for disagreement with you to see the light of
day.
No this is not slander, or an insult, just an interpretation of the facts
that have been happening on the list.

If you really cared for this community, you'd let "your friends" get
punished by the CC (ie Nicolas for spreading conspiracies, or Compnn for
censoring a thread). But you effectively prevented this while you were on
the CC, and now that you are not on it any more, you are still preventing
it from working by calling a restructuring of the GA and the CC in a way
that makes it impossible.
Again not an attack on you, just a quick summary of events because I don't
believe that the longest email should win.

What you are getting is a messy community in which the most brilliant minds
(ie Derek or Anton) just leave and stop contributing to FOSS entirely,
where you and Nicolas can just submit messy code without review, and use
the most toxic language and gaslighting in the email threads. Have you
considered how many people have not been sending patches because this
mailing list is hell on earth?

Micheal, you're a brilliant developer, but developers aren't and don't have
to be the best at everything.
Please let the current governance operate without filibustering it.

And that i intend to propose these to the GA for several votes.
> Thats how a democracy works, propose something and let people choose.
> Either way iam not done with this, and i dont want to rush it.
>

The problem is that you can't give someone power via election and then stop
them from operating by removing their executive power.

If you have a proposal, submit a concrete one, possibly in a single thread.
Additionally, you could come to FOSDEM and present it or upload a video of
your presentation (ffmpeg is a multimedia toolkit, it would make sense to
dogfood our own product) to better defend it. But most importantly accept
the results if it gets rejected, instead of submitting one over and over
until you get what you want. That's not democracy.

Also, have you considered that the problem is you and the people on "your
> side" ?
> Just what you (plural) did to thilo. You surely noticed he is not
> posting much on the mailing list anymore. And also he is not in FFlabs
> meetings
> since a long time.
>

This is probably offtopic, and the reason I dislike your walls of text, but
for the sake of completeness, Thilo effectively has stolen the ffmpeg brand
and has been using it without authorization, colluding with a for-profit
project that never sent a single line of code to ffmpeg (hyperbole here, I
don't think double checking whether GPAC sent patches matters rn). I can't
understand how this can be a good thing, especially looking at the kind of
booths he prepared -- a white cubicle WOW --  and I can't understand how
you're so set in trusting him. Yes I know your suggestion is that people
should help him, but ignoring the mailing list on his part is overall not a
good look.

What would really work is there should be a process to request "ffmpeg"
brand use for these things, and it's something the GA should have the power
to vote on.

Its really that simple, do you (plural) want to be in the same project as
> me ? Thats something you have to awnser. But you know I wont disappear
> from these accusations. Its just a way to recruite more people for a fork
>

I, for one, would like to be in the same project as you, I just wish your
paranoia and fears didn't hinder every single step forward this community
is making <3

The community does not want the project to split again. Why dont you
> put the community above your personal ambitions ?
>

So you agree to leave the current GA as is and the CC can be left alone?
That's great to hear!
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3184 bytes --]

Hi Marth64

while this wasnt a reply to me, some comments from me

On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 04:01:17PM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> That is what I am imagining when I mean have a meeting, suggesting
> that maybe we should try a different communication medium that can be
> facilitated more rapidly.

The problem I see ATM, is that we have accusations against me
for things i simply have not done.
(they also for obvious reasons have no reference to anything)
And for things i did do, that are presented widely out of proportion
of reality

A discussion on IRC could maybe make sense if someone checked what is
claimed about me first. But then i think we also would be able to
continue a more calm discussion here

We cannot really go into a discussion when both sides have wildly
different oppinions on what has or has not happened.

Also i must say it (in case i have not done priorly) What is
done in the last months, is mobbing

To clarify "explain what mobbing is" ->

    1. Workplace Mobbing
        In the workplace, mobbing involves a group of colleagues, managers, or subordinates targeting an individual with behaviors such as:

        Gossiping, spreading rumors, or ostracizing the person.
        Constantly criticizing or undermining their work.
        Excluding them from meetings or decisions.
        Using intimidation, humiliation, or passive-aggressive tactics to isolate them.
    This can lead to stress, decreased productivity, and even serious mental and physical health issues for the targeted individual.

This is a very surprisingly accurate list for the fact i just asked
what mobbing is (and this also applies to what was done to thilo)

I dont think starting with a list of accusations against me and then
discussing about this, or how i "caused it", is the way to handle this.

About people pointing to me as the cause of something they do.
Given iam in this project for over 20 years and iam the main author and
we had a fork long ago. With many people joining back together. There are
people who have had past hate and present hate towards me.
Whenever there is an oppertunity, some will point to me as teh
cause.
It makes sense to look at these and ask "do they point to a real issue?"
is there something we can learn and improve or is this just dislike towards
me and are they just asking for me to be "hanged"/"removed".

And again, some of the things iam hearing, why people are upset, arent even
true.

I do belive one big part of some people leaving over the last years is that
they are not enough in power.
And a linux like model where they would maintain a subsystem as the
final authority in their own repository would have avoided them leaving.
Iam sure everyone will disagree about this, its just what my feeling tells
me because it works in linux much better than in ffmpeg.
But then, this is off topic here

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision
of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet
notwithstanding go out to meet it. -- Thucydides

[-- Attachment #1.2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 195 bytes --]

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 251 bytes --]

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Zhao Zhili]

> On Jan 29, 2025, at 02:21, Michael Niedermayer <michael@niedermayer.cc> wrote:
> 
> Hi Marth64
> 
> while this wasnt a reply to me, some comments from me
> 
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 04:01:17PM -0600, Marth64 wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> That is what I am imagining when I mean have a meeting, suggesting
>> that maybe we should try a different communication medium that can be
>> facilitated more rapidly.
> 
> The problem I see ATM, is that we have accusations against me
> for things i simply have not done.
> (they also for obvious reasons have no reference to anything)
> And for things i did do, that are presented widely out of proportion
> of reality
> 
> A discussion on IRC could maybe make sense if someone checked what is
> claimed about me first. But then i think we also would be able to
> continue a more calm discussion here
> 
> We cannot really go into a discussion when both sides have wildly
> different oppinions on what has or has not happened.
> 
> Also i must say it (in case i have not done priorly) What is
> done in the last months, is mobbing
> 
> To clarify "explain what mobbing is" ->
> 
>    1. Workplace Mobbing
>        In the workplace, mobbing involves a group of colleagues, managers, or subordinates targeting an individual with behaviors such as:
> 
>        Gossiping, spreading rumors, or ostracizing the person.
>        Constantly criticizing or undermining their work.
>        Excluding them from meetings or decisions.
>        Using intimidation, humiliation, or passive-aggressive tactics to isolate them.
>    This can lead to stress, decreased productivity, and even serious mental and physical health issues for the targeted individual.
> 
> This is a very surprisingly accurate list for the fact i just asked
> what mobbing is (and this also applies to what was done to thilo)
> 
> I dont think starting with a list of accusations against me and then
> discussing about this, or how i "caused it", is the way to handle this.
> 
> About people pointing to me as the cause of something they do.
> Given iam in this project for over 20 years and iam the main author and
> we had a fork long ago. With many people joining back together. There are
> people who have had past hate and present hate towards me.
> Whenever there is an oppertunity, some will point to me as teh
> cause.

I don’t stay long enough to know the history, but I don’t think delving into history
helps the current situation. Let's talk less about history and hatred to avoid creating
a self-fulfilling prophecy.

> It makes sense to look at these and ask "do they point to a real issue?"
> is there something we can learn and improve or is this just dislike towards
> me and are they just asking for me to be "hanged"/"removed".
> 
> And again, some of the things iam hearing, why people are upset, arent even
> true.
> 
> I do belive one big part of some people leaving over the last years is that
> they are not enough in power.
> And a linux like model where they would maintain a subsystem as the
> final authority in their own repository would have avoided them leaving.
> Iam sure everyone will disagree about this, its just what my feeling tells
> me because it works in linux much better than in ffmpeg.
> But then, this is off topic here
> 
> thx
> 
> [...]
> -- 
> Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB
> 
> The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision
> of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet
> notwithstanding go out to meet it. -- Thucydides
> _______________________________________________
> ffmpeg-devel mailing list
> ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org
> https://ffmpeg.org/mailman/listinfo/ffmpeg-devel
> 
> To unsubscribe, visit link above, or email
> ffmpeg-devel-request@ffmpeg.org with subject "unsubscribe".

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM Michael Niedermayer <michael@niedermayer.cc>
wrote:

> About people pointing to me as the cause of something they do.
> Given iam in this project for over 20 years and iam the main author and
> we had a fork long ago. With many people joining back together. There are
> people who have had past hate and present hate towards me.
> Whenever there is an oppertunity, some will point to me as teh
> cause.
>

Well "look who it is the consequences of my own actions"


> It makes sense to look at these and ask "do they point to a real issue?"
> is there something we can learn and improve or is this just dislike towards
> me and are they just asking for me to be "hanged"/"removed".
>

Who banned someone without cause and due process, and deleted the archive?
Who is undermining the GA and filibustering the ffmpeg governance?
Who prevented the previous CC from operating?
Who is ignoring the scam of the ffmpeg booths at trade shows?
Who helped keep relevant parts of the infrastructure hidden for years?
Who is preventing new roots from joining and actual infrastructure work
being done?
Who posted insulting images on social networks?
Who quoted the STF an unreasonable amount of money for a project that
*everybody* agrees is not worth that much?
Who argued for MONTHS about dubious code features, and pushed code (later
reverted) to the main tree because it served their own branch?
Who is refusing to join community discussions in person (or remotely), and
keeps posting walls of text that are hard to track and makes following the
discussion harder than needs to be?
Who is pretending to be democratic and trying to appear as a martyr,
causing people to leave while they actually wanted to contribute and help
steward this community?

I don't want to get banned again for posting a bullet list, but I
definitely see a pattern. AND THIS IS JUST IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS.

The thing is NOBODY wants to see you hanged or removed, we're just pleading
to your common sense and that you listen to the community, allowing for an
independent governance to effectively operate ffmpeg. If you can't satisfy
the community requests, then yes, the "unfriendly emails" will continue
until this behavior is put to an end. And I know you won't believe me
because I'm from "the other side", but once again I invite you to the
FOSDEM ffmpeg meeting and see what the community really thinks and wants
for yourself.

I do belive one big part of some people leaving over the last years is that
> they are not enough in power.
>

This reads like "I want them to be good minions while I continue to do what
I want", but you're right it's off topic.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Vittorio Giovara
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 10:45 AM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM Michael Niedermayer
> <michael@niedermayer.cc>
> wrote:
> 
> > About people pointing to me as the cause of something they do.
> > Given iam in this project for over 20 years and iam the main author
> and
> > we had a fork long ago. With many people joining back together.
> There are
> > people who have had past hate and present hate towards me.
> > Whenever there is an oppertunity, some will point to me as teh
> > cause.
> >
> 
> Well "look who it is the consequences of my own actions"
> 
> 
> > It makes sense to look at these and ask "do they point to a real
> issue?"
> > is there something we can learn and improve or is this just dislike
> towards
> > me and are they just asking for me to be "hanged"/"removed".
> >
> 
> Who banned someone without cause and due process, and deleted the
> archive?
> Who is undermining the GA and filibustering the ffmpeg governance?
> Who prevented the previous CC from operating?
> Who is ignoring the scam of the ffmpeg booths at trade shows?
> Who helped keep relevant parts of the infrastructure hidden for
> years?
> Who is preventing new roots from joining and actual infrastructure
> work
> being done?
> Who posted insulting images on social networks?
> Who quoted the STF an unreasonable amount of money for a project that
> *everybody* agrees is not worth that much?
> Who argued for MONTHS about dubious code features, and pushed code
> (later
> reverted) to the main tree because it served their own branch?
> Who is refusing to join community discussions in person (or
> remotely), and
> keeps posting walls of text that are hard to track and makes
> following the
> discussion harder than needs to be?
> Who is pretending to be democratic and trying to appear as a martyr,
> causing people to leave while they actually wanted to contribute and
> help
> steward this community?
> 
> I don't want to get banned again for posting a bullet list, but I
> definitely see a pattern. AND THIS IS JUST IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS.
> 
> The thing is NOBODY wants to see you hanged or removed, we're just
> pleading
> to your common sense and that you listen to the community, allowing
> for an
> independent governance to effectively operate ffmpeg. If you can't
> satisfy
> the community requests, then yes, the "unfriendly emails" will
> continue
> until this behavior is put to an end. And I know you won't believe me
> because I'm from "the other side", but once again I invite you to the
> FOSDEM ffmpeg meeting and see what the community really thinks and
> wants
> for yourself.
> 
> I do belive one big part of some people leaving over the last years
> is that
> > they are not enough in power.
> >
> 
> This reads like "I want them to be good minions while I continue to
> do what
> I want", but you're right it's off topic.


for (i=0; i<12; i++) {
    print("You did this you did that");
}

if (!(<give us control over ffmpeg>)) {
    for (i=0; i<1000; i++) {
        sendEmail("<more accusations>");
    }
}


Sounds like the accusations are more a leverage than a concern..?

sw


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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 11:32 AM Soft Works <
softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:

