[FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Satter, Raphael (Reuters) via ffmpeg-devel]

Dear FFMPEG community,

This is Raphael Satter, a journalist with Reuters. I saw your thread on X about your experience with Microsoft in the context of the XZ story and would love to follow up with a few questions.

Is there a good person to talk to? I’m reachable using the details below or on Signal/WhatsApp at +1 202 430 9389.

Raphael

💻 raphael.satter@tr.com
🌎 raphaelsatter.com
📰 reuters.com/authors/raphael-satter

Thomson Reuters
1333 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20005

☎️ +1 202 843-6302

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

Hi Raphael,

I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about this topic at
Demuxed at a video conference last year:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s

That said this is a community project and it would be best to continue the
discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.

Regards,
Kieran Kunhya

On Wed, 3 Apr 2024, 16:52 Satter, Raphael (Reuters) via ffmpeg-devel, <
ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:

> Dear FFMPEG community,
>
> This is Raphael Satter, a journalist with Reuters. I saw your thread on X
> about your experience with Microsoft in the context of the XZ story and
> would love to follow up with a few questions.
>
> Is there a good person to talk to? I’m reachable using the details below
> or on Signal/WhatsApp at +1 202 430 9389.
>
> Raphael
>
> 💻 raphael.satter@tr.com
> 🌎 raphaelsatter.com
> 📰 reuters.com/authors/raphael-satter
>
> Thomson Reuters
> 1333 H Street NW
> Washington, DC 20005
>
> ☎️ +1 202 843-6302
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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] [EXT] Re: Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Satter, Raphael (Reuters) via ffmpeg-devel]

Thanks Kieran, much appreciated. I’ll have a look at the video and drop a few additional questions into the mailing list.

Sent from Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef>
________________________________
From: Kieran Kunhya <kieran618@googlemail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 3, 2024 12:38:39 PM
To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>
Cc: Satter, Raphael (Reuters) <Raphael.Satter@thomsonreuters.com>
Subject: [EXT] Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

External Email: Use caution with links and attachments.

Hi Raphael,

I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about this topic at Demuxed at a video conference last year: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s__;!!GFN0sa3rsbfR8OLyAw!fil3G3T7uUxCpJLVmYwgXrszOLckOVB2iMJMDO7QCKMoC7pWR9np5VcDBSAQwsXzhMcbBH9RL7tMr8KurldS9Ga_7Ai-q2U$>

That said this is a community project and it would be best to continue the discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.

Regards,
Kieran Kunhya

On Wed, 3 Apr 2024, 16:52 Satter, Raphael (Reuters) via ffmpeg-devel, <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org<mailto:ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>> wrote:
Dear FFMPEG community,

This is Raphael Satter, a journalist with Reuters. I saw your thread on X about your experience with Microsoft in the context of the XZ story and would love to follow up with a few questions.

Is there a good person to talk to? I’m reachable using the details below or on Signal/WhatsApp at +1 202 430 9389.

Raphael

💻 raphael.satter@tr.com<mailto:raphael.satter@tr.com>
🌎 raphaelsatter.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://raphaelsatter.com__;!!GFN0sa3rsbfR8OLyAw!fil3G3T7uUxCpJLVmYwgXrszOLckOVB2iMJMDO7QCKMoC7pWR9np5VcDBSAQwsXzhMcbBH9RL7tMr8KurldS9Ga_d7ggKWg$>
📰 reuters.com/authors/raphael-satter<http://reuters.com/authors/raphael-satter>

Thomson Reuters
1333 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20005

☎️ +1 202 843-6302

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [EXT] Re: Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Satter, Raphael (Reuters) via ffmpeg-devel]

Dear Kieran & co.,

Thank you I’ve had a chance to see the talk. It’s a marker of how invisible even critical open source projects can be that I wasn’t aware of FFmpeg’s role in powering the likes of YouTube and Netflix.

A few questions I had:


  *   How much did Microsoft end up paying for the one-time fix?
  *   What’s the solution here? Your talk mentioned paying developers, getting an SLA, or hiring them as consultants … but why would companies bother when they can just free ride? I asked the same question to CISA’s Jack Cable when he told me that  companies need to “contribute back and help build the sustainable open source ecosystem that we get so much value from.” Sure, they “need” to do it, but who will punish them if they don’t?
  *   Any other thoughts you might have on this episode – or others you think I should speak to – would be greatly appreciated.

Raphael

From: Kieran Kunhya <kieran618@googlemail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 3, 2024 12:39 PM
To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>
Cc: Satter, Raphael (Reuters) <Raphael.Satter@thomsonreuters.com>
Subject: [EXT] Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

External Email: Use caution with links and attachments.

Hi Raphael,

I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about this topic at Demuxed at a video conference last year: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s__;!!GFN0sa3rsbfR8OLyAw!fil3G3T7uUxCpJLVmYwgXrszOLckOVB2iMJMDO7QCKMoC7pWR9np5VcDBSAQwsXzhMcbBH9RL7tMr8KurldS9Ga_7Ai-q2U$>

That said this is a community project and it would be best to continue the discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.

