Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] STF 2025

["Rémi Denis-Courmont" <remi@remlab.net>]

Le 17 mai 2024 16:49:58 GMT+03:00, Michael Niedermayer <michael@niedermayer.cc> a écrit :
>Hi all
>
>Before this is forgotten again, better start some dicsussion too early than too late
>
>I propose that if we have the oppertunity again next year to receive a grant
>from STF. That we use it to fund:
>
>* Paul to work on FFmpeg full time. My idea here is that he can work on whatever
>  he likes in FFmpeg (so its not full time employment for specific work but
>  simply full time employment for him to work on whatever he likes in FFmpeg any
>  way he likes) Paul is the 2nd largest contributor to FFmpeg (git shortlog -s -n)

There are many grave flaws with such an idea. In the first place, it is far from certain that he himself would agree to such a deal at this point. And if he did, it is not clear that he would agree to follow the project's defined practices.

And ultimately, being paid to do whatever you want is not much different from fictitious employment or embezzlement, which is probably illegal in Germany (for good reasons).

It is also a less than ideal time for that sort of proposal: there are quite a few members of the community who may be wanting to be paid to work on FFmpeg, and it just doesn't seem fair that someone would be paid to do literally whatever they want, no matter how much they have contributed.

>* Fund administrative / maintainance work (one example is the mailman upgrade that is needed
>  with the next OS upgrade on one of our servers (this is not as trivial as one might
>  expect). Another example here may be some git related tools if we find something that
>  theres a broad consensus about.

I agree that this should be paid but I would expect that STF would not be too keen on it, not that I'd know really.

>* Fund maintaince on the bug tracker, try to reproduce bugs, ask users to provide
>  reproduceable cases, close bugs still unreproduceable, ...
>  ATM we have over 2000 "new" bugs that are not even marked as open

This is a double-edged sword. If somebody gets paid to do that, then that is one more reason for others not to do it.

And again, it is completely reasonable to be paid for that, and also for code reviews and writing test cases (if we want to complete the menial task list), but I am perplexed as to STF's stance on that.

>* Fund professional real live presence on multimedia / FOSS / buisness related
>  events. we already refund individuals but i think we are lacking on the organizational
>  side. We should also have on these events at least one person who can awnser developer/user
>  questions and someone who can awnser buisness questions (on buisness related events).
>  Also we need some eye catching things there, a big screen/projector that plays some
>  real time filtered version from a camera. Or maybe have more people remotely be available
>  from the FFmpeg team through real time streaming (as in, if someone wants to be on some event
>  but cant physically go there, we could put a notebook on the table facing visitors showing
>  something like a video chat. Also we need more cute girls on these events, everything i hear
>  its 100% male geeks/hackers. Also a "24/7" realtime stream from any booth would be nice

This is not something that STF should pay for, AFAIU. This is something that professionals should pay out of their budget (or their employer's) for the business events, and SPI for cheap/community events, IMO.

Br,
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