>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > Vittorio Giovara
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 10:45 AM
> > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM Michael Niedermayer
> > <michael@niedermayer.cc>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > About people pointing to me as the cause of something they do.
> > > Given iam in this project for over 20 years and iam the main author
> > and
> > > we had a fork long ago. With many people joining back together.
> > There are
> > > people who have had past hate and present hate towards me.
> > > Whenever there is an oppertunity, some will point to me as teh
> > > cause.
> > >
> >
> > Well "look who it is the consequences of my own actions"
> >
> >
> > > It makes sense to look at these and ask "do they point to a real
> > issue?"
> > > is there something we can learn and improve or is this just dislike
> > towards
> > > me and are they just asking for me to be "hanged"/"removed".
> > >
> >
> > Who banned someone without cause and due process, and deleted the
> > archive?
> > Who is undermining the GA and filibustering the ffmpeg governance?
> > Who prevented the previous CC from operating?
> > Who is ignoring the scam of the ffmpeg booths at trade shows?
> > Who helped keep relevant parts of the infrastructure hidden for
> > years?
> > Who is preventing new roots from joining and actual infrastructure
> > work
> > being done?
> > Who posted insulting images on social networks?
> > Who quoted the STF an unreasonable amount of money for a project that
> > *everybody* agrees is not worth that much?
> > Who argued for MONTHS about dubious code features, and pushed code
> > (later
> > reverted) to the main tree because it served their own branch?
> > Who is refusing to join community discussions in person (or
> > remotely), and
> > keeps posting walls of text that are hard to track and makes
> > following the
> > discussion harder than needs to be?
> > Who is pretending to be democratic and trying to appear as a martyr,
> > causing people to leave while they actually wanted to contribute and
> > help
> > steward this community?
> >
> > I don't want to get banned again for posting a bullet list, but I
> > definitely see a pattern. AND THIS IS JUST IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS.
> >
> > The thing is NOBODY wants to see you hanged or removed, we're just
> > pleading
> > to your common sense and that you listen to the community, allowing
> > for an
> > independent governance to effectively operate ffmpeg. If you can't
> > satisfy
> > the community requests, then yes, the "unfriendly emails" will
> > continue
> > until this behavior is put to an end. And I know you won't believe me
> > because I'm from "the other side", but once again I invite you to the
> > FOSDEM ffmpeg meeting and see what the community really thinks and
> > wants
> > for yourself.
> >
> > I do belive one big part of some people leaving over the last years
> > is that
> > > they are not enough in power.
> > >
> >
> > This reads like "I want them to be good minions while I continue to
> > do what
> > I want", but you're right it's off topic.
>
>
> for (i=0; i<12; i++) {
>     print("You did this you did that");
> }
>
> if (!(<give us control over ffmpeg>)) {
>     for (i=0; i<1000; i++) {
>         sendEmail("<more accusations>");
>     }
> }
>
>
> Sounds like the accusations are more a leverage than a concern..?
>

Sounds like you are not adding anything to the discussion, but thanks for
sharing your view.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Vittorio Giovara
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 11:51 AM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 11:32 AM Soft Works <
> softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > > Vittorio Giovara
> > > Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 10:45 AM
> > > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> > >
> > > On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM Michael Niedermayer
> > > <michael@niedermayer.cc>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > About people pointing to me as the cause of something they do.
> > > > Given iam in this project for over 20 years and iam the main
> author
> > > and
> > > > we had a fork long ago. With many people joining back together.
> > > There are
> > > > people who have had past hate and present hate towards me.
> > > > Whenever there is an oppertunity, some will point to me as teh
> > > > cause.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Well "look who it is the consequences of my own actions"
> > >
> > >
> > > > It makes sense to look at these and ask "do they point to a
> real
> > > issue?"
> > > > is there something we can learn and improve or is this just
> dislike
> > > towards
> > > > me and are they just asking for me to be "hanged"/"removed".
> > > >
> > >
> > > Who banned someone without cause and due process, and deleted the
> > > archive?
> > > Who is undermining the GA and filibustering the ffmpeg
> governance?
> > > Who prevented the previous CC from operating?
> > > Who is ignoring the scam of the ffmpeg booths at trade shows?
> > > Who helped keep relevant parts of the infrastructure hidden for
> > > years?
> > > Who is preventing new roots from joining and actual
> infrastructure
> > > work
> > > being done?
> > > Who posted insulting images on social networks?
> > > Who quoted the STF an unreasonable amount of money for a project
> that
> > > *everybody* agrees is not worth that much?
> > > Who argued for MONTHS about dubious code features, and pushed
> code
> > > (later
> > > reverted) to the main tree because it served their own branch?
> > > Who is refusing to join community discussions in person (or
> > > remotely), and
> > > keeps posting walls of text that are hard to track and makes
> > > following the
> > > discussion harder than needs to be?
> > > Who is pretending to be democratic and trying to appear as a
> martyr,
> > > causing people to leave while they actually wanted to contribute
> and
> > > help
> > > steward this community?
> > >
> > > I don't want to get banned again for posting a bullet list, but I
> > > definitely see a pattern. AND THIS IS JUST IN THE LAST SIX
> MONTHS.
> > >
> > > The thing is NOBODY wants to see you hanged or removed, we're
> just
> > > pleading
> > > to your common sense and that you listen to the community,
> allowing
> > > for an
> > > independent governance to effectively operate ffmpeg. If you
> can't
> > > satisfy
> > > the community requests, then yes, the "unfriendly emails" will
> > > continue
> > > until this behavior is put to an end. And I know you won't
> believe me
> > > because I'm from "the other side", but once again I invite you to
> the
> > > FOSDEM ffmpeg meeting and see what the community really thinks
> and
> > > wants
> > > for yourself.
> > >
> > > I do belive one big part of some people leaving over the last
> years
> > > is that
> > > > they are not enough in power.
> > > >
> > >
> > > This reads like "I want them to be good minions while I continue
> to
> > > do what
> > > I want", but you're right it's off topic.
> >
> >
> > for (i=0; i<12; i++) {
> >     print("You did this you did that");
> > }
> >
> > if (!(<give us control over ffmpeg>)) {
> >     for (i=0; i<1000; i++) {
> >         sendEmail("<more accusations>");
> >     }
> > }
> >
> >
> > Sounds like the accusations are more a leverage than a concern..?
> >
> 
> Sounds like you are not adding anything to the discussion, but thanks
> for
> sharing your view.

You're very welcome, but which discussion? 

If this is the way you are discussing, then I don't want to see you shit-storming. 😃
I haven't followed the stories behind those individual points you are listing - I read a bit through things but for most of them, I'm not in a position (from knowledge) to do any judgement.

But what I can judge is your way of communication and presentation, plus the fact that this is at least the 4th repetition of the same content in the same aggressive form.

It is obvious that you are not interested in resolving the individual "points" you are listing. You want to gain more control over all aspects of the ffmpeg project (for "the community") and to fund that argument, you have assembled that list of "bad incidents" that all wouldn't have happened when the project would under control of somebody else (like you? >> or course "backed" by the community).

But community or not - it's always actual persons who have certain powers in their hands. 
And my personal view on that is that those who are speaking up so loudly and dirty for gaining control are the very last ones to which I would want to give such powers.

sw


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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Zhao Zhili (12025-01-29):
> I don’t stay long enough to know the history, but I don’t think delving into history
> helps the current situation. Let's talk less about history and hatred to avoid creating
> a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The situation affecting the project right now is extremely similar to
the events of ~15 years ago that led to a fork and harmed the project
immensely.

We are seeing the same strategy deployed. If we want to avoid the same
harm happening, we need to realize how it happened the first time.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 12:52 PM Soft Works <
softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:

>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > Vittorio Giovara
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 11:51 AM
> > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 11:32 AM Soft Works <
> > softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > > > Vittorio Giovara
> > > > Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 10:45 AM
> > > > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > > > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > > > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM Michael Niedermayer
> > > > <michael@niedermayer.cc>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > About people pointing to me as the cause of something they do.
> > > > > Given iam in this project for over 20 years and iam the main
> > author
> > > > and
> > > > > we had a fork long ago. With many people joining back together.
> > > > There are
> > > > > people who have had past hate and present hate towards me.
> > > > > Whenever there is an oppertunity, some will point to me as teh
> > > > > cause.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Well "look who it is the consequences of my own actions"
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > It makes sense to look at these and ask "do they point to a
> > real
> > > > issue?"
> > > > > is there something we can learn and improve or is this just
> > dislike
> > > > towards
> > > > > me and are they just asking for me to be "hanged"/"removed".
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Who banned someone without cause and due process, and deleted the
> > > > archive?
> > > > Who is undermining the GA and filibustering the ffmpeg
> > governance?
> > > > Who prevented the previous CC from operating?
> > > > Who is ignoring the scam of the ffmpeg booths at trade shows?
> > > > Who helped keep relevant parts of the infrastructure hidden for
> > > > years?
> > > > Who is preventing new roots from joining and actual
> > infrastructure
> > > > work
> > > > being done?
> > > > Who posted insulting images on social networks?
> > > > Who quoted the STF an unreasonable amount of money for a project
> > that
> > > > *everybody* agrees is not worth that much?
> > > > Who argued for MONTHS about dubious code features, and pushed
> > code
> > > > (later
> > > > reverted) to the main tree because it served their own branch?
> > > > Who is refusing to join community discussions in person (or
> > > > remotely), and
> > > > keeps posting walls of text that are hard to track and makes
> > > > following the
> > > > discussion harder than needs to be?
> > > > Who is pretending to be democratic and trying to appear as a
> > martyr,
> > > > causing people to leave while they actually wanted to contribute
> > and
> > > > help
> > > > steward this community?
> > > >
> > > > I don't want to get banned again for posting a bullet list, but I
> > > > definitely see a pattern. AND THIS IS JUST IN THE LAST SIX
> > MONTHS.
> > > >
> > > > The thing is NOBODY wants to see you hanged or removed, we're
> > just
> > > > pleading
> > > > to your common sense and that you listen to the community,
> > allowing
> > > > for an
> > > > independent governance to effectively operate ffmpeg. If you
> > can't
> > > > satisfy
> > > > the community requests, then yes, the "unfriendly emails" will
> > > > continue
> > > > until this behavior is put to an end. And I know you won't
> > believe me
> > > > because I'm from "the other side", but once again I invite you to
> > the
> > > > FOSDEM ffmpeg meeting and see what the community really thinks
> > and
> > > > wants
> > > > for yourself.
> > > >
> > > > I do belive one big part of some people leaving over the last
> > years
> > > > is that
> > > > > they are not enough in power.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > This reads like "I want them to be good minions while I continue
> > to
> > > > do what
> > > > I want", but you're right it's off topic.
> > >
> > >
> > > for (i=0; i<12; i++) {
> > >     print("You did this you did that");
> > > }
> > >
> > > if (!(<give us control over ffmpeg>)) {
> > >     for (i=0; i<1000; i++) {
> > >         sendEmail("<more accusations>");
> > >     }
> > > }
> > >
> > >
> > > Sounds like the accusations are more a leverage than a concern..?
> > >
> >
> > Sounds like you are not adding anything to the discussion, but thanks
> > for
> > sharing your view.
>
> You're very welcome, but which discussion?
>
> If this is the way you are discussing, then I don't want to see you
> shit-storming. 😃
> I haven't followed the stories behind those individual points you are
> listing - I read a bit through things but for most of them, I'm not in a
> position (from knowledge) to do any judgement.
>
> But what I can judge is your way of communication and presentation, plus
> the fact that this is at least the 4th repetition of the same content in
> the same aggressive form.
>
> It is obvious that you are not interested in resolving the individual
> "points" you are listing. You want to gain more control over all aspects of
> the ffmpeg project (for "the community") and to fund that argument, you
> have assembled that list of "bad incidents" that all wouldn't have happened
> when the project would under control of somebody else (like you? >> or
> course "backed" by the community).
>
> But community or not - it's always actual persons who have certain powers
> in their hands.
> And my personal view on that is that those who are speaking up so loudly
> and dirty for gaining control are the very last ones to which I would want
> to give such powers.
>

You are skewing the discuscussion and attacking me while constructing a
conspiracy theory that is not true (I don't want to gain any control at
all, I want a community-decided process for most of the problems I raised)
and contracting yourself while at at it (the loudest by length and number
of mails on the subject is definitely not me).

Please just do better.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Niklas Haas]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 13:39:36 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:
> Zhao Zhili (12025-01-29):
> > I don’t stay long enough to know the history, but I don’t think delving into history
> > helps the current situation. Let's talk less about history and hatred to avoid creating
> > a self-fulfilling prophecy.
>
> “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
>
> The situation affecting the project right now is extremely similar to
> the events of ~15 years ago that led to a fork and harmed the project
> immensely.
>
> We are seeing the same strategy deployed. If we want to avoid the same
> harm happening, we need to realize how it happened the first time.

I think the most important crux of the problem is a fundamental disagreement
between Michael and the "community" (for lack of a better term) about the role
of the CC (and by extension, the GA). Michael is under the impression that they
(should) serve a mere advisory role, with Michael himself having final say in
matters both technical and non-technical. The "community", on the other hand,
seems to be under the impression that the CC/GA is supposed to have the final
say.

I think that resolving this core dispute is the only way to quiet these non-stop
discussions, either by making it clear that the CC, TC and GA are merely advisory
with no actual power, or by Michael stepping down and handing control over
ffmpeg.org to the GA (via vote of new root admin).

I am not going to comment on which outcome is better for the long-term success
of the project, but I will point out that formally abolishing the GA as a ruling
entity is likely to be the tipping point that leads to another fork/schism.

I think that in summary, Michael is currently in the difficult position of which
he would rather lose - control over the FFmpeg name, or the developers that make
up the project.

And until a clear decision is made, the nonstop discussions will probably
continue indefinitely, amidst a backdrop of increasing hostility and dwindling
community numbers.