Regards,
Kieran Kunhya

On Wed, 3 Apr 2024, 16:52 Satter, Raphael (Reuters) via ffmpeg-devel, <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org<mailto:ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>> wrote:
Dear FFMPEG community,

This is Raphael Satter, a journalist with Reuters. I saw your thread on X about your experience with Microsoft in the context of the XZ story and would love to follow up with a few questions.

Is there a good person to talk to? I’m reachable using the details below or on Signal/WhatsApp at +1 202 430 9389.

Raphael

💻 raphael.satter@tr.com<mailto:raphael.satter@tr.com>
🌎 raphaelsatter.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/raphaelsatter.com__;!!GFN0sa3rsbfR8OLyAw!fil3G3T7uUxCpJLVmYwgXrszOLckOVB2iMJMDO7QCKMoC7pWR9np5VcDBSAQwsXzhMcbBH9RL7tMr8KurldS9Ga_d7ggKWg$>
📰 reuters.com/authors/raphael-satter<http://reuters.com/authors/raphael-satter>

Thomson Reuters
1333 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20005

☎️ +1 202 843-6302

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [EXT] Re: Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel]

Hi Raphael,

Answers in my own personal capacity, not the views of my employer, nor the
views of anyone else in FFmpeg.

On Wed, Apr 3, 2024 at 8:26 PM Satter, Raphael (Reuters) <
Raphael.Satter@thomsonreuters.com> wrote:

> Dear Kieran & co.,
>
>
>
> Thank you I’ve had a chance to see the talk. It’s a marker of how
> invisible even critical open source projects can be that I wasn’t aware of
> FFmpeg’s role in powering the likes of YouTube and Netflix.
>
>
>
> A few questions I had:
>
>
>
>    - How much did Microsoft end up paying for the one-time fix?
>
>
Microsoft did not pay for any fix. There was no actual fix, a command line
option had changed between FFmpeg versions and a volunteer on our bug
tracker pointed this out.

A company which has several FFmpeg developers on its payroll asked
Microsoft (a separate team in private) for a support contract in light of
the fact FFmpeg is used in critical Microsoft products. Instead of
proposing a support contract, Microsoft said a few thousand dollars was
potentially available. This amount is too small to support any developer or
maintenance.


>    - What’s the solution here? Your talk mentioned paying developers,
>    getting an SLA, or hiring them as consultants … but why would companies
>    bother when they can just free ride? I asked the same question to CISA’s
>    Jack Cable when he told me that  companies need to “contribute back and
>    help build the sustainable open source ecosystem that we get so much value
>    from.” Sure, they “need” to do it, but who will punish them if they don’t?
>
>
The Linux Kernel has full time developers hired by big corporations to work
solely on the Linux kernel and to maintain sections of it. However, one can
argue Linux is the exception in open source that proves the rule that
corporations will be free riders.


>    - Any other thoughts you might have on this episode – or others you
>    think I should speak to – would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
The Demuxed video covers the rest of my thoughts. Microsoft are not the
only company with this attitude.

Regards,
Kieran Kunhya


>
>    -
>
> Raphael
>
>
>
> *From:* Kieran Kunhya <kieran618@googlemail.com>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 3, 2024 12:39 PM
> *To:* FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>
> *Cc:* Satter, Raphael (Reuters) <Raphael.Satter@thomsonreuters.com>
> *Subject:* [EXT] Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open
> source, and Microsoft
>
>
>
> *External Email:* Use caution with links and attachments.
>
>
>
> Hi Raphael,
>
>
>
> I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about this topic at
> Demuxed at a video conference last year:
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s__;!!GFN0sa3rsbfR8OLyAw!fil3G3T7uUxCpJLVmYwgXrszOLckOVB2iMJMDO7QCKMoC7pWR9np5VcDBSAQwsXzhMcbBH9RL7tMr8KurldS9Ga_7Ai-q2U$>
>
>
>
> That said this is a community project and it would be best to continue the
> discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Kieran Kunhya
>
>
>
> On Wed, 3 Apr 2024, 16:52 Satter, Raphael (Reuters) via ffmpeg-devel, <
> ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
>
> Dear FFMPEG community,
>
> This is Raphael Satter, a journalist with Reuters. I saw your thread on X
> about your experience with Microsoft in the context of the XZ story and
> would love to follow up with a few questions.
>
> Is there a good person to talk to? I’m reachable using the details below
> or on Signal/WhatsApp at +1 202 430 9389.
>
> Raphael
>
> 💻 raphael.satter@tr.com
> 🌎 raphaelsatter.com
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/raphaelsatter.com__;!!GFN0sa3rsbfR8OLyAw!fil3G3T7uUxCpJLVmYwgXrszOLckOVB2iMJMDO7QCKMoC7pWR9np5VcDBSAQwsXzhMcbBH9RL7tMr8KurldS9Ga_d7ggKWg$>
> 📰 reuters.com/authors/raphael-satter
>
> Thomson Reuters
> 1333 H Street NW
> Washington, DC 20005
>
> ☎️ +1 202 843-6302
>
> _______________________________________________
> ffmpeg-devel mailing list
> ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org
> https://ffmpeg.org/mailman/listinfo/ffmpeg-devel
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/ffmpeg.org/mailman/listinfo/ffmpeg-devel__;!!GFN0sa3rsbfR8OLyAw!fil3G3T7uUxCpJLVmYwgXrszOLckOVB2iMJMDO7QCKMoC7pWR9np5VcDBSAQwsXzhMcbBH9RL7tMr8KurldS9Ga_oyXmFKo$>
>
> To unsubscribe, visit link above, or email
> ffmpeg-devel-request@ffmpeg.org with subject "unsubscribe".
>
>
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [EXT] Re: Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Tomas Härdin]

