Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Vittorio Giovara <vittorio.giovara@gmail.com>]

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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