>
> Regards,
>
> --
>   Nicolas George
> _______________________________________________
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>
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Vittorio Giovara
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 3:39 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 12:52 PM Soft Works <
> softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > > Vittorio Giovara
> > > Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 11:51 AM
> > > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > > On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 11:32 AM Soft Works <
> > > softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On
> Behalf Of
> > > > > Vittorio Giovara
> > > > > Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 10:45 AM
> > > > > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > > > > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > > > > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> > > > >
> > > > > On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM Michael Niedermayer
> > > > > <michael@niedermayer.cc>
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > About people pointing to me as the cause of something they
> do.
> > > > > > Given iam in this project for over 20 years and iam the
> main
> > > author
> > > > > and
> > > > > > we had a fork long ago. With many people joining back
> together.
> > > > > There are
> > > > > > people who have had past hate and present hate towards me.
> > > > > > Whenever there is an oppertunity, some will point to me as
> teh
> > > > > > cause.
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Well "look who it is the consequences of my own actions"
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > It makes sense to look at these and ask "do they point to a
> > > real
> > > > > issue?"
> > > > > > is there something we can learn and improve or is this just
> > > dislike
> > > > > towards
> > > > > > me and are they just asking for me to be
> "hanged"/"removed".
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Who banned someone without cause and due process, and deleted
> the
> > > > > archive?
> > > > > Who is undermining the GA and filibustering the ffmpeg
> > > governance?
> > > > > Who prevented the previous CC from operating?
> > > > > Who is ignoring the scam of the ffmpeg booths at trade shows?
> > > > > Who helped keep relevant parts of the infrastructure hidden
> for
> > > > > years?
> > > > > Who is preventing new roots from joining and actual
> > > infrastructure
> > > > > work
> > > > > being done?
> > > > > Who posted insulting images on social networks?
> > > > > Who quoted the STF an unreasonable amount of money for a
> project
> > > that
> > > > > *everybody* agrees is not worth that much?
> > > > > Who argued for MONTHS about dubious code features, and pushed
> > > code
> > > > > (later
> > > > > reverted) to the main tree because it served their own
> branch?
> > > > > Who is refusing to join community discussions in person (or
> > > > > remotely), and
> > > > > keeps posting walls of text that are hard to track and makes
> > > > > following the
> > > > > discussion harder than needs to be?
> > > > > Who is pretending to be democratic and trying to appear as a
> > > martyr,
> > > > > causing people to leave while they actually wanted to
> contribute
> > > and
> > > > > help
> > > > > steward this community?
> > > > >
> > > > > I don't want to get banned again for posting a bullet list,
> but I
> > > > > definitely see a pattern. AND THIS IS JUST IN THE LAST SIX
> > > MONTHS.
> > > > >
> > > > > The thing is NOBODY wants to see you hanged or removed, we're
> > > just
> > > > > pleading
> > > > > to your common sense and that you listen to the community,
> > > allowing
> > > > > for an
> > > > > independent governance to effectively operate ffmpeg. If you
> > > can't
> > > > > satisfy
> > > > > the community requests, then yes, the "unfriendly emails"
> will
> > > > > continue
> > > > > until this behavior is put to an end. And I know you won't
> > > believe me
> > > > > because I'm from "the other side", but once again I invite
> you to
> > > the
> > > > > FOSDEM ffmpeg meeting and see what the community really
> thinks
> > > and
> > > > > wants
> > > > > for yourself.
> > > > >
> > > > > I do belive one big part of some people leaving over the last
> > > years
> > > > > is that
> > > > > > they are not enough in power.
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > This reads like "I want them to be good minions while I
> continue
> > > to
> > > > > do what
> > > > > I want", but you're right it's off topic.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > for (i=0; i<12; i++) {
> > > >     print("You did this you did that");
> > > > }
> > > >
> > > > if (!(<give us control over ffmpeg>)) {
> > > >     for (i=0; i<1000; i++) {
> > > >         sendEmail("<more accusations>");
> > > >     }
> > > > }
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Sounds like the accusations are more a leverage than a
> concern..?
> > > >
> > >
> > > Sounds like you are not adding anything to the discussion, but
> thanks
> > > for
> > > sharing your view.
> >
> > You're very welcome, but which discussion?
> >
> > If this is the way you are discussing, then I don't want to see you
> > shit-storming. 😃
> > I haven't followed the stories behind those individual points you
> are
> > listing - I read a bit through things but for most of them, I'm not
> in a
> > position (from knowledge) to do any judgement.
> >
> > But what I can judge is your way of communication and presentation,
> plus
> > the fact that this is at least the 4th repetition of the same
> content in
> > the same aggressive form.
> >
> > It is obvious that you are not interested in resolving the
> individual
> > "points" you are listing. You want to gain more control over all
> aspects of
> > the ffmpeg project (for "the community") and to fund that argument,
> you
> > have assembled that list of "bad incidents" that all wouldn't have
> happened
> > when the project would under control of somebody else (like you? >>
> or
> > course "backed" by the community).
> >
> > But community or not - it's always actual persons who have certain
> powers
> > in their hands.
> > And my personal view on that is that those who are speaking up so
> loudly
> > and dirty for gaining control are the very last ones to which I
> would want
> > to give such powers.
> >
> 
> You are skewing the discuscussion and attacking me while constructing
> a
> conspiracy theory that is not true (I don't want to gain any control
> at
> all, I want a community-decided process for most of the problems I
> raised)
> and contracting yourself while at at it (the loudest by length and
> number
> of mails on the subject is definitely not me).

That's right, but you have achieved a top ranking in dirtiness and tone. Your messages do not even indicate the tiniest bit of seeking for agreement and consensus in a positive and constructive way. You are trying to increase pressure to achieve goals and you are even openly threatening to continue this kind of pressure if things don't go like you want them to go.

My last sentence wasn't directed to you specifically but exactly the way I said it. I don't find that people who are forming an angry mob and try to execute pressure to achieve their goals are suitable for taking a responsible position in such a project. 

I can imagine that things happened which made you angry and I'm sure you have valid points and reasonings and - as always in life - things are never black and white and mistakes are made on all sides.
But your approach with these kinds of messages doesn't lead anywhere. I'm not sure whether you've missed it, but Michael has already made very clear that what you are aiming for (handing over project control) is not going to happen, so that would be something to accommodate first before continuing a (constructive and positive) discussion about community involvement.

There doesn't exist any right for a "community" to take ownership of a project. That's at the sole discretion of the person who owns it. You should try to imagine that you would have led and factually owned a project for more than 20 years and eventually, some people come around, saying you should give up your ownership and let other people make the decisions while you'd just continue as a contributor. 

What would be your answer? (be honest!)

Mine would be: LOL - NO!


sw

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[compn]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 16:16:29 +0100, Niklas Haas wrote:

> I think the most important crux of the problem is a fundamental disagreement
> between Michael and the "community" (for lack of a better term) about the role
> of the CC (and by extension, the GA). Michael is under the impression that they
> (should) serve a mere advisory role, with Michael himself having final say in
> matters both technical and non-technical. The "community", on the other hand,
> seems to be under the impression that the CC/GA is supposed to have the final
> say.
> 
> I think that resolving this core dispute is the only way to quiet these non-stop
> discussions, either by making it clear that the CC, TC and GA are merely advisory
> with no actual power, or by Michael stepping down and handing control over
> ffmpeg.org to the GA (via vote of new root admin).

ffmpeg is ran by the community currently, and always has been.
ffmpeg has never been ran by a vote. there have always been multiple
people in charge of the ffmpeg server. i know, because i've been here
for 20 years.

we can see how badly something ran by GA vote works right now. with our
own eyes. ffmpeg just had a vote for the CC and two developers
immediately quit working in the CC. why did we just waste all that
time with a vote then?

michael is not a supervillain. saying its "michael vs the
community" ? please stop with these personal statements against
any individual developers in the project on this mailing list.

if people are going to fork, then fork. ffmpeg has plenty of active and
inactive forks. its not the end of the world. just a fork. 

i hope a certain vocal subset of people will stop blackmailing this
project with the "if we dont get our way, we'll quit/fork" stuff. its
not a friendly nor professional ultimatum.

-compn
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 5:12 PM compn <ff@hawaiiantel.net> wrote:

> we can see how badly something ran by GA vote works right now. with our
> own eyes. ffmpeg just had a vote for the CC and two developers
> immediately quit working in the CC. why did we just waste all that
> time with a vote then?
>

I respect the fact that you prefer the single leader governance model for
ffmpeg, but please do not spread misinformation. The reason why two
developers stepped down from the CC was because Micheal prevented doing
effective work in the previous year of the CC, and because Michael single
handedly banned a person (me) and then tried to pass it off as the whole CC
was involved in the decision.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 4:24 PM Soft Works <
softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:

> > You are skewing the discuscussion and attacking me while constructing
> > a
> > conspiracy theory that is not true (I don't want to gain any control
> > at
> > all, I want a community-decided process for most of the problems I
> > raised)
> > and contracting yourself while at at it (the loudest by length and
> > number
> > of mails on the subject is definitely not me).
>
> That's right, but you have achieved a top ranking in dirtiness and tone.
> Your messages do not even indicate the tiniest bit of seeking for agreement
> and consensus in a positive and constructive way. You are trying to
> increase pressure to achieve goals and you are even openly threatening to
> continue this kind of pressure if things don't go like you want them to go.
>

And I think you have achieved a top ranking in not knowing what you're
talking about. You admitted not having a full picture and not being there
for most of the incidents I raised, and yet you're here spewing judgment
and making allegations that were never in the original messages. And then
you later make pontifications about how the discussion should be
constructive and positive, when you yourself made the conversation more
difficult.

And to be clear I was not seeking any agreement, I was merely trying *once
again* to explain to Micheal why people are tired of his behavior and that
just disagreeing with the leadership of the project does not directly mean
"attacking" Micheal.

My last sentence wasn't directed to you specifically but exactly the way I
> said it. I don't find that people who are forming an angry mob and try to
> execute pressure to achieve their goals are suitable for taking a
> responsible position in such a project.
>

I don't find that people in power who agree to transitioning to a different
governance model and change their mind because things aren't as rosy as
they expected should go away unscathed either. At least I'm glad people's
true colors are manifest now.


> I can imagine that things happened which made you angry and I'm sure you
> have valid points and reasonings and - as always in life - things are never
> black and white and mistakes are made on all sides.
>

This is pure whataboutism, which is really unhelpful.


> But your approach with these kinds of messages doesn't lead anywhere. I'm
> not sure whether you've missed it, but Michael has already made very clear
> that what you are aiming for (handing over project control) is not going to
> happen, so that would be something to accommodate first before continuing a
> (constructive and positive) discussion about community involvement.
>

I mean, your approach of using code as a mockery instead of actual words is
not leading anywhere either. I appreciate you took the time now to explain
your (largely uninformed) view, maybe start with that next time.

For sure, I wish a constructive and positive discussion could happen, in
fact I advertised a community meet happening at Fosdem and invited Micheal
to it. But it's a two way process, compromises need to happen on both
sides, and Micheal's position has been more and more enfranchised in being
the victim, while it's just a consequence of events he set in motion (for
the most part).


> There doesn't exist any right for a "community" to take ownership of a
> project. That's at the sole discretion of the person who owns it. You
> should try to imagine that you would have led and factually owned a project
> for more than 20 years and eventually, some people come around, saying you
> should give up your ownership and let other people make the decisions while
> you'd just continue as a contributor.


In a company scenario, there is a board of directors which may remove the
CEO at any time. When the whole board of most active contributors all agree
that the project leader is not acting in the benefit of the community,
maybe it would be high time for an examination of conscience.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Vittorio Giovara
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 5:24 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 4:24 PM Soft Works <
> softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> 
> > > You are skewing the discuscussion and attacking me while
> constructing
> > > a
> > > conspiracy theory that is not true (I don't want to gain any
> control
> > > at
> > > all, I want a community-decided process for most of the problems
> I
> > > raised)
> > > and contracting yourself while at at it (the loudest by length
> and
> > > number
> > > of mails on the subject is definitely not me).
> >
> > That's right, but you have achieved a top ranking in dirtiness and
> tone.
> > Your messages do not even indicate the tiniest bit of seeking for
> agreement
> > and consensus in a positive and constructive way. You are trying to
> > increase pressure to achieve goals and you are even openly
> threatening to
> > continue this kind of pressure if things don't go like you want
> them to go.
> >
> 
> And I think you have achieved a top ranking in not knowing what
> you're
> talking about. You admitted not having a full picture and not being
> there
> for most of the incidents I raised, and yet you're here spewing
> judgment
> and making allegations that were never in the original messages. And
> then
> you later make pontifications about how the discussion should be
> constructive and positive, when you yourself made the conversation
> more
> difficult.

I was criticizing your way of discussing, which I don't consider constructive or fruitful, that's all. I don't intend to go into arguing about details, I think we're clear enough about each other's positions without hard feelings (I hope 😊)

Thanks
sw


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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hello,

Re: Soft Works
Let's not mock people please. You are entitled to your opinion but we
can leave the colorful language and mockery out.
Not saying you are the first and only one, I am aware this is a
chronic habit for the community email threads at large, but I ask
yourself and everyone for help with cordial tone setting.

Re: Michael
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I think we as a community need
to separate what is emotionally attributed as "blame Michael" vs. what
are the improvements we need to make in the bureaucracy. Based on
comments here there are people requesting improvement from leadership
style all around, yours included. I'm hoping that we do find a ground
for a meeting or continued calm discussion here, and we can
collaborate on the agenda to factor and moderate arguments on both
sides of the coin while putting personal feuds and harmful tone in the
parking lot.

I am not able to contribute much for the next few hours but will
continue to catch up more on the thread once I can.
Thanks
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> compn
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 5:13 PM
> To: ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> michael is not a supervillain. saying its "michael vs the
> community" ? please stop with these personal statements against
> any individual developers in the project on this mailing list.
> 
> if people are going to fork, then fork. ffmpeg has plenty of active
> and
> inactive forks. its not the end of the world. just a fork.
> 
> i hope a certain vocal subset of people will stop blackmailing this
> project with the "if we dont get our way, we'll quit/fork" stuff. its
> not a friendly nor professional ultimatum.

Eventually it's also not a thing as big as last time. There are many great developers out there, they've just been consequently fenced out and made to walk away before having even arrived. It would just take a while for the word to spread that developers are finally (and really) welcome.

sw
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Marth64
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 5:59 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Re: Soft Works
> Let's not mock people please. You are entitled to your opinion but we
> can leave the colorful language and mockery out.

What do you mean by "colorful language"?

And "mockery" - you mean the pseudo code? What's wrong about that? I could have said the same in many words as well.

sw
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi Soft Works,

> What do you mean by "colorful language"?
> And "mockery" - you mean the pseudo code? What's wrong about that? I could have said the same in many words as well.
Words are fine and passionate opinions are fine. The pseudocode and
"shit-storming" comment came off the wrong way, that's all.
My ask for all is to frame and articulate what we have to say in a better way.

Thank you
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Marth64
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 5:59 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Re: Soft Works
> Let's not mock people please. You are entitled to your opinion but we
> can leave the colorful language and mockery out.
> Not saying you are the first and only one, I am aware this is a
> chronic habit for the community email threads at large, but I ask
> yourself and everyone for help with cordial tone setting.

Are actually serious? People are accusing, insulting, attacking, threatening and tons of other bad things, while I'm writing direct and to the point but respectful and friendly - and still it's me who you're addressing?

There seems to be a crack in the matrix.

sw
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Marth64
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 6:15 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> Hi Soft Works,
> 
> > What do you mean by "colorful language"?
> > And "mockery" - you mean the pseudo code? What's wrong about that?
> I could have said the same in many words as well.
> Words are fine and passionate opinions are fine. The pseudocode and
> "shit-storming" comment came off the wrong way, that's all.