ons 2024-04-03 klockan 19:26 +0000 skrev Satter, Raphael (Reuters) via
ffmpeg-devel:
>   *   What’s the solution here? Your talk mentioned paying
> developers, getting an SLA, or hiring them as consultants … but why
> would companies bother when they can just free ride? I asked the same
> question to CISA’s Jack Cable when he told me that  companies need to
> “contribute back and help build the sustainable open source ecosystem
> that we get so much value from.” Sure, they “need” to do it, but who
> will punish them if they don’t?

We could always start licensing the project under a less permissive
license like the GPL or the AGPL and then charge for exceptions. This
tactic goes by the name of license trolling, and was successfully used
by FFmbc for a while.

We also don't need to support every use case. I've been making the case
that we should be far more restrictive with what kind of input we
allow, especially for formats mainly used by professionals such as MXF.
Every feature carries with it a maintenance burden.

/Tomas
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [EXT] Re: Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Nicolas George]

Tomas Härdin (12024-04-08):
> We could always start licensing the project under a less permissive
> license like the GPL or the AGPL and then charge for exceptions. This
> tactic goes by the name of license trolling, and was successfully used
> by FFmbc for a while.

Why do you say that when you know perfectly well than some of the
developers holding copyright on the core code of the project will never
let you do it and the project currently does not have the talent to
rewrite everything?

> We also don't need to support every use case.

This, sadly, your ilk has the power to enforce. I am ancient enough in
the project to remember the time where supporting every use case was
almost an official motto, and lucid enough to realise that it was the
main reason for the success of the project.

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [EXT] Re: Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Paul B Mahol]

On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 4:41 PM Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:

> Tomas Härdin (12024-04-08):
> > We could always start licensing the project under a less permissive
> > license like the GPL or the AGPL and then charge for exceptions. This
> > tactic goes by the name of license trolling, and was successfully used
> > by FFmbc for a while.
>
> Why do you say that when you know perfectly well than some of the
> developers holding copyright on the core code of the project will never
> let you do it and the project currently does not have the talent to
> rewrite everything?
>
> > We also don't need to support every use case.
>
> This, sadly, your ilk has the power to enforce. I am ancient enough in
> the project to remember the time where supporting every use case was
> almost an official motto, and lucid enough to realise that it was the
> main reason for the success of the project.
>

And the demise of LibAV, history repeats over and over again.


>
> --
>   Nicolas George
> _______________________________________________
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>
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> ffmpeg-devel-request@ffmpeg.org with subject "unsubscribe".
>
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [EXT] Re: Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Tomas Härdin]

mån 2024-04-08 klockan 16:40 +0200 skrev Nicolas George:
> Tomas Härdin (12024-04-08):
> > We could always start licensing the project under a less permissive
> > license like the GPL or the AGPL and then charge for exceptions.
> > This
> > tactic goes by the name of license trolling, and was successfully
> > used
> > by FFmbc for a while.
> 
> Why do you say that when you know perfectly well than some of the
> developers holding copyright on the core code of the project will
> never
> let you do it

Looks like someone is not aware of the license upgrade clause in the
(L)GPL


> > We also don't need to support every use case.
> 
> This, sadly, your ilk

Veering into CoC violation territory I see

> has the power to enforce. I am ancient enough in
> the project to remember the time where supporting every use case was
> almost an official motto, and lucid enough to realise that it was the
> main reason for the success of the project.

Things change

/Tomas
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[FFmpeg-devel] Mailinglist conduct (was: [EXT] Re: Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft)

[Ronald S. Bultje]

Nicolas,

On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 10:41 AM Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:

> This, sadly, your ilk has the power to enforce.
>

Some CC members believe it would be helpful for you (and maybe to others)
if we explicitly laid out some ground rules more explicitly, so let us try:
- you are entitled to any opinion or belief you wish to hold. We are no
thought police.
- you are allowed to express non-defamatory versions of these opinions when
it is relevant to the discussion, or in new discussions, on our mailinglist.
- you are explicitly asked to *not* derail ongoing (e.g. technical)
discussions with these opinions where they are not relevant; do not bring
up Libav-vs-FFmpeg history or other us-vs-them conspiracies.

The CC has previously requested that you refrain from such conduct [1].
Therefore, we have decided to remove your mailinglist participation
privilege for 2 weeks.

Yours,
the CC [Ronald, JB & James supporting the decision and Michael dissenting]
(Michael mentioned that he is in favor of pointing out the "negative
interactions" but only for a ban if a further "negative interaction" occurs
after that.)

