[FFmpeg-devel] Re: [RFC] Sponsors & Funding

[Michael Niedermayer via ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>]

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Hi Gyan

On Thu, Sep 11, 2025 at 01:41:24PM +0530, Gyan Doshi via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> 
> 
> On 2025-09-11 02:22 am, Michael Niedermayer via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> > Hi Kieran
> > 
> > On Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 06:21:56PM +0200, Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> > > On Wed, 10 Sept 2025, 17:49 Michael Niedermayer via ffmpeg-devel, <
> > > ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Hi remi
> > > > 
> > > > On Tue, Sep 09, 2025 at 07:29:02PM +0300, Rémi Denis-Courmont via
> > > > ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> > > > > Le tiistaina 9. syyskuuta 2025, 15.10.37 Itä-Euroopan kesäaika Michael
> > > > > Niedermayer via ffmpeg-devel a écrit :
> > > > > > > 2) A legal entity with clear oversight rules that sponsors can trust
> > > > and
> > > > > > > influence collects funding from sponsors and decides whom to pay for
> > > > > > > what.
> > > > > > We have that:
> > > > > > "Software in the Public Interest (SPI) is a non-profit corporation
> > > > > > registered in the state of New York founded to act as a fiscal sponsor
> > > > for
> > > > > > organizations that develop open source software and hardware. Our
> > > > mission
> > > > > > is to help substantial and  significant open source projects by
> > > > handling
> > > > > > their non-technical administrative tasks so that they aren't required
> > > > to
> > > > > > operate their own legal entity."
> > > > > How does that enable large sponsors to influence what gets done with the
> > > > money?
> > > > > How does that take care of drafting and reviewing contracts? That just
> > > > takes
> > > > > care of fiscal and admin problems. It's great that they do it at all,
> > > > but it's
> > > > > not remotely sufficient in this context.
> > > > With souvereign tech fund we had contracts between people, STF and SPI.
> > > > 
> > > > SPI did provide for the legal, accounting and paperwork services here.
> > > > We should in fact donate to them for doing that for us. (if we did not yet)
> > > > 
> > > SPI is not accountable to the GA.
> > Lets go down that rabbit hole.
> > 
> > For this subject to make any sense, we need to have the entities
> > (GA, the community, myself, stefano) disagree.
> > 
> > I have to point out, that stefano and myself just pass the community
> > decissions to SPI, so we will not disagree with the community.
> > 
> > But let us for sake of this rabbit hole, assume, we all disagree.
> > 
> > I say: green
> > Stefano says: red
> > The community says: blue with 90% majority
> > The GA says: black with 90% majority
> > 
> > So what will SPI do ?
> > IMHO, SPI will see me and stefano disagree and consequently will check the
> > public communication channels and see that the community in public and
> > in a verifyable way has choosen: blue
> 
> What is the 'community' in this scenario? Who are the members (and who
> decides), what is the voting mechanism, who is/are the adjudicators?

Thats another deep rabbit hole ...

Also, its not one scenario.

Some examples:
Has there been a governance attack?
If yes, whatever rules we have had, would have failed.

Or where peoples systems compromised to produce these disagreements.
If so, the vote needs to be redone, after things are cleaned up.

Or has the community split in N groups fundamentally disagreeing?
In this case really we would need to talk and bring people back together.

Or is the disagreement maybe about a meaningless bikeshed question, in
which case maybe we can simply do without an awnser.

So maybe the question, What is the 'community' in such a extreem case is often
not the right question.
But technically, if this question must be awnsered, SPI has to decide in such
an extreem case.

thx

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

The real ebay dictionary, page 1
"Used only once"    - "Some unspecified defect prevented a second use"
"In good condition" - "Can be repaird by experienced expert"
"As is" - "You wouldnt want it even if you were payed for it, if you knew ..."

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