The same aggressive accusations and threats by the same person sent for 4th time. 

I'm afraid, but this _is_ SHIT-STORMING and I just named what it is.

sw
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

Hi SW,
would you mind moving to a different thread or at least changing the email
subject?
This discussion is already hard enough to follow without you throwing a fit.
Thank you
Vittorio

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 6:23 PM Soft Works <
softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:

>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > Marth64
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 6:15 PM
> > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> >
> > Hi Soft Works,
> >
> > > What do you mean by "colorful language"?
> > > And "mockery" - you mean the pseudo code? What's wrong about that?
> > I could have said the same in many words as well.
> > Words are fine and passionate opinions are fine. The pseudocode and
> > "shit-storming" comment came off the wrong way, that's all.
>
> The same aggressive accusations and threats by the same person sent for
> 4th time.
>
> I'm afraid, but this _is_ SHIT-STORMING and I just named what it is.
>
> sw
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> ffmpeg-devel-request@ffmpeg.org with subject "unsubscribe".
>


-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hello all,

The thread is passionate but I'm requesting help from everyone to
please help me make it more productive than negative.

I agree with Zhao Zhili:
> I don’t stay long enough to know the history, but I don’t think delving into history
> helps the current situation. Let's talk less about history and hatred to avoid creating
> a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We should focus on what are the pillars to move forward and to be
frank email is getting tough to discuss this.

Thank you
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Soft Works
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 6:23 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > Marth64
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 6:15 PM
> > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> >
> > Hi Soft Works,
> >
> > > What do you mean by "colorful language"?
> > > And "mockery" - you mean the pseudo code? What's wrong about
> that?
> > I could have said the same in many words as well.
> > Words are fine and passionate opinions are fine. The pseudocode and
> > "shit-storming" comment came off the wrong way, that's all.
> 
> The same aggressive accusations and threats by the same person sent
> for 4th time.
> 
> I'm afraid, but this _is_ SHIT-STORMING and I just named what it is.
> 

It took me 20 minutes to even get the point. I have seen respectable persons, even a school teacher (albeit German) saying "shitstorm". I was and still am considering it as a technical term, expressing exactly and only for what it's commonly used.
You will never see me writing the first part word or any other kinds of swear words, for which I think there must be no room on this ML or any other public discussion.

So I apologize for the misunderstanding. I didn't intend to be rude or hurt anybody's feelings, I just meant to express for what it's commonly used and didn't mean to take the conversation some levels downwards.

sw



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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi Soft Works,
> So I apologize for the misunderstanding. I didn't intend to be rude or hurt anybody's feelings, I just meant to express for what it's commonly used and didn't mean to take the conversation some levels downwards.

It's okay. You're entitled to share your opinion too. I was not trying
to make an example out of you, I know inflammatory language happens in
bursts in the ML and to some extent it's become a norm.
I alone can't break that habit but I'm trying to put a lid on it.
You're not the only one and this isn't the only instance.

We can pivot back to the main thread.

Thanks
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Here is an idea,
Can we try to lay out the friction points in a table or bullet format
where we can separate the issue from emotion and direct name calling?

For example,
" * Community has issue ABC but we can't move forward because senior
leaders don't agree"
" * Community has issue XYZ but we can't move forward because the
framework doesn't support it"
...
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 6:27 PM Marth64 <marth64@proxyid.net> wrote:
>
> Here is an idea,
> Can we try to lay out the friction points in a table or bullet format
> where we can separate the issue from emotion and direct name calling?
>
> For example,
> " * Community has issue ABC but we can't move forward because senior
> leaders don't agree"
> " * Community has issue XYZ but we can't move forward because the
> framework doesn't support it"

The community wants the GA/TC/CC to be sovereign, but Michael blocks
enforcement.
The community wants transparency about infrastructure, but Michael
refuses to publish.
The community doesn't want arbitrary censorship, but Michael and his
surrogates do.

etc.

Just ask ChatGPT to rewrite Vittorio's email.

Kieran
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Ronald S. Bultje]

Hi Ben,

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 11:12 AM compn <ff@hawaiiantel.net> wrote:

> we can see how badly something ran by GA vote works right now. with our
> own eyes. ffmpeg just had a vote for the CC and two developers
> immediately quit working in the CC. why did we just waste all that
> time with a vote then?


That's a fair question - but haven't we typically also had a process to
replace members stepping down from the CC? The CC that I was part of had
members step down, and we managed to replace them with other excellent
contributors and it worked out OK in the end. The current CC could no doubt
do something similar?

Ronald
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi Kieran:

Trying to distill to a start of discussion points at the high level
(without GPT).
Converting the statements, from (issue)->(Michael) to (issue)->(effect):

* The community wants the GA/TC/CC to be sovereign, but there is a
BDOL model too which is not easily compatible, causing uncertainty
about democracy in the project.
We could inventory what the new operating models could be.
Michael can make proposals too. Could this be a vote?

* The community wants transparency about infrastructure, but Michael
refuses to publish.
Is Michael the only blocking factor? Is a possible solution that the
information is published with an expanded need-to-know audience?

* The community doesn't want arbitrary censorship, but there have been
recent instances of this and it's causing friction.
We could align on who gets the censorship rights and separate it from
the infrastructure work itself.

Is there one of these that we can have a focus group on and start with?

Thank you
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> I think the most important crux of the problem is a fundamental disagreement
> between Michael and the "community" (for lack of a better term) about the role
> of the CC (and by extension, the GA).

That is a very biassed way of stating it.

For one thing, it is not Michael alone on one side. *Some members* of
what you call community have expressed violent opposition to Michael.
But *other members* have expressed, support for Michael, yet other
members have agreed to arguments on both side successively, and the
majority have not expressed anything.

Furthermore, you will notice that the people who oppose Michael the most
violently are mostly people who initiated the failed hostile take-over
15 years ago (hence the importance of learning from history), who sided
with the resulting fork or who work closely with them.

That tells your these people who oppose Michael the most violently are
not adverse to hurting the project if it further their needs. They do
tread FFmpeg as a community, they treat it as a resource to be milked.
Since acting in the best interest of the community is a defining trait
of the concept, they should probably not be considered such.

>				Michael is under the impression that they
> (should) serve a mere advisory role, with Michael himself having final say in
> matters both technical and non-technical.

Michael wanted a genuine democracy but is now realizing it leads to very
bad outcomes.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Marth64 (12025-01-29):
> * The community wants

Please do not accept uncritically what a greedy minority limply
supported by a silent majority wants to pass as the will of the
community.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Marth64]

Hi Nicolas:

> Please do not accept uncritically what a greedy minority limply
> supported by a silent majority wants to pass as the will of the
> community.

Help me understand your version so we can make a table to contrast?
Thanks
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Niklas Haas]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 21:51:27 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:
> Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> > I think the most important crux of the problem is a fundamental disagreement
> > between Michael and the "community" (for lack of a better term) about the role
> > of the CC (and by extension, the GA).
>
> That is a very biassed way of stating it.
>
> For one thing, it is not Michael alone on one side.

As I pointed out in the past, I am implicitly assuming that Timo, Fabrice, and
other current holders of admin rights would go along with whatever Michael
decides, so that makes Michael alone the only person who is blocking the will of
the CC (and by extension, the GA).

If you have reason to believe otherwise, then indeed the situation is more
complicated. And then we may have a third faction consisting of some subset of
(Michael, Timo, Fabrice, and possibly other people we were not made aware of).

> *Some members* of
> what you call community have expressed violent opposition to Michael.
> But *other members* have expressed, support for Michael, yet other
> members have agreed to arguments on both side successively, and the
> majority have not expressed anything.

The CC was elected by a majority of the GA, so for all intents and purposes,
the CC is the closest representation of the majority opinion as we are
likely to ever have.

>
> Furthermore, you will notice that the people who oppose Michael the most
> violently are mostly people who initiated the failed hostile take-over
> 15 years ago (hence the importance of learning from history), who sided
> with the resulting fork or who work closely with them.

Yes, obviously. That is exactly why I think that another fork is a likely
outcome at this point in time.

>
> That tells your these people who oppose Michael the most violently are
> not adverse to hurting the project if it further their needs. They do
> tread FFmpeg as a community, they treat it as a resource to be milked.
> Since acting in the best interest of the community is a defining trait
> of the concept, they should probably not be considered such.

This is a fallacious argument. From the point of view of the anti-Michael
faction, it is Michael's presence that is hurting the project the most. So you
could say the exact same thing about Michael's actions, with the same
circular justification.

>
> >				Michael is under the impression that they
> > (should) serve a mere advisory role, with Michael himself having final say in
> > matters both technical and non-technical.
>
> Michael wanted a genuine democracy but is now realizing it leads to very
> bad outcomes.

This seems like a direct contradiction of reality. Michael has repeatedly
made it clear that the community should *not* be in charge. It also goes
against what we established above, which is that people are leaving the
project precisely because it is *not* democratically run.

>
> Regards,
>
> --
>   Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Niklas Haas]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 06:12:30 -1000 compn <ff@hawaiiantel.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 16:16:29 +0100, Niklas Haas wrote:
>
> > I think the most important crux of the problem is a fundamental disagreement
> > between Michael and the "community" (for lack of a better term) about the role
> > of the CC (and by extension, the GA). Michael is under the impression that they
> > (should) serve a mere advisory role, with Michael himself having final say in
> > matters both technical and non-technical. The "community", on the other hand,
> > seems to be under the impression that the CC/GA is supposed to have the final
> > say.
> >
> > I think that resolving this core dispute is the only way to quiet these non-stop
> > discussions, either by making it clear that the CC, TC and GA are merely advisory
> > with no actual power, or by Michael stepping down and handing control over
> > ffmpeg.org to the GA (via vote of new root admin).
>
> ffmpeg is ran by the community currently, and always has been.

It is run by a very, *very* vocal minority of the community.

> ffmpeg has never been ran by a vote. there have always been multiple
> people in charge of the ffmpeg server. i know, because i've been here
> for 20 years.
>
> we can see how badly something ran by GA vote works right now. with our
> own eyes. ffmpeg just had a vote for the CC and two developers
> immediately quit working in the CC. why did we just waste all that
> time with a vote then?

This is a fallacious argument because it rests on an empty hypothesis. The
CC has never had any actual power, ergo it is impossible to use it as an example
of what a community-led project would have looked like.

On the other hand, there are plenty of precedents out there in the wider
FOSS world that show that community-led projects can work just fine.

>
> michael is not a supervillain. saying its "michael vs the
> community" ? please stop with these personal statements against
> any individual developers in the project on this mailing list.

Michael is the current de-facto leader. It is literally impossible for me to
phrase it in any other way that does not unduly single him out as long as this
remains the status quo.

> if people are going to fork, then fork. ffmpeg has plenty of active and
> inactive forks. its not the end of the world. just a fork.

I thought we agreed that it's best to avoid this outcome if possible?

>
> i hope a certain vocal subset of people will stop blackmailing this
> project with the "if we dont get our way, we'll quit/fork" stuff. its
> not a friendly nor professional ultimatum.

At this point, I don't think it will stop until something changes.

>
> -compn
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> As I pointed out in the past, I am implicitly assuming that Timo, Fabrice, and
> other current holders of admin rights would go along with whatever Michael
> decides, so that makes Michael alone the only person who is blocking the will of
> the CC (and by extension, the GA).
> 
> If you have reason to believe otherwise, then indeed the situation is more
> complicated. And then we may have a third faction consisting of some subset of
> (Michael, Timo, Fabrice, and possibly other people we were not made aware of).

They agree with Michael, therefore we do not count them and say Michael
is alone. That is not just biassed, that is completely dishonest. 

> The CC was elected by a majority of the GA, so for all intents and purposes,
> the CC is the closest representation of the majority opinion as we are
> likely to ever have.

Indeed. And if you know anything about social choice theory, it is that
this “closest” is very far indeed. The reality is that there is no such
thing as a collective opinion.

> Yes, obviously. That is exactly why I think that another fork is a likely
> outcome at this point in time.

Then the only viable strategy is to make sure the people who fork are
the harmful ones.

> This is a fallacious argument. From the point of view of the anti-Michael
> faction, it is Michael's presence that is hurting the project the most. So you
> could say the exact same thing about Michael's actions, with the same
> circular justification.

Once again: learn from history. The forkers drove their fork into the
ground, Michael made the original branch strive.

> This seems like a direct contradiction of reality. Michael has repeatedly
> made it clear that the community should *not* be in charge.

Michael, literally one hour ago: “Allow every contributor to have a
vote, ensuring all voices are heard, regardless of their role or level
of involvement.”

>								It also goes
> against what we established above, which is that people are leaving the
> project precisely because it is *not* democratically run.

This too is false, we established no such thing.

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> > if people are going to fork, then fork. ffmpeg has plenty of active and
> > inactive forks. its not the end of the world. just a fork.
> I thought we agreed that it's best to avoid this outcome if possible?

We agree on no such thing. If banning a few people who do not behave in
the best interest of the project and would rather bully the leader into
resigning is the only way to work in peace, then that is what we should
do.

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Marth64 (12025-01-29):
> Help me understand your version so we can make a table to contrast?

Once again: learn from history.

What we are seeing here is a small group of people with some skills in
social engineering bullying Michael and manipulating occasional
contributors in order to take control of the project. Just like we saw
in the months leading to the attempted hostile takeover.

What I cannot say is whether the purpose is only a matter of
self-interest, steering the gratis work of Michael and other brilliant
contributors towards applications that are profitable for companies, or
whether some of them have more nefarious purposes, like some kind of
supply-chain attack.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Niklas Haas
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 10:22 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 21:51:27 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org>
> wrote:
> > Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> > > I think the most important crux of the problem is a fundamental
> disagreement
> > > between Michael and the "community" (for lack of a better term)
> about the role
> > > of the CC (and by extension, the GA).
> >
> > That is a very biassed way of stating it.
> >
> > For one thing, it is not Michael alone on one side.
> 
> As I pointed out in the past, I am implicitly assuming that Timo,
> Fabrice, and
> other current holders of admin rights would go along with whatever
> Michael
> decides, so that makes Michael alone the only person who is blocking
> the will of
> the CC (and by extension, the GA).
> 
> If you have reason to believe otherwise, then indeed the situation is
> more
> complicated. And then we may have a third faction consisting of some
> subset of
> (Michael, Timo, Fabrice, and possibly other people we were not made
> aware of).