[1] https://ffmpeg.org//pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2023-December/318316.html
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Romain Beauxis]

On Wed, Apr 3, 2024, 11:39 Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel <
ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:

> Hi Raphael,
>
> I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about this topic at
> Demuxed at a video conference last year:
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s
>
> That said this is a community project and it would be best to continue the
> discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.
>

Thank you for sharing your talk. It's indeed unfortunate that large
companies are not more generous with the projects they depend on _heavily_

I would like to offer a constructive feedback really not intended as
trolling. I believe that supporting a more modern development workflow such
as the GitHub PR or gitlab MR would go very long way in helping onboarding
new developers.

I have been trying to contribute to the project for perhaps 18 months and,
while I think I'm getting better at it, I still find it incredibly complex
and hard to ramp up to.

The other open source community that I am involved with, the OCaml
compiler, moved to GitHub maybe 5/6 years ago and this has really done
wonders bringing in new contributors. And, you know, this is a niche
compiler that is also not getting much attention from AI/Machine Learning
people.


> Regards,
> Kieran Kunhya
>
> On Wed, 3 Apr 2024, 16:52 Satter, Raphael (Reuters) via ffmpeg-devel, <
> ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
>
> > Dear FFMPEG community,
> >
> > This is Raphael Satter, a journalist with Reuters. I saw your thread on X
> > about your experience with Microsoft in the context of the XZ story and
> > would love to follow up with a few questions.
> >
> > Is there a good person to talk to? I’m reachable using the details below
> > or on Signal/WhatsApp at +1 202 430 9389.
> >
> > Raphael
> >
> > 💻 raphael.satter@tr.com
> > 🌎 raphaelsatter.com
> > 📰 reuters.com/authors/raphael-satter
> >
> > Thomson Reuters
> > 1333 H Street NW
> > Washington, DC 20005
> >
> > ☎️ +1 202 843-6302
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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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> 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] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 2:14 PM Romain Beauxis <romain.beauxis@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I would like to offer a constructive feedback really not intended as
> trolling. I believe that supporting a more modern development workflow such
> as the GitHub PR or gitlab MR would go very long way in helping onboarding
> new developers.
>

Plus one(thousdand). While I don't think using MR or mailing list for
patches will immediately convince big tech corps to sponsor ffmpeg, it
would definitely help the developer community and make sure we don't lose
patchsets.

The other open source community that I am involved with, the OCaml
> compiler, moved to GitHub maybe 5/6 years ago and this has really done
> wonders bringing in new contributors. And, you know, this is a niche
> compiler that is also not getting much attention from AI/Machine Learning
> people.
>

Other open source projects are probably less plagued by patents.
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Hi,

Le 9 avril 2024 01:13:31 GMT+07:00, Romain Beauxis <romain.beauxis@gmail.com> a écrit :
>I would like to offer a constructive feedback really not intended as
>trolling. I believe that supporting a more modern development workflow such
>as the GitHub PR or gitlab MR would go very long way in helping onboarding
>new developers.

Switching to Github would certainly make it easier for new contributors to join. But it is most definitely not acceptable for political reasons for FFmpeg to switch over to a proprietary and US-based forge. Also most MRs would probably be craptastic kludges, which would only add to the review burden.

Switching to an own Gitlab instance would simplify code review (that's why I'm in favour) but it will add more burden on system admins, and make joining the project harder.

This may be counter-intuitive. But just look at the sad situation for projects hosted on code.videolan.org: people are back to submitting patches by mail or give up entirely due to how hard it is to create an account.

Lastly, I don't see how any of this helps motivate funding from big corps. Let's not miw things up here, please.
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Nicolas George]

Rémi Denis-Courmont (12024-04-09):
> Switching to an own Gitlab instance would simplify code review (that's
> why I'm in favour) but it will add more burden on system admins, and
> make joining the project harder.

Over the last fifteen months, I have updated GitLab sixteen times for
security issues (actually thirty two: sixteen for the mathematicians,
sixteen for the computer scientists).

I am pointing that for the burden, I am not offering to do the same for
free for the people who are so short-sighted they feel entitled to block
software-defined radio, break real-time display devices, prevent me from
adding the strings API necessary for proper built-in documentation and
information exfiltration from devices, etc., and apparently can.

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Stefano Sabatini]

On date Tuesday 2024-04-09 10:36:05 +0200, Nicolas George wrote:
[...]
> I am pointing that for the burden, I am not offering to do the same for
> free for the people who are so short-sighted they feel entitled to block
> software-defined radio, break real-time display devices, prevent me from
> adding the strings API necessary for proper built-in documentation and
> information exfiltration from devices, etc., and apparently can.

The "people" is at the end the TC/CC (Technical/Community Committee),
and we agreed to commit to what these organisms decide to resolve
conflicts for controversial features.

I have interest in the strings API (for which I have several use
cases, from ffprobe to output serialization for filters) so it would
be good to know the status of that, and I couldn't not find the
technical reason of that rejection assuming that was given - there
should be some written record of that somewhere.