You might be on a right track here, because I believe that the common assessment as laid out by several supporters of the "community governance model" matches reality just partially at best.

The common telling is that there's Michael on one side with a number of "his buddies" or "surrogates" and on the other side there's "the community" who want the project to be led by "the community" - all in agreement.

But that might be just wishful storytelling, as the situation is more complicated indeed. 
None of us have any figures, so we can't know exactly before any vote has happened, what I want to point out though, is that this idea of "Michael + Buddies" vs. "The Community" doesn't fit in its simplicity.

For example, I for myself am not a buddy of Michael. I don't know him at all beyond what's public, and while I'm glad to see that his description of the problems which the project has (which others are calling "wall of text") are very close to what I had written 3y ago, my primary motivation is of very different nature:

When I look at this community - how people communicate, interact and behave - how different and scattered the individual intentions are - how much hatred and resentment exists - seeing the disability to resolve conflicts or even communicate properly - the attitude of demanding rights and power without taking responsibility and serving the project - and lastly the illusory idea that a project could be run and led, solely on the basis of voting on each and everything - all this (+more) brings me to that single conclusion: 

This "community" in its current form and appearance and the way it is represented by its members is fundamentally incapable of leading and executing control over a project like ffmpeg.
I'm aware that there are projects where this is working, same as I've seen projects where all members are pretty much on the same line and when there's a committee with a handful of members, persons leave, other persons join, but that doesn't change anything because they all share the same ideas and plans and all are working together hand-in-hand.

But this community - the "ffmpeg community" is a very different case. It disqualifies itself as a potential project owner or leader almost on a daily basis.
IMO, this "community" getting control over the project is the worst thing that could happen, and no matter which alternatives there would be to vote for, I would always vote for these over "community" ownership.

There are others who are watching this ML from a distance and thinking about the same - just silently.
We don't know figures, but nobody should think it would be a sure thing that all "non-buddies" would want and vote for a community ownership.

Further, many developers here are working for the industry in one or another form, and what businesses want is stability and predictability - not a community where majorities might be volatile and it can quickly happen that strategically important code is thrown out of ffmpeg by vote from a group of ideologists who managed to gain an intermittent majority.

Finally, there are also contributors who don't care about community, membership or influence - they just want to get their code merged without trouble. Will they vote for a community governance where every little nit from someone will require to conduct a vote on it?


TL/DR
It shouldn't be taken for granted that there's even a majority for "community ownership".

sw



  
















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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:36 PM Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:

> > Yes, obviously. That is exactly why I think that another fork is a likely
> > outcome at this point in time.
>
> Then the only viable strategy is to make sure the people who fork are
> the harmful ones.
>

So you're leaving? Don't let the door hit ya on the way out :)
(not an attack, just a joke to defuse the tension)

> This is a fallacious argument. From the point of view of the anti-Michael
> > faction, it is Michael's presence that is hurting the project the most.
> So you
> > could say the exact same thing about Michael's actions, with the same
> > circular justification.
>
> Once again: learn from history. The forkers drove their fork into the
> ground, Michael made the original branch strive.
>

Learn from history and let's not be revisionists. The forkers were happily
trying to strive on their own but Micheal merged everything in ffmpeg,
including often incomplete and unfinished work, which made the whole fork
war an arms or feature race that was unfair to compete on. Once again, he's
the consequence of his own actions, if he left the forkers be, we'd not be
in this situation, but that's beside the point.


> > This seems like a direct contradiction of reality. Michael has repeatedly
> > made it clear that the community should *not* be in charge.
>
> Michael, literally one hour ago: “Allow every contributor to have a
> vote, ensuring all voices are heard, regardless of their role or level
> of involvement.”
>

Which means any debate will result in a social network exercise and just
giving power to the de facto leader.
It's like saying that every single citizen should vote on every single law
proposed by parliament, it makes no sense!


> >                                                               It also
> goes
> > against what we established above, which is that people are leaving the
> > project precisely because it is *not* democratically run.
>
> This too is false, we established no such thing.
>

Will you stop spreading lies? This is literally what happened, and if you
don't believe me, feel free to ask the people involved directly.
It is a well established fact, and we're not going into "you said they
said" territory about this.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:45 PM Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:

> Marth64 (12025-01-29):
> > Help me understand your version so we can make a table to contrast?
>
> Once again: learn from history.
>
> What we are seeing here is a small group of people with some skills in
> social engineering bullying Michael and manipulating occasional
> contributors in order to take control of the project. Just like we saw
> in the months leading to the attempted hostile takeover.
>

No, what we're seeing is a few representatives of the community speak up
because they are tired of your and Micheal's BS.
You are welcome to come to Fosdem and see for yourself.

What I cannot say is whether the purpose is only a matter of
> self-interest, steering the gratis work of Michael and other brilliant
> contributors towards applications that are profitable for companies, or
> whether some of them have more nefarious purposes, like some kind of
> supply-chain attack.
>

again with the conspiracy theories, stop, it's becoming a meme

I personally do not want to be in a project where the longest email wins,
where people can just use the name and represent ffmpeg at trade shows
without proper authorization, where people can be removed at will, where a
random mailing list admin can silence a thread.

You might be shielded because you're an official friend of Micheal, but
others might not be so lucky, and would prefer a proper process.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Thu, Jan 30, 2025 at 12:27 AM Soft Works <
softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:

> >
> > If you have reason to believe otherwise, then indeed the situation is
> > more
> > complicated. And then we may have a third faction consisting of some
> > subset of
> > (Michael, Timo, Fabrice, and possibly other people we were not made
> > aware of).
>
>
> You might be on a right track here, because I believe that the common
> assessment as laid out by several supporters of the "community governance
> model" matches reality just partially at best.
>
> The common telling is that there's Michael on one side with a number of
> "his buddies" or "surrogates" and on the other side there's "the community"
> who want the project to be led by "the community" - all in agreement.
>
> But that might be just wishful storytelling, as the situation is more
> complicated indeed.
> None of us have any figures, so we can't know exactly before any vote has
> happened, what I want to point out though, is that this idea of "Michael +
> Buddies" vs. "The Community" doesn't fit in its simplicity.
>

That does not mean it would be worth trying something different. I already
listed the incidents I've just seen happen before my eyes in this mailing
list and these are not fun incidents. Ideally there should be some
guarantee beyond Micheal's word not to repeat them again. What you're
saying is "this is how it has always been, therefore we should just accept
it", which is unfair, especially to the most active contributors.

Once again, you are invited to the fosdem meeting and see for yourself what
the community really wants.

This "community" in its current form and appearance and the way it is
> represented by its members is fundamentally incapable of leading and
> executing control over a project like ffmpeg.
> I'm aware that there are projects where this is working, same as I've seen
> projects where all members are pretty much on the same line and when
> there's a committee with a handful of members, persons leave, other persons
> join, but that doesn't change anything because they all share the same
> ideas and plans and all are working together hand-in-hand.
>

This is like your opinion man.


> But this community - the "ffmpeg community" is a very different case. It
> disqualifies itself as a potential project owner or leader almost on a
> daily basis.
> IMO, this "community" getting control over the project is the worst thing
> that could happen, and no matter which alternatives there would be to vote
> for, I would always vote for these over "community" ownership.
>

we established this point, you posted this way more than 4 times :)


> There are others who are watching this ML from a distance and thinking
> about the same - just silently.
> We don't know figures, but nobody should think it would be a sure thing
> that all "non-buddies" would want and vote for a community ownership.
>

Including people who would like to join the community but are horrified by
how things are. And it's 2025, nobody will join a project where the leader
can ban at will, hussle sponsors, and support conspiracy theorists, despite
the name.


> Further, many developers here are working for the industry in one or
> another form, and what businesses want is stability and predictability -
> not a community where majorities might be volatile and it can quickly
> happen that strategically important code is thrown out of ffmpeg by vote
> from a group of ideologists who managed to gain an intermittent majority.
>

Bold of you to imply that Micheal's decision are anything but stable ;)
Having a well established process is way more predictable than someone
using AI to write emails.


> Finally, there are also contributors who don't care about community,
> membership or influence - they just want to get their code merged without
> trouble. Will they vote for a community governance where every little nit
> from someone will require to conduct a vote on it?
>

Another "what if" of an unlikely scenario - it's already like this, in the
unlikely case of conflict we have a TC that does what you describe when
needed.
I'm sure you understand 5 people have an easier time managing a case than
the whole community.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Vittorio Giovara (12025-01-30):
> No, what we're seeing is a few representatives of the community

Nobody appointed them.

Nobody appointed you.

I am more representative of the community than anybody who has been
bullying Michael to leave.
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Tobias Rapp]

On 29/01/2025 12:52, Soft Works wrote:

> [...]
>
>>>
>>> for (i=0; i<12; i++) {
>>>      print("You did this you did that");
>>> }
>>>
>>> if (!(<give us control over ffmpeg>)) {
>>>      for (i=0; i<1000; i++) {
>>>          sendEmail("<more accusations>");
>>>      }
>>> }
>>>
>>>
>>> Sounds like the accusations are more a leverage than a concern..?
>>>
>> Sounds like you are not adding anything to the discussion, but thanks
>> for
>> sharing your view.
> You're very welcome, but which discussion?
>
> If this is the way you are discussing, then I don't want to see you shit-storming. 😃
> I haven't followed the stories behind those individual points you are listing - I read a bit through things but for most of them, I'm not in a position (from knowledge) to do any judgement.
>
> But what I can judge is your way of communication and presentation, plus the fact that this is at least the 4th repetition of the same content in the same aggressive form.
>
> It is obvious that you are not interested in resolving the individual "points" you are listing. You want to gain more control over all aspects of the ffmpeg project (for "the community") and to fund that argument, you have assembled that list of "bad incidents" that all wouldn't have happened when the project would under control of somebody else (like you? >> or course "backed" by the community).
>
> But community or not - it's always actual persons who have certain powers in their hands.
> And my personal view on that is that those who are speaking up so loudly and dirty for gaining control are the very last ones to which I would want to give such powers.
>
> sw

Thanks, this summarizes my feelings about the topic quite well.

Regards, Tobias


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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Thu, Jan 30, 2025 at 9:02 AM Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:

> Vittorio Giovara (12025-01-30):
> > No, what we're seeing is a few representatives of the community
>
> Nobody appointed them.
>
> Nobody appointed you.
>
> I am more representative of the community than anybody who has been
> bullying Michael to leave.
>

lmao, whatever you say mr president

and *ONCE AGAIN* stop spreading misinformation, nobody wants Micheal to
leave or is bullying him. We want him to follow the rules of everyone, and
avoid incidents like snapping and banning people at random, or giving free
reign to friends (for things like booths) while giving a hard time to
strangers (for things like security and infrastructure).

there needs to be a *process*, not this half assed system currently in
place, and no matter how much toxicity and lies you spread.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:21 PM Niklas Haas <ffmpeg@haasn.xyz> wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 21:51:27 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:
> > Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> > > I think the most important crux of the problem is a fundamental
> disagreement
> > > between Michael and the "community" (for lack of a better term) about
> the role
> > > of the CC (and by extension, the GA).
> >
> > That is a very biassed way of stating it.
> >
> > For one thing, it is not Michael alone on one side.
>
> As I pointed out in the past, I am implicitly assuming that Timo, Fabrice,
> and
> other current holders of admin rights would go along with whatever Michael
> decides, so that makes Michael alone the only person who is blocking the
> will of
> the CC (and by extension, the GA).
>
> If you have reason to believe otherwise, then indeed the situation is more
> complicated. And then we may have a third faction consisting of some
> subset of
> (Michael, Timo, Fabrice, and possibly other people we were not made aware
> of).
>
> > *Some members* of
> > what you call community have expressed violent opposition to Michael.
> > But *other members* have expressed, support for Michael, yet other
> > members have agreed to arguments on both side successively, and the
> > majority have not expressed anything.
>
> The CC was elected by a majority of the GA, so for all intents and
> purposes,
> the CC is the closest representation of the majority opinion as we are
> likely to ever have.
>
> >
> > Furthermore, you will notice that the people who oppose Michael the most
> > violently are mostly people who initiated the failed hostile take-over
> > 15 years ago (hence the importance of learning from history), who sided
> > with the resulting fork or who work closely with them.
>
> Yes, obviously. That is exactly why I think that another fork is a likely
> outcome at this point in time.
>
> >
> > That tells your these people who oppose Michael the most violently are
> > not adverse to hurting the project if it further their needs. They do
> > tread FFmpeg as a community, they treat it as a resource to be milked.
> > Since acting in the best interest of the community is a defining trait
> > of the concept, they should probably not be considered such.
>
> This is a fallacious argument. From the point of view of the anti-Michael
> faction, it is Michael's presence that is hurting the project the most. So
> you
> could say the exact same thing about Michael's actions, with the same
> circular justification.
>
> >
> > >                             Michael is under the impression that they
> > > (should) serve a mere advisory role, with Michael himself having final
> say in
> > > matters both technical and non-technical.
> >
> > Michael wanted a genuine democracy but is now realizing it leads to very
> > bad outcomes.
>
> This seems like a direct contradiction of reality. Michael has repeatedly
> made it clear that the community should *not* be in charge. It also goes
> against what we established above, which is that people are leaving the
> project precisely because it is *not* democratically run.
>

Thanks for the summary Niklas, it is pretty on point, and well articulated.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Vittorio Giovara
> Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2025 7:35 AM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> On Thu, Jan 30, 2025 at 12:27 AM Soft Works <
> softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> 
> > >
> > > If you have reason to believe otherwise, then indeed the
> situation is
> > > more
> > > complicated. And then we may have a third faction consisting of
> some
> > > subset of
> > > (Michael, Timo, Fabrice, and possibly other people we were not
> made
> > > aware of).
> >
> >
> > You might be on a right track here, because I believe that the
> common
> > assessment as laid out by several supporters of the "community
> governance
> > model" matches reality just partially at best.
> >
> > The common telling is that there's Michael on one side with a
> number of
> > "his buddies" or "surrogates" and on the other side there's "the
> community"
> > who want the project to be led by "the community" - all in
> agreement.
> >
> > But that might be just wishful storytelling, as the situation is
> more
> > complicated indeed.
> > None of us have any figures, so we can't know exactly before any
> vote has
> > happened, what I want to point out though, is that this idea of
> "Michael +
> > Buddies" vs. "The Community" doesn't fit in its simplicity.
> >
> 
> That does not mean it would be worth trying something different. I
> already
> listed the incidents I've just seen happen before my eyes in this
> mailing
> list and these are not fun incidents. Ideally there should be some
> guarantee beyond Micheal's word not to repeat them again. What you're
> saying is "this is how it has always been, therefore we should just
> accept
> it", which is unfair, especially to the most active contributors.