But anyway such technical decisions should be not set in stone and it
should be possible to review them at any time.
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Gyan Doshi]

On 2024-04-10 02:57 pm, Stefano Sabatini wrote:
> On date Tuesday 2024-04-09 10:36:05 +0200, Nicolas George wrote:
> [...]
>> I am pointing that for the burden, I am not offering to do the same for
>> free for the people who are so short-sighted they feel entitled to block
>> software-defined radio, break real-time display devices, prevent me from
>> adding the strings API necessary for proper built-in documentation and
>> information exfiltration from devices, etc., and apparently can.
> The "people" is at the end the TC/CC (Technical/Community Committee),
> and we agreed to commit to what these organisms decide to resolve
> conflicts for controversial features.

Only if they respond. My matter is pending with the TC for close to 2 
months now.

Regards,
Gyan

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Tomas Härdin]

mån 2024-04-08 klockan 13:13 -0500 skrev Romain Beauxis:
> On Wed, Apr 3, 2024, 11:39 Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel <
> ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Raphael,
> > 
> > I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about this
> > topic at
> > Demuxed at a video conference last year:
> > https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s
> > 
> > That said this is a community project and it would be best to
> > continue the
> > discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.
> > 
> 
> Thank you for sharing your talk. It's indeed unfortunate that large
> companies are not more generous with the projects they depend on
> _heavily_
> 
> I would like to offer a constructive feedback really not intended as
> trolling. I believe that supporting a more modern development
> workflow such
> as the GitHub PR or gitlab MR would go very long way in helping
> onboarding
> new developers.

Considering which company owns GitHub and which company was the target
of Kieran's criticism, this seems ill-adviced

Also as someone who had to maintain a Gitlab instance at uni for a
couple of years, I agree with Rémi's points

/Tomas
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Romain Beauxis]

[Apologies for continuing the conversation, Rémi]

Le mar. 9 avr. 2024 à 14:05, Tomas Härdin <git@haerdin.se> a écrit :

> mån 2024-04-08 klockan 13:13 -0500 skrev Romain Beauxis:
> > On Wed, Apr 3, 2024, 11:39 Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel <
> > ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Raphael,
> > >
> > > I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about this
> > > topic at
> > > Demuxed at a video conference last year:
> > > https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s
> > >
> > > That said this is a community project and it would be best to
> > > continue the
> > > discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.
> > >
> >
> > Thank you for sharing your talk. It's indeed unfortunate that large
> > companies are not more generous with the projects they depend on
> > _heavily_
> >
> > I would like to offer a constructive feedback really not intended as
> > trolling. I believe that supporting a more modern development
> > workflow such
> > as the GitHub PR or gitlab MR would go very long way in helping
> > onboarding
> > new developers.
>
> Considering which company owns GitHub and which company was the target
> of Kieran's criticism, this seems ill-adviced
>

Would you mind explaining what you mean exactly? I want to respond but I'm
not sure if I fully understand your point here.


> Also as someone who had to maintain a Gitlab instance at uni for a
> couple of years, I agree with Rémi's points
>

My initial contribution was motivated by the argument presented in the
original talk that bringing new blood is critical to the survival of the
project.

If so, then I do believe that there must be a compromise to be made between
being easier to join for new developers and changing the existing workflow.
I'm also aware that changing the existing workflow has been discussed
before.

I don't think that media is not cool anymore, as argued in the talk. I see
a _lot_ of interested developers in my other projects and all over the open
source landscape. That's why I believe that it's also important to consider
other reasons than the talk's argument.

Being someone actually trying to contribute, with years of developers
experience and involvement in other communities, I was thinking that I may
be able to bring in more new context to the topic.

If there's interest in continuing the discussion, could you or Rémi be
willing to explain what kind of burden gitlab would add?

Also, Rémi said this would make it harder to join the project, in which way
exactly?

Otherwise, I'm happy to let this die and return to trying to get my patch
committed.. 🙂

Thanks,
-- Romain
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Paul B Mahol]

On Tue, Apr 9, 2024 at 10:57 PM Romain Beauxis <romain.beauxis@gmail.com>
wrote:

> [Apologies for continuing the conversation, Rémi]
>
> Le mar. 9 avr. 2024 à 14:05, Tomas Härdin <git@haerdin.se> a écrit :
>
> > mån 2024-04-08 klockan 13:13 -0500 skrev Romain Beauxis:
> > > On Wed, Apr 3, 2024, 11:39 Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel <
> > > ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi Raphael,
> > > >
> > > > I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about this
> > > > topic at
> > > > Demuxed at a video conference last year:
> > > > https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s
> > > >
> > > > That said this is a community project and it would be best to
> > > > continue the
> > > > discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Thank you for sharing your talk. It's indeed unfortunate that large
> > > companies are not more generous with the projects they depend on
> > > _heavily_
> > >
> > > I would like to offer a constructive feedback really not intended as
> > > trolling. I believe that supporting a more modern development
> > > workflow such
> > > as the GitHub PR or gitlab MR would go very long way in helping
> > > onboarding
> > > new developers.
> >
> > Considering which company owns GitHub and which company was the target
> > of Kieran's criticism, this seems ill-adviced
> >
>
> Would you mind explaining what you mean exactly? I want to respond but I'm
> not sure if I fully understand your point here.
>
>
Kieran's criticism is trolling, as Kieran and rest of FFmpeg devs use
regularly and passionately Various Big Corpo products all the time.