I'm not saying you should accept it because "this is how it has always been".
I'm saying you should accept it because the project has a private ownership which "is how it has always been".
This has been clear ever since and for all contributors. The project doesn't own the code - you are free to fork at any time and run your own thing. But there's nothing from which you could derive any right to demand for a change of ownership, neither is there any basis on which you could demand any "guarantees" regarding the owner's actions.


> Once again, you are invited to the fosdem meeting and see for
> yourself what
> the community really wants.

FOSDEM != "the community"

> This "community" in its current form and appearance and the way it is
> > represented by its members is fundamentally incapable of leading
> and
> > executing control over a project like ffmpeg.
> > I'm aware that there are projects where this is working, same as
> I've seen
> > projects where all members are pretty much on the same line and
> when
> > there's a committee with a handful of members, persons leave, other
> persons
> > join, but that doesn't change anything because they all share the
> same
> > ideas and plans and all are working together hand-in-hand.
> >
> 
> This is like your opinion man.

Yes, this is my opinion and it gets confirmed almost any other day when reading the ML. That a deeply divided community cannot be given control over a project like ffmpeg is just common sense imo, even though I respect that you have a different opinion.


> > There are others who are watching this ML from a distance and
> thinking
> > about the same - just silently.
> > We don't know figures, but nobody should think it would be a sure
> thing
> > that all "non-buddies" would want and vote for a community
> ownership.
> 
> Including people who would like to join the community but are
> horrified by how things are. 

The type of e-mails you are sending to the ML making a substantial part of those most "horrifying things".

> And it's 2025, nobody will join a project where the leader can ban at will

Hardly anybody cares about that, because nobody wants to write a mail like the one you did and, then building up a big drama show around the fact that it has been moderated.
I think the procedure wasn't okay, but I also think that the e-mail wasn't okay, so ideally it should have been moderated by an established procedure, yet the outcome would have been the same, that's why I don't share the excitement expressed by some others.

> hussle sponsors

No new contributor will care about that.


> > Further, many developers here are working for the industry in one
> or
> > another form, and what businesses want is stability and
> predictability -
> > not a community where majorities might be volatile and it can
> quickly
> > happen that strategically important code is thrown out of ffmpeg by
> vote
> > from a group of ideologists who managed to gain an intermittent
> majority.
> >
> 
> Bold of you to imply that Micheal's decision are anything but stable ;)

I'm sure you are having your points here, but those are not decisions which businesses are caring about. Few years ago, some started a discussion about removing code which is supporting hardware with closed-source APIs and when it wouldn't have meant to also remove support for Nvidia, it might have gone even further. These are decisions relevant for businesses and that's why they won't support handing over such decisions to "the community".

 
> > Finally, there are also contributors who don't care about
> community,
> > membership or influence - they just want to get their code merged
> without
> > trouble. Will they vote for a community governance where every
> little nit
> > from someone will require to conduct a vote on it?
> >
> 
> Another "what if" of an unlikely scenario

Unlikely? That applies to all those contributors who I met in the past years, tried to make a contribution and walked away with the conclusion that it's pointless and not worth trying ever again in the future!

> in the unlikely case of conflict we have a TC that does what you describe when needed.
> I'm sure you understand 5 people have an easier time managing a case than the whole community.

This it totally ineffective. The current reality (especially for non-established contributors) is often something like this:


- You make a submission
  - Either nobody ever reacts
  - Or:
    - ffMember1 says "no" to A and B
    - ffMember2 says "no" to C
- Of course nobody told you what to do instead, so you need 
  to "guess" what they want and make an updated submission with 
  changes A1, B1 and C1
  - Then
    - ffMember1 says "no" to B1 (nothing against A1)
    - ffMember2 says "no" to C1 and now also D    
    - ffMember3 says "no" to A1 and E
- Next guessing to address issues with A2, B2, C2, D1 and E1
  - Then
    - ffMember1 says nothing
    - ffMember2 says nothing    
    - ffMember3 says "no" E1 and now also G
- Next guessing to address issues: E2 and G1
  - Then
    - ffMember1 says nothing
    - ffMember2 says nothing    
    - ffMember3 says nothing
- You bump, you ping - no response
- You bump and ping 
    - ffMember1 says "I have told you that B1 is "no" and A1 is "no"
      (has never reviewed A2 and B2)
    - ffMember3 says "like ffMember1 said, as long you don't fix A1, 
      it can't be merged" 
      (even though he had asked for A2 and seemingly accepted A2 by not 
      mentioning it on the next review)
- Now you stand there without even having a clue what to do to satisfy 
  everyone. If you are keen, you might ask again what to do instead, but
  while you can get lots of responses for the "no"s, you rarely get 
  responses on the "how then?" questions, probably because ffMemberX
  is too afraid of seeing an ffMemberY contradicting.

And then the contributor should contact the TC? 

- First of all, most don't even know about its existence
- If one knows about its existence, one might still not know how to contact it
- And finally, you don't even know exactly which question/request to make to the TC
  - It's not like you want X and somebody else wants Y
  - It's rather like some said no to A, A1, nobody said something to A2 and you would happily do A3 or A4 or A5 or A6 - because you don't care but you are tired of guessing 


What an external contributor wants instead is this:

- You make a submission
  - Maintainer says 
    - A needs to be done like A1
    - B needs to be done like B1
  - PersonInCharge  says
    - C needs to be done like C1
    - D needs to be done like D1
- You make changes A1, B1, C1, D1
  - Maintainer LGTM
  - PersonInCharge says C1 should better be like C2
- You make changes C2
  - PersonInCharge says LGTM
- Merged + Done


Hardly any external contributor is interested in any committees or having the community voting about their contributions. They just want to get attention and be told what to do to get their code into a form that it will get merged - as simple as that. 

Before calling for a vote, they will rather give up and walk away. But in case they already made a few contributions and are entitled to vote, they will surely not vote for something which makes their contribution process even more complicated, lengthy and unpredictable.


Let's Calculate

- Remainder = "The Commnunity"
  - minus "Michael's Buddies"
  - minus members like me who don't consider the community 
    capable of managing the project
  - minus members working for the industry
  - minus occasional contributors without interest in the project
  - minus all those who have other reasons against community 
    ownership

Conclusions

- It is not valid to make any claims like
  "The Community wants the project to be owned by the community"
- It is not even valid to make any claims like
  "The majority of the Community wants the project to be owned by the community"

The latter isn't valid because we don't have figures, so we just can't know.
For me, it doesn't look there's a majority for it, just a few people asking for it very loudly.

Besides that, it's already clear that this won't happen, even when a majority would want it, so it's probably more productive to accept that and rather participate in the suggestions that Michael is making, keeping in mind that he isn't obliged to do this at all.

sw








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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Vittorio Giovara
> Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2025 10:46 AM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> On Thu, Jan 30, 2025 at 9:02 AM Nicolas George <george@nsup.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > Vittorio Giovara (12025-01-30):
> > > No, what we're seeing is a few representatives of the community
> >
> > Nobody appointed them.
> >
> > Nobody appointed you.
> >
> > I am more representative of the community than anybody who has been
> > bullying Michael to leave.
> >
> 
> lmao, whatever you say mr president
> 
> and *ONCE AGAIN* stop spreading misinformation, nobody wants Micheal
> to leave or [...].

Dear Vittorio, 

Is this really misinformation?

Niklas Haas wrote:
> From the point of view of the anti-Michael
> faction, it is Michael's presence that is hurting the project the most. 

And you replied:
> Thanks for the summary Niklas, it is pretty on point, and well articulated.


> and *ONCE AGAIN* stop spreading misinformation, nobody wants Micheal
> to leave or is bullying him.

Sure, you don't want to bully, what you want is to overthrow him:

> We want him to follow the rules of everyone, and
> avoid incidents like snapping and banning people at random, or giving
> free
> reign to friends (for things like booths) while giving a hard time to
> strangers (for things like security and infrastructure).


So, what remains as misinformation is:

You don't want to bully him, you want to overthrow him.
And you are just bullying him in order to overthrow him.

The gangster said:

"I really don't want to shoot you, I just want you to die. Could you please die for yourself, then I don't need to shoot you?"

sw


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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2025 at 12:22 AM Soft Works <
softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:

> > That does not mean it would be worth trying something different. I
> > already
> > listed the incidents I've just seen happen before my eyes in this
> > mailing
> > list and these are not fun incidents. Ideally there should be some
> > guarantee beyond Micheal's word not to repeat them again. What you're
> > saying is "this is how it has always been, therefore we should just
> > accept
> > it", which is unfair, especially to the most active contributors.
>
> I'm not saying you should accept it because "this is how it has always
> been".
> I'm saying you should accept it because the project has a private
> ownership which "is how it has always been".
> This has been clear ever since and for all contributors. The project
> doesn't own the code - you are free to fork at any time and run your own
> thing. But there's nothing from which you could derive any right to demand
> for a change of ownership, neither is there any basis on which you could
> demand any "guarantees" regarding the owner's actions.
>

I think you are missing the point that there is no scenario in which the
drama/protest/bullying/you-name-it will stop, if the current situation
doesn't change. Either Micheal needs to step up as leader of the project
and stop the pretense of democracy, or he lets the community use the
governance that he himself established. This half assed system is
unsurvivable, and the only thing that is being requested is establishing a
process, not transferring control or conspiracy or stuff like that. Please
just stop judging the cover by its book, and try to read some of the
contents.


> > Once again, you are invited to the fosdem meeting and see for
> > yourself what
> > the community really wants.
>
> FOSDEM != "the community"
>

FOSDEM = a good chunk of the community that is interested in the health
enough to travel several kilometers and discuss for hours of the situation
and possible solutions instead of enjoying the conference they wanted to
attend

Way more representative than some people talking in this thread

> This "community" in its current form and appearance and the way it is
> > > represented by its members is fundamentally incapable of leading
> > and
> > > executing control over a project like ffmpeg.
> > > I'm aware that there are projects where this is working, same as
> > I've seen
> > > projects where all members are pretty much on the same line and
> > when
> > > there's a committee with a handful of members, persons leave, other
> > persons
> > > join, but that doesn't change anything because they all share the
> > same
> > > ideas and plans and all are working together hand-in-hand.
> > >
> >
> > This is like your opinion man.
>
> Yes, this is my opinion and it gets confirmed almost any other day when
> reading the ML. That a deeply divided community cannot be given control
> over a project like ffmpeg is just common sense imo, even though I respect
> that you have a different opinion.
>

I don't understand how you don't see that the community is divided
*exactly* because there is no clear control.
And I'm sorry that your opinion is going in the opposite direction, but I
personally don't think there should be a system that favors some people and
not others (insert the list of incidents that you didn't even bother
checking).

> > There are others who are watching this ML from a distance and
> > thinking
> > > about the same - just silently.
> > > We don't know figures, but nobody should think it would be a sure
> > thing
> > > that all "non-buddies" would want and vote for a community
> > ownership.
> >
> > Including people who would like to join the community but are
> > horrified by how things are.
>
> The type of e-mails you are sending to the ML making a substantial part of
> those most "horrifying things".
>

No? The type of emails I am sending are bothering you, that's why you spend
4 times as many words to reply to me. If it makes you happy, believe me I
am _not_ having fun going over and over the same points. But I am also done
with the BS that you seem to spread for whatever reason.


> > And it's 2025, nobody will join a project where the leader can ban at
> will
>
> Hardly anybody cares about that, because nobody wants to write a mail like
> the one you did and, then building up a big drama show around the fact that
> it has been moderated.
>

NO! How can you say something like that! I want these incidents to be
resolved - people need to be held accountable for what they do and what
they say.
You complain that I post the list of incidents too many times, I complain
that these incidents are still pending, and seeking resolution!
Otherwise people can do whatever they want without repercussions, it's pure
chaos and anarchy. Even in a dictatorship there are logical repercussions,
this feels more like kindergarten!

*That* is enough motivation to fight for change and *having a process*.


> I think the procedure wasn't okay, but I also think that the e-mail wasn't
> okay, so ideally it should have been moderated by an established procedure,
> yet the outcome would have been the same, that's why I don't share the
> excitement expressed by some others.
>
> > hussle sponsors
>
> No new contributor will care about that.
>

If you don't care about that, it's your problem, but you shouldn't defend a
system that allows for that tho, it's called collusion.