Kieran's criticism is unfounded one. As I, originally 'volunteered' in that
now 'famous' ticket about Certain Big Corpo bug report and kindly replied
in friendly manner to bug reporter and give reporter free support, me still
see no issues in that mine action.

I strictly do make difference between collective and single specific person.


>
> > Also as someone who had to maintain a Gitlab instance at uni for a
> > couple of years, I agree with Rémi's points
> >
>
> My initial contribution was motivated by the argument presented in the
> original talk that bringing new blood is critical to the survival of the
> project.
>

Projects go and die, and new ones rise up, all the time.


>
> If so, then I do believe that there must be a compromise to be made between
> being easier to join for new developers and changing the existing workflow.
> I'm also aware that changing the existing workflow has been discussed
> before.
>
> I don't think that media is not cool anymore, as argued in the talk. I see
> a _lot_ of interested developers in my other projects and all over the open
> source landscape. That's why I believe that it's also important to consider
> other reasons than the talk's argument.
>
> Being someone actually trying to contribute, with years of developers
> experience and involvement in other communities, I was thinking that I may
> be able to bring in more new context to the topic.
>
> If there's interest in continuing the discussion, could you or Rémi be
> willing to explain what kind of burden gitlab would add?
>

Infrastructure maintenance, no volunteers for gitlab repo admin.
Extra steps to setup account and X-factor authentication.


>
> Also, Rémi said this would make it harder to join the project, in which way
> exactly?
>
> Otherwise, I'm happy to let this die and return to trying to get my patch
> committed.. 🙂
>
> Thanks,
> -- Romain
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Romain Beauxis]

Le mar. 9 avr. 2024 à 18:46, Paul B Mahol <onemda@gmail.com> a écrit :

> On Tue, Apr 9, 2024 at 10:57 PM Romain Beauxis <romain.beauxis@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > [Apologies for continuing the conversation, Rémi]
> >
> > Le mar. 9 avr. 2024 à 14:05, Tomas Härdin <git@haerdin.se> a écrit :
> >
> > > mån 2024-04-08 klockan 13:13 -0500 skrev Romain Beauxis:
> > > > On Wed, Apr 3, 2024, 11:39 Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel <
> > > > ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hi Raphael,
> > > > >
> > > > > I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about this
> > > > > topic at
> > > > > Demuxed at a video conference last year:
> > > > > https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s
> > > > >
> > > > > That said this is a community project and it would be best to
> > > > > continue the
> > > > > discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Thank you for sharing your talk. It's indeed unfortunate that large
> > > > companies are not more generous with the projects they depend on
> > > > _heavily_
> > > >
> > > > I would like to offer a constructive feedback really not intended as
> > > > trolling. I believe that supporting a more modern development
> > > > workflow such
> > > > as the GitHub PR or gitlab MR would go very long way in helping
> > > > onboarding
> > > > new developers.
> > >
> > > Considering which company owns GitHub and which company was the target
> > > of Kieran's criticism, this seems ill-adviced
> > >
> >
> > Would you mind explaining what you mean exactly? I want to respond but
> I'm
> > not sure if I fully understand your point here.
> >
> >
> Kieran's criticism is trolling, as Kieran and rest of FFmpeg devs use
> regularly and passionately Various Big Corpo products all the time.
>
> Kieran's criticism is unfounded one. As I, originally 'volunteered' in that
> now 'famous' ticket about Certain Big Corpo bug report and kindly replied
> in friendly manner to bug reporter and give reporter free support, me still
> see no issues in that mine action.
>
> I strictly do make difference between collective and single specific
> person.
>


Thanks for the clarification, that's a level of nuance I did not grasp.

>
> > > Also as someone who had to maintain a Gitlab instance at uni for a
> > > couple of years, I agree with Rémi's points
> > >
> >
> > My initial contribution was motivated by the argument presented in the
> > original talk that bringing new blood is critical to the survival of the
> > project.
> >
>
> Projects go and die, and new ones rise up, all the time.
>
>
> >
> > If so, then I do believe that there must be a compromise to be made
> between
> > being easier to join for new developers and changing the existing
> workflow.
> > I'm also aware that changing the existing workflow has been discussed
> > before.
> >
> > I don't think that media is not cool anymore, as argued in the talk. I
> see
> > a _lot_ of interested developers in my other projects and all over the
> open
> > source landscape. That's why I believe that it's also important to
> consider
> > other reasons than the talk's argument.
> >
> > Being someone actually trying to contribute, with years of developers
> > experience and involvement in other communities, I was thinking that I
> may
> > be able to bring in more new context to the topic.
> >
> > If there's interest in continuing the discussion, could you or Rémi be
> > willing to explain what kind of burden gitlab would add?
> >
>
> Infrastructure maintenance, no volunteers for gitlab repo admin.
> Extra steps to setup account and X-factor authentication.
>
>
You have a little bit of a bias issue here I believe. :-)

If you restrict the contributors only to people who can do git send-email
and irc then, of course, you won't find many volunteers to maintain a
gitlab repo. And, of course, the majority of the people voicing their
opinion will be in favor of what they're already familiar with.