> > > Finally, there are also contributors who don't care about
> > community,
> > > membership or influence - they just want to get their code merged
> > without
> > > trouble. Will they vote for a community governance where every
> > little nit
> > > from someone will require to conduct a vote on it?
> > >
> >
> > Another "what if" of an unlikely scenario
>
> Unlikely? That applies to all those contributors who I met in the past
> years, tried to make a contribution and walked away with the conclusion
> that it's pointless and not worth trying ever again in the future!
>
> > in the unlikely case of conflict we have a TC that does what you
> describe when needed.
> > I'm sure you understand 5 people have an easier time managing a case
> than the whole community.
>
> This it totally ineffective. The current reality (especially for
> non-established contributors) is often something like this:
>
>
> - You make a submission
>   - Either nobody ever reacts
>   - Or:
>     - ffMember1 says "no" to A and B
>     - ffMember2 says "no" to C
> - Of course nobody told you what to do instead, so you need
>   to "guess" what they want and make an updated submission with
>   changes A1, B1 and C1
>   - Then
>     - ffMember1 says "no" to B1 (nothing against A1)
>     - ffMember2 says "no" to C1 and now also D
>     - ffMember3 says "no" to A1 and E
> - Next guessing to address issues with A2, B2, C2, D1 and E1
>   - Then
>     - ffMember1 says nothing
>     - ffMember2 says nothing
>     - ffMember3 says "no" E1 and now also G
> - Next guessing to address issues: E2 and G1
>   - Then
>     - ffMember1 says nothing
>     - ffMember2 says nothing
>     - ffMember3 says nothing
> - You bump, you ping - no response
> - You bump and ping
>     - ffMember1 says "I have told you that B1 is "no" and A1 is "no"
>       (has never reviewed A2 and B2)
>     - ffMember3 says "like ffMember1 said, as long you don't fix A1,
>       it can't be merged"
>       (even though he had asked for A2 and seemingly accepted A2 by not
>       mentioning it on the next review)
> - Now you stand there without even having a clue what to do to satisfy
>   everyone. If you are keen, you might ask again what to do instead, but
>   while you can get lots of responses for the "no"s, you rarely get
>   responses on the "how then?" questions, probably because ffMemberX
>   is too afraid of seeing an ffMemberY contradicting.
>
> And then the contributor should contact the TC?
>
> - First of all, most don't even know about its existence
> - If one knows about its existence, one might still not know how to
> contact it
> - And finally, you don't even know exactly which question/request to make
> to the TC
>   - It's not like you want X and somebody else wants Y
>   - It's rather like some said no to A, A1, nobody said something to A2
> and you would happily do A3 or A4 or A5 or A6 - because you don't care but
> you are tired of guessing
>
>
> What an external contributor wants instead is this:
>
> - You make a submission
>   - Maintainer says
>     - A needs to be done like A1
>     - B needs to be done like B1
>   - PersonInCharge  says
>     - C needs to be done like C1
>     - D needs to be done like D1
> - You make changes A1, B1, C1, D1
>   - Maintainer LGTM
>   - PersonInCharge says C1 should better be like C2
> - You make changes C2
>   - PersonInCharge says LGTM
> - Merged + Done
>
>
> Hardly any external contributor is interested in any committees or having
> the community voting about their contributions. They just want to get
> attention and be told what to do to get their code into a form that it will
> get merged - as simple as that.
>

So you're disagreeing with Micheal that every contributor should get a vote.
Good, something we agree on :)


> Before calling for a vote, they will rather give up and walk away. But in
> case they already made a few contributions and are entitled to vote, they
> will surely not vote for something which makes their contribution process
> even more complicated, lengthy and unpredictable.
>

In general dismissing something because it's complicated is not a good view
of any developer.

Let's Calculate
>
> - Remainder = "The Commnunity"
>   - minus "Michael's Buddies"
>   - minus members like me who don't consider the community
>     capable of managing the project
>   - minus members working for the industry
>   - minus occasional contributors without interest in the project
>   - minus all those who have other reasons against community
>     ownership
>
> Conclusions
>
> - It is not valid to make any claims like
>   "The Community wants the project to be owned by the community"
> - It is not even valid to make any claims like
>   "The majority of the Community wants the project to be owned by the
> community"
>

- It is not valid to make made up math and trying to prove a point
- It is not even valid to butt in in a discussion without having any idea
what is going on and lacking knowledge on what led to the current situation
- It is not even more so valid to spam the mailing list with overly long
emails which take a long time to debunk and divert the attention from
actual important work (like porting to gitlab)


> The latter isn't valid because we don't have figures, so we just can't
> know.
> For me, it doesn't look there's a majority for it, just a few people
> asking for it very loudly.
>

Sorry this is an uninformed opinion, the "other side" also sees a few
people asking very loudly to keep things as they are.
Do I need to post the list of incidents again so that you may inform
yourself and decide what you would have done if you were in the shoes of
someone affected negatively by the current system? Or are my emails the
problem, while other people directly causing contributions to leave the
project are just fine?


> Besides that, it's already clear that this won't happen, even when a
> majority would want it, so it's probably more productive to accept that and
> rather participate in the suggestions that Michael is making, keeping in
> mind that he isn't obliged to do this at all.
>

That's fine, it means that the "unfriendly emails" will continue.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2025 at 1:03 AM Soft Works <
softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:

>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> > Vittorio Giovara
> > Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2025 10:46 AM
> > To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> > devel@ffmpeg.org>
> > Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 30, 2025 at 9:02 AM Nicolas George <george@nsup.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Vittorio Giovara (12025-01-30):
> > > > No, what we're seeing is a few representatives of the community
> > >
> > > Nobody appointed them.
> > >
> > > Nobody appointed you.
> > >
> > > I am more representative of the community than anybody who has been
> > > bullying Michael to leave.
> > >
> >
> > lmao, whatever you say mr president
> >
> > and *ONCE AGAIN* stop spreading misinformation, nobody wants Micheal
> > to leave or [...].
>
> Dear Vittorio,
>
> Is this really misinformation?
>
> Niklas Haas wrote:
> > From the point of view of the anti-Michael
> > faction, it is Michael's presence that is hurting the project the most.
>
> And you replied:
> > Thanks for the summary Niklas, it is pretty on point, and well
> articulated.
>
>
> > and *ONCE AGAIN* stop spreading misinformation, nobody wants Micheal
> > to leave or is bullying him.
>
> Sure, you don't want to bully, what you want is to overthrow him:
>
> > We want him to follow the rules of everyone, and
> > avoid incidents like snapping and banning people at random, or giving
> > free
> > reign to friends (for things like booths) while giving a hard time to
> > strangers (for things like security and infrastructure).
>
>
> So, what remains as misinformation is:
>
> You don't want to bully him, you want to overthrow him.
> And you are just bullying him in order to overthrow him.
>
> The gangster said:
>
> "I really don't want to shoot you, I just want you to die. Could you
> please die for yourself, then I don't need to shoot you?"
>

Sorry I feel like I am talking to an AI at this point. Are my emails really
the most compelling problem in the community that you strive to solve? Not
gitlab? Not the abuse of power by the list admins?

The lack of understanding is proof that mailing lists are really not well
suited for this complicated discussion, as you're maliciously twisting my
words in something I didn't say. I am merely explaining things, if that's
perceived as bullying maybe people have a guilty conscience.

The gangster said:

"Jesse, what the heck are you talking about?"
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Vittorio Giovara
> Sent: Friday, January 31, 2025 1:14 AM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2025 at 12:22 AM Soft Works <
> softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> 
> > > That does not mean it would be worth trying something different.
> I
> > > already
> > > listed the incidents I've just seen happen before my eyes in this
> > > mailing
> > > list and these are not fun incidents. Ideally there should be
> some
> > > guarantee beyond Micheal's word not to repeat them again. What
> you're
> > > saying is "this is how it has always been, therefore we should
> just
> > > accept
> > > it", which is unfair, especially to the most active contributors.
> >
> > I'm not saying you should accept it because "this is how it has
> always
> > been".
> > I'm saying you should accept it because the project has a private
> > ownership which "is how it has always been".
> > This has been clear ever since and for all contributors. The
> project
> > doesn't own the code - you are free to fork at any time and run
> your own
> > thing. But there's nothing from which you could derive any right to
> demand
> > for a change of ownership, neither is there any basis on which you
> could
> > demand any "guarantees" regarding the owner's actions.
> >
> 
> I think you are missing the point that there is no scenario in which
> the
> drama/protest/bullying/you-name-it will stop, if the current
> situation doesn't change. 

I see this and I do agree to that, we just disagree about the way to solved it.

> Either Micheal needs to step up as leader of the
> project
> and stop the pretense of democracy, or he lets the community use the
> governance that he himself established. This half assed system is
> unsurvivable, and the only thing that is being requested is
> establishing a
> process, not transferring control 

Not transferring control? You said you want guarantees "beyond Michael's word" that certain things can no longer happen. How could that work without transferring control?`


> I don't understand how you don't see that the community is divided
> *exactly* because there is no clear control.


> And I'm sorry that your opinion is going in the opposite direction,
> but I
> personally don't think there should be a system that favors some
> people and not others 

I agree to that, I just don't believe that community voting on everything can help with that.
As laid out in other messages before, I'd prefer the installment of a number of "positions" for which people can volunteer and get elected for a certain period. But those positions would not only be about making decisions but also include duties for bringing the project forward and making sure that contributions get reviewed.


> No? The type of emails I am sending are bothering you, 

They are no bothering me but I think they are causing damage to the project and should stop.

> that's why you spend 4 times as many words to reply to me.

No, that's just a habit and has nothing to do with you.



> > > > Finally, there are also contributors who don't care about
> > > community,
> > > > membership or influence - they just want to get their code
> merged
> > > without
> > > > trouble. Will they vote for a community governance where every
> > > little nit
> > > > from someone will require to conduct a vote on it?
> > > >
> > >
> > > Another "what if" of an unlikely scenario
> >
> > Unlikely? That applies to all those contributors who I met in the
> past
> > years, tried to make a contribution and walked away with the
> conclusion
> > that it's pointless and not worth trying ever again in the future!
> >
> > > in the unlikely case of conflict we have a TC that does what you
> > describe when needed.
> > > I'm sure you understand 5 people have an easier time managing a
> case
> > than the whole community.
> >
> > This it totally ineffective. The current reality (especially for
> > non-established contributors) is often something like this:
> >
> >
> > - You make a submission
> >   - Either nobody ever reacts
> >   - Or:
> >     - ffMember1 says "no" to A and B
> >     - ffMember2 says "no" to C
> > - Of course nobody told you what to do instead, so you need
> >   to "guess" what they want and make an updated submission with
> >   changes A1, B1 and C1
> >   - Then
> >     - ffMember1 says "no" to B1 (nothing against A1)
> >     - ffMember2 says "no" to C1 and now also D
> >     - ffMember3 says "no" to A1 and E
> > - Next guessing to address issues with A2, B2, C2, D1 and E1
> >   - Then
> >     - ffMember1 says nothing
> >     - ffMember2 says nothing
> >     - ffMember3 says "no" E1 and now also G
> > - Next guessing to address issues: E2 and G1
> >   - Then
> >     - ffMember1 says nothing
> >     - ffMember2 says nothing
> >     - ffMember3 says nothing
> > - You bump, you ping - no response
> > - You bump and ping
> >     - ffMember1 says "I have told you that B1 is "no" and A1 is
> "no"
> >       (has never reviewed A2 and B2)
> >     - ffMember3 says "like ffMember1 said, as long you don't fix
> A1,
> >       it can't be merged"
> >       (even though he had asked for A2 and seemingly accepted A2 by
> not
> >       mentioning it on the next review)
> > - Now you stand there without even having a clue what to do to
> satisfy
> >   everyone. If you are keen, you might ask again what to do
> instead, but
> >   while you can get lots of responses for the "no"s, you rarely get
> >   responses on the "how then?" questions, probably because
> ffMemberX
> >   is too afraid of seeing an ffMemberY contradicting.
> >
> > And then the contributor should contact the TC?
> >
> > - First of all, most don't even know about its existence
> > - If one knows about its existence, one might still not know how to
> > contact it
> > - And finally, you don't even know exactly which question/request
> to make
> > to the TC
> >   - It's not like you want X and somebody else wants Y
> >   - It's rather like some said no to A, A1, nobody said something
> to A2
> > and you would happily do A3 or A4 or A5 or A6 - because you don't
> care but
> > you are tired of guessing
> >
> >
> > What an external contributor wants instead is this:
> >
> > - You make a submission
> >   - Maintainer says
> >     - A needs to be done like A1
> >     - B needs to be done like B1
> >   - PersonInCharge  says
> >     - C needs to be done like C1
> >     - D needs to be done like D1
> > - You make changes A1, B1, C1, D1
> >   - Maintainer LGTM
> >   - PersonInCharge says C1 should better be like C2
> > - You make changes C2
> >   - PersonInCharge says LGTM
> > - Merged + Done
> >
> >
> > Hardly any external contributor is interested in any committees or
> having
> > the community voting about their contributions. They just want to
> get
> > attention and be told what to do to get their code into a form that
> it will
> > get merged - as simple as that.
> >
> 
> So you're disagreeing with Micheal that every contributor should get
> a vote.
> Good, something we agree on :)

I have no strong opinions on this subject, except the realization that it will never be 100% fair and some will always feel disadvantaged.


> > Before calling for a vote, they will rather give up and walk away.
> But in
> > case they already made a few contributions and are entitled to
> vote, they
> > will surely not vote for something which makes their contribution
> process
> > even more complicated, lengthy and unpredictable.
> >
> 
> In general dismissing something because it's complicated is not a
> good view of any developer.

It's not about being complicated, it's about the time it takes and every developer needs to manage the time spent on something. If the development of a patch takes 1h, but getting it merged into ffmpeg takes 8h, spread over several weeks, many will just skip submission. 

There's a HUGE TREASURE of fixes and feature implementations for ffmpeg spread all over the net, which just haven't been submitted by their developers (or submitted once but ignored because the author didn't spend time to ping and remind).


> > Besides that, it's already clear that this won't happen, even when
> a
> > majority would want it, so it's probably more productive to accept
> that and
> > rather participate in the suggestions that Michael is making,
> keeping in
> > mind that he isn't obliged to do this at all.
> >
> 
> That's fine, it means that the "unfriendly emails" will continue.

Well, at some point, I think they should get moderated rather than responded.

sw




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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi Niklas

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 04:16:29PM +0100, Niklas Haas wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 13:39:36 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:
> > Zhao Zhili (12025-01-29):
> > > I don’t stay long enough to know the history, but I don’t think delving into history
> > > helps the current situation. Let's talk less about history and hatred to avoid creating
> > > a self-fulfilling prophecy.
> >
> > “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
> >
> > The situation affecting the project right now is extremely similar to
> > the events of ~15 years ago that led to a fork and harmed the project
> > immensely.
> >
> > We are seeing the same strategy deployed. If we want to avoid the same
> > harm happening, we need to realize how it happened the first time.
> 
> I think the most important crux of the problem is a fundamental disagreement
> between Michael and the "community" (for lack of a better term) about the role
> of the CC (and by extension, the GA).

> Michael is under the impression that they
> (should) serve a mere advisory role, with Michael himself having final say in

which michael is that ?

* The GA is vulnerable to a governance attack, that needs to be fixed
* The GA does not represent the community but only a select subset, that needs to be fixed
* The CC is fundamentally broken
* People keep repeating completely false statements about me, these people must be removed

For the first 2 points i have posted a proposal, for the other 2 i may post proposals
in the future


[...]

> I think that in summary, Michael is currently in the difficult position of which
> he would rather lose - control over the FFmpeg name, or the developers that make
> up the project.

The project belongs to the people, but individuals who spread lies about me
have no place in FFmpeg.


thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

If you drop bombs on a foreign country and kill a hundred thousand
innocent people, expect your government to call the consequence
"unprovoked inhuman terrorist attacks" and use it to justify dropping
more bombs and killing more people. The technology changed, the idea is old.

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 07:36:31PM +0000, Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 6:27 PM Marth64 <marth64@proxyid.net> wrote:
> >
> > Here is an idea,
> > Can we try to lay out the friction points in a table or bullet format
> > where we can separate the issue from emotion and direct name calling?
> >
> > For example,
> > " * Community has issue ABC but we can't move forward because senior
> > leaders don't agree"
> > " * Community has issue XYZ but we can't move forward because the
> > framework doesn't support it"
> 

> The community wants the GA/TC/CC to be sovereign, but Michael blocks
> enforcement.

The GA does not represent the community


> The community wants transparency about infrastructure, but Michael
> refuses to publish.

thats just not true


> The community doesn't want arbitrary censorship, but Michael and his
> surrogates do.

thats also not true

It was also me who complained about the lack of recording and remote
participation in VDD2024.

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your
own failings. Then you will forget your anger. -- Epictetus

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi Niklas

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:27:58PM +0100, Niklas Haas wrote:
[...]
> Michael is the current de-facto leader. It is literally impossible for me to
> phrase it in any other way that does not unduly single him out as long as this
> remains the status quo.

In 2015 and before, i worked from waking up to going to bed on FFmpeg.
Anything else i tried to delegate to someone else.
During this time i called myself Leader or whatever term i used.

Iam not doing that currently at all, iam NOT doing the job a leader
should do.
If the community by consensus or supermajority asks me to return as leader
i may consider it.

FFmpeg is run by the community, we atm have a simple consensus based
process and whatever comes out of that is implemented. For code
as well as non code.

For a 2nd layer when consensus fails i proposed 2 voting processes
one a flat democratic one and one a proportional one.

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being
governed by those who are dumber. -- Plato 

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi

On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:21:37PM +0100, Niklas Haas wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 21:51:27 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:
> > Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
[...]

> > *Some members* of
> > what you call community have expressed violent opposition to Michael.
> > But *other members* have expressed, support for Michael, yet other
> > members have agreed to arguments on both side successively, and the
> > majority have not expressed anything.
> 
> The CC was elected by a majority of the GA, so for all intents and purposes,
> the CC is the closest representation of the majority opinion as we are
> likely to ever have.

1. The GA does not represent the community
2. The GA is vulnerable to a simple governance attack
3. The CC vote period was extended by the person running the vote while he asked
   specific people to join.
4. from the small number of people supporting the GA system origianlly
   several changed their mind (both me and nicolas for example liked the
   GA idea originally IIRC) also paul opposed it publically immedeatly
   when it was announced many years ago

We can easily have something better

The community is thousands of people not just 49

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

If a bugfix only changes things apparently unrelated to the bug with no
further explanation, that is a good sign that the bugfix is wrong.

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

On Sat, 1 Feb 2025, 14:46 Michael Niedermayer, <michael@niedermayer.cc>
wrote:

> Hi
>
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:21:37PM +0100, Niklas Haas wrote:
> > On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 21:51:27 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org>
> wrote:
> > > Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> [...]
>
> > > *Some members* of
> > > what you call community have expressed violent opposition to Michael.
> > > But *other members* have expressed, support for Michael, yet other
> > > members have agreed to arguments on both side successively, and the
> > > majority have not expressed anything.
> >
> > The CC was elected by a majority of the GA, so for all intents and
> purposes,
> > the CC is the closest representation of the majority opinion as we are
> > likely to ever have.
>
> 1. The GA does not represent the community
> 2. The GA is vulnerable to a simple governance attack
> 3. The CC vote period was extended by the person running the vote while he
> asked
>    specific people to join.
> 4. from the small number of people supporting the GA system origianlly
>    several changed their mind (both me and nicolas for example liked the
>    GA idea originally IIRC) also paul opposed it publically immedeatly
>    when it was announced many years ago
>
> We can easily have something better
>
> The community is thousands of people not just 49
>
> thx
>

Hi Michael,

How are you not subject to a one-person "governance attack"?

Kieran

>
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi

On Sat, Feb 01, 2025 at 02:48:51PM +0000, Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> On Sat, 1 Feb 2025, 14:46 Michael Niedermayer, <michael@niedermayer.cc>
> wrote:
> 
> > Hi
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:21:37PM +0100, Niklas Haas wrote:
> > > On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 21:51:27 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org>
> > wrote:
> > > > Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> > [...]
> >
> > > > *Some members* of
> > > > what you call community have expressed violent opposition to Michael.
> > > > But *other members* have expressed, support for Michael, yet other
> > > > members have agreed to arguments on both side successively, and the
> > > > majority have not expressed anything.
> > >
> > > The CC was elected by a majority of the GA, so for all intents and
> > purposes,
> > > the CC is the closest representation of the majority opinion as we are
> > > likely to ever have.
> >
> > 1. The GA does not represent the community
> > 2. The GA is vulnerable to a simple governance attack
> > 3. The CC vote period was extended by the person running the vote while he
> > asked
> >    specific people to join.
> > 4. from the small number of people supporting the GA system origianlly
> >    several changed their mind (both me and nicolas for example liked the
> >    GA idea originally IIRC) also paul opposed it publically immedeatly
> >    when it was announced many years ago
> >
> > We can easily have something better
> >
> > The community is thousands of people not just 49
> >
> > thx
> >
> 
> Hi Michael,
> 
> How are you not subject to a one-person "governance attack"?

I hate kim jong un

thx

[...]

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Breaking DRM is a little like attempting to break through a door even
though the window is wide open and the only thing in the house is a bunch
of things you dont want and which you would get tomorrow for free anyway

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[James Almer]

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On 2/1/2025 11:46 AM, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> Hi
> 
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:21:37PM +0100, Niklas Haas wrote:
>> On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 21:51:27 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:
>>> Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> [...]
> 
>>> *Some members* of
>>> what you call community have expressed violent opposition to Michael.
>>> But *other members* have expressed, support for Michael, yet other
>>> members have agreed to arguments on both side successively, and the
>>> majority have not expressed anything.
>>
>> The CC was elected by a majority of the GA, so for all intents and purposes,
>> the CC is the closest representation of the majority opinion as we are
>> likely to ever have.
> 
> 1. The GA does not represent the community

It does by definition. It's a list of the currently most active people, 
by either meeting a agreed upon criteria or by agreed exception if they 
don't meet it but are active in other forms.

> 2. The GA is vulnerable to a simple governance attack
> 3. The CC vote period was extended by the person running the vote while he asked
>     specific people to join.

You're aware that had courmisch not made it in, it would have been 
Vittorio instead, right?
You're insinuating there was malice where instead there was an attempt 
of having more than five volunteers for a five places committee 
(Meaning, actually having a vote for it).

> 4. from the small number of people supporting the GA system origianlly
>     several changed their mind (both me and nicolas for example liked the
>     GA idea originally IIRC) also paul opposed it publically immedeatly
>     when it was announced many years ago

And why did you stop liking the idea? When i argued it was because one 
CC did not act as swiftly as you would have liked (or because you 
thought it was biased), you said that was not the case. So what changed 
your mind?

> 
> We can easily have something better

As it's been said before, proposing to change a system because you were 
not satisfied with the current one sets a bad precedent, and signals 
you're ok with a democratic system as long as it's to your liking, not 
as long as it's agreed by the people participating in it.
A change should be proposed if the system in question is proven to be 
flawed, which has not happened.

> 
> The community is thousands of people not just 49

How many times are you going to repeat this? Thousands of registered 
emails in a mailing list (of which a bunch are removed for excessive 
bouncing almost daily) is not thousands of people active in a community. 
Just look at these threads, and see how many different names are 
participating. It's not even 49, let alone thousands. You're heavily 
overestimating the amount of people that participate in the project.

Those 49 are people that have kept the project alive and progressing for 
at least the last five years. And if you think someone is missing from 
that list, why haven't you proposed them when we voted to have 
exceptions added?

Fwiw, as soon as we move to Forgejo/Gitlab, the amount of contributors 
should increase considerably, and next time the GA is formed by running 
the script, the composition will be very different.


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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[James Almer]

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I don't appreciate an inflammatory and accusatory email being sent 
privately, so I'll answer publicly.

On 2/1/2025 12:26 PM, E-BLOKOS wrote:
> How much VIMEO paid you or vittorio to break Michael's work and rights?

I don't work for Vimeo. I work for the same company currently employing 
Michael, of which he's a founder/shareholder.

> Since when one guy is talking for thousands (yes, and we are part of these silent thousands)

No one person is talking for thousands...

> and in same time claiming "democracy"? we are fed up, sick and tired to receive in our email server

...except for you, it seems, seeing you're using "we".

And are you subscribed to this mailing list for some specific reason? I 
don't think I've seen reviews or patches from you before.

> stupid kid behavior about a software that is open source and until now the first converter of the world in term
> of quality and popularity. So why change a winning method

This is the question i and others are making. Asking for a change in 
governance suddenly because of a personal bad experience is not a good 
idea for the health of the project.

> if there is not some bad interests behind
> it like some stupid corporations like VIMEO and his agent provocateur vittorio coming from nowhere?
> 
> https://it.linkedin.com/in/vittorio-giovara-70b26b326?trk=public_profile_samename-profile
> 
> 
> an advice for all who want to create trouble against the authors of ffmpeg.
> create your own fork and do what you want but stop to pollute this emailling list thanks.
> 
> David 

	

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

On Sat, 1 Feb 2025, 15:03 Michael Niedermayer, <michael@niedermayer.cc>
wrote:

> Hi
>
> On Sat, Feb 01, 2025 at 02:48:51PM +0000, Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel
> wrote:
> > On Sat, 1 Feb 2025, 14:46 Michael Niedermayer, <michael@niedermayer.cc>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:21:37PM +0100, Niklas Haas wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 21:51:27 +0100 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org>
> > > wrote:
> > > > > Niklas Haas (12025-01-29):
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > > > *Some members* of
> > > > > what you call community have expressed violent opposition to
> Michael.
> > > > > But *other members* have expressed, support for Michael, yet other
> > > > > members have agreed to arguments on both side successively, and the
> > > > > majority have not expressed anything.
> > > >
> > > > The CC was elected by a majority of the GA, so for all intents and
> > > purposes,
> > > > the CC is the closest representation of the majority opinion as we
> are
> > > > likely to ever have.
> > >
> > > 1. The GA does not represent the community
> > > 2. The GA is vulnerable to a simple governance attack
> > > 3. The CC vote period was extended by the person running the vote
> while he
> > > asked
> > >    specific people to join.
> > > 4. from the small number of people supporting the GA system origianlly
> > >    several changed their mind (both me and nicolas for example liked
> the
> > >    GA idea originally IIRC) also paul opposed it publically immedeatly
> > >    when it was announced many years ago
> > >
> > > We can easily have something better
> > >
> > > The community is thousands of people not just 49
> > >
> > > thx
> > >
> >
> > Hi Michael,
> >
> > How are you not subject to a one-person "governance attack"?
>
> I hate kim jong un
>
> thx
>

Interesting when you are questioned, the walls of text and paranoia stop.

Kieran

>
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

James Almer (12025-02-01):
> It does by definition.

A definition is not an argument by itself. A definition is a way for
people to speak the same language when they state their arguments.
Multiple people have said that we do not agree with that definition.

> >                                (both me and nicolas for example liked the
> >     GA idea originally IIRC) also paul opposed it publically immedeatly

YRC

> And why did you stop liking the idea?

When I realized that it gives the most power to the very people who have
tried to take over the project.

> As it's been said before, proposing to change a system because you were not
> satisfied with the current one sets a bad precedent, and signals you're ok
> with a democratic system as long as it's to your liking, not as long as it's
> agreed by the people participating in it.

It is exactly as it is, I only wish Michael would dare stating it as it
is: “I am still the leader of this project, appointed to carry the
legacy, and democracy is happening under my supervision. The way we have
implemented it is not working, so I am changing it. Preferably with
general approval.”

> How many times are you going to repeat this? Thousands of registered emails
> in a mailing list (of which a bunch are removed for excessive bouncing
> almost daily) is not thousands of people active in a community.

Users are part of the FFmpeg community too. That make millions of
people, possibly billions.

Do we give users a say in the future of the project?

Yes, we do! If a user suggests an interesting feature, one of us may
decide to implement it. It has happened many times.

Do we give users a vote in the future of the project? Of course not.
Many users ask for features because they misunderstand the correct way
of achieving their goal. We will not implement those features just
because they are many.

The point: a user has a say in the future of the project in as much the
suggestions of that users have merit.

Merit: remember that word.

> Those 49 are people that have kept the project alive and progressing for at
> least the last five years.

So these 49 people have done more for the project than the people who
have contributed just one or two patches in all? You are saying that the
condition to have a vote that you approve is based on the level of merit
of contributors towards the project.

I believe that you just admitted that FFmpeg is and should be not a
democracy but a meritocracy.

Excellent. Now we can discuss how to do it properly, because everybody
equal until an arbitrary cutoff is one of the stupidest meritocracy
conceivable.

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Nicolas George]

Michael Niedermayer (12025-02-01):
> * The CC is fundamentally broken

The TC is even more fundamentally broken.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Nicolas George
> Sent: Saturday, February 1, 2025 9:21 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> Michael Niedermayer (12025-02-01):
> > * The CC is fundamentally broken
> 
> The TC is even more fundamentally broken.

I agree to that and one of the reasons why I'm seeing it that way is that I wasn't able to make an informed decision when voting. There was just a list of names and for many of them I didn't really know what each candidate would stand for.
So I made choices primarily based on whether I had good or bad experience with them in collaboration and communication - which is awful to use as criteria for such a voting.
I'd rather vote for a candidate that I like less or I had been in disagreement with, if that person's goals and ideas align with mine - but how can I know? I might know for some but not for all of the candidates and I think similar applies to other members in the GA as well.

Hence my suggestion to install certain "Positions", each with a certain area of responsibility and candidates who apply for a certain position would lay out their ideas, strategies, focus areas and what they are aiming to achieve within the period for which they get elected.
This would allow to vote about directions for the project rather than just names of persons which you might not even know.

sw
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