There's always a learning curve to adopting new tools. Matter of fact, I'm
old enough to remember myself complaining about git when it was taking over
SVN.. 🙂


> >
> > Also, Rémi said this would make it harder to join the project, in which
> way
> > exactly?
> >
> > Otherwise, I'm happy to let this die and return to trying to get my patch
> > committed.. 🙂
> >
> > Thanks,
> > -- Romain
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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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> 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] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Ronald S. Bultje]

Hi Paul,

On Tue, Apr 9, 2024 at 7:47 PM Paul B Mahol <onemda@gmail.com> wrote:

> Kieran's criticism is unfounded one. As I, originally 'volunteered' in that
> now 'famous' ticket about Certain Big Corpo bug report and kindly replied
> in friendly manner to bug reporter and give reporter free support, me still
> see no issues in that mine action.
>

I don't think anyone thinks that your action was bad. Quite the opposite,
you were generous in donating your free time to help a company in need.
They owe you thanks & more.

Ronald
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Tomas Härdin]

tis 2024-04-09 klockan 15:57 -0500 skrev Romain Beauxis:
> [Apologies for continuing the conversation, Rémi]
> 
> Le mar. 9 avr. 2024 à 14:05, Tomas Härdin <git@haerdin.se> a écrit :
> 
> > mån 2024-04-08 klockan 13:13 -0500 skrev Romain Beauxis:
> > > On Wed, Apr 3, 2024, 11:39 Kieran Kunhya via ffmpeg-devel <
> > > ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Hi Raphael,
> > > > 
> > > > I was the author of the tweet and I gave a short talk about
> > > > this
> > > > topic at
> > > > Demuxed at a video conference last year:
> > > > https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyOEuQQsCQ&t=930s
> > > > 
> > > > That said this is a community project and it would be best to
> > > > continue the
> > > > discussion on this mailing list unless agreed otherwise.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Thank you for sharing your talk. It's indeed unfortunate that
> > > large
> > > companies are not more generous with the projects they depend on
> > > _heavily_
> > > 
> > > I would like to offer a constructive feedback really not intended
> > > as
> > > trolling. I believe that supporting a more modern development
> > > workflow such
> > > as the GitHub PR or gitlab MR would go very long way in helping
> > > onboarding
> > > new developers.
> > 
> > Considering which company owns GitHub and which company was the
> > target
> > of Kieran's criticism, this seems ill-adviced
> > 
> 
> Would you mind explaining what you mean exactly? I want to respond
> but I'm
> not sure if I fully understand your point here.

Microsoft owns Github. I think it would be foolish to make ourselves
beholden to Microsoft, for reasons that I hope should be obvious.

> > Also as someone who had to maintain a Gitlab instance at uni for a
> > couple of years, I agree with Rémi's points
> > 
> 
> My initial contribution was motivated by the argument presented in
> the
> original talk that bringing new blood is critical to the survival of
> the
> project.
> 
> If so, then I do believe that there must be a compromise to be made
> between
> being easier to join for new developers and changing the existing
> workflow.
> I'm also aware that changing the existing workflow has been discussed
> before.

FFmpeg is far from the only project using an email driven workflow.
Linux comes to mind. I don't buy arguments from network effects.
Subscribing to a mailing list isn't hard.

/Tomas
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Michael Niedermayer]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3557 bytes --]

Hi

On Tue, Apr 09, 2024 at 03:57:02PM -0500, Romain Beauxis wrote:
> [Apologies for continuing the conversation, Rémi]
> 
> Le mar. 9 avr. 2024 à 14:05, Tomas Härdin <git@haerdin.se> a écrit :
> 
> > mån 2024-04-08 klockan 13:13 -0500 skrev Romain Beauxis:
[...]
> 
> > Also as someone who had to maintain a Gitlab instance at uni for a
> > couple of years, I agree with Rémi's points
> >
> 
> My initial contribution was motivated by the argument presented in the
> original talk that bringing new blood is critical to the survival of the
> project.
> 
> If so, then I do believe that there must be a compromise to be made between
> being easier to join for new developers and changing the existing workflow.
> I'm also aware that changing the existing workflow has been discussed
> before.
> 
> I don't think that media is not cool anymore, as argued in the talk. I see
> a _lot_ of interested developers in my other projects and all over the open
> source landscape. That's why I believe that it's also important to consider
> other reasons than the talk's argument.

To bring some of the new blood into the project the project needs to
first understand why they dont. And asking thouse who manage with difficulty
to join could be a biased oppinion.
How many potential new developers do we reach, how many of them want to join?
how many try to join, and what are the true reasosn for thouse who do not
want to join or try and fail?
Do we even try to attract new developers ?
I think on a scale from 1 ro 10 we are maybe at a 2 when it comes to
new developers, theres alot we could do, theres a alot we should know,
a lot we could try.

The effect on existing developers also must be considered

Also even within the current developers there is friction. Solving this
friction would increase the number of active developers.
And if its not solved then i think maybe we are missing the problem
because gitlab even if it adds more people will also increase these
frictions even more. Because there are problems between people and not
just a email vs gitlab one.

What i belive would help is a way for people to develop modules
(codecs, demuxers, muxers, ...) externally.
That can be a plugin system, it can be something else

That way each group can use the development and patch submission
systems they prefer.

I think the problem we have is less one of aging developers who want new
people to come in and the tools being a problem. But instead the old
developers having increasingly rigid oppinions that both old and new
developers do not agree with. The solution here is to put some space
between developers so everyone can work on what they like using whichever
enviroment they like. While still somehow maintaining common communication

Consider this also in abstract terms
In an enviroment where everyone can block and object to everything
(at least temporary)
the number of potential disagreemnets will grow quardatically with the
number of people. This is not scalable

Now people certainly can work on their own fork but then users cannot
use it or combine these. Plugins would be one fix for this

A Decoder is a module that takes a 1-D list of bits and outputs
2-D array of pixels or several 1-D list of audio samples. That interface
is not so complex that it needs to be kept inside a monolithic
repository

thx

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

What does censorship reveal? It reveals fear. -- Julian Assange

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Vittorio Giovara]

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 9:19 PM Michael Niedermayer <michael@niedermayer.cc>
wrote:

> Hi
>
> On Tue, Apr 09, 2024 at 03:57:02PM -0500, Romain Beauxis wrote:
> > [Apologies for continuing the conversation, Rémi]
> >
> > Le mar. 9 avr. 2024 à 14:05, Tomas Härdin <git@haerdin.se> a écrit :
> >
> > > mån 2024-04-08 klockan 13:13 -0500 skrev Romain Beauxis:
> [...]
> >
> > > Also as someone who had to maintain a Gitlab instance at uni for a
> > > couple of years, I agree with Rémi's points
> > >
> >
> > My initial contribution was motivated by the argument presented in the
> > original talk that bringing new blood is critical to the survival of the
> > project.
> >
> > If so, then I do believe that there must be a compromise to be made
> between
> > being easier to join for new developers and changing the existing
> workflow.
> > I'm also aware that changing the existing workflow has been discussed
> > before.
> >
> > I don't think that media is not cool anymore, as argued in the talk. I
> see
> > a _lot_ of interested developers in my other projects and all over the
> open
> > source landscape. That's why I believe that it's also important to
> consider
> > other reasons than the talk's argument.
>
> To bring some of the new blood into the project the project needs to
> first understand why they dont. And asking thouse who manage with
> difficulty
> to join could be a biased oppinion.
>

In my experience this boils down to three points
1. there is a legit barrier of entry in a large codebase such as ffmpeg,
but over time newcomers can learn about it
2. the review process can be though and it's easy to miss a ping and
patches get lost, very defeating for a new developer
3. there is net negative help from trolls who spread toxic poison, which is
confusing and uninteresting for the new blood

2 out of 3 can be solved technically, while the last one needs a cultural
shift - overall I think we're doing a good job at slowly changing pace and
having a bit of a better structure to solve situations when they arise, but
there is still a lot of work to do
-- 
Vittorio
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[Paul B Mahol]

On Thu, Apr 11, 2024 at 5:59 AM Vittorio Giovara <vittorio.giovara@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 9:19 PM Michael Niedermayer <
> michael@niedermayer.cc>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 09, 2024 at 03:57:02PM -0500, Romain Beauxis wrote:
> > > [Apologies for continuing the conversation, Rémi]
> > >
> > > Le mar. 9 avr. 2024 à 14:05, Tomas Härdin <git@haerdin.se> a écrit :
> > >
> > > > mån 2024-04-08 klockan 13:13 -0500 skrev Romain Beauxis:
> > [...]
> > >
> > > > Also as someone who had to maintain a Gitlab instance at uni for a
> > > > couple of years, I agree with Rémi's points
> > > >
> > >
> > > My initial contribution was motivated by the argument presented in the
> > > original talk that bringing new blood is critical to the survival of
> the
> > > project.
> > >
> > > If so, then I do believe that there must be a compromise to be made
> > between
> > > being easier to join for new developers and changing the existing
> > workflow.
> > > I'm also aware that changing the existing workflow has been discussed
> > > before.
> > >
> > > I don't think that media is not cool anymore, as argued in the talk. I
> > see
> > > a _lot_ of interested developers in my other projects and all over the
> > open
> > > source landscape. That's why I believe that it's also important to
> > consider
> > > other reasons than the talk's argument.
> >
> > To bring some of the new blood into the project the project needs to
> > first understand why they dont. And asking thouse who manage with
> > difficulty
> > to join could be a biased oppinion.
> >
>
> In my experience this boils down to three points
> 1. there is a legit barrier of entry in a large codebase such as ffmpeg,
> but over time newcomers can learn about it
>

Yes, external and internal API is complicated mess in all libs,
Most libs code is out of date with current State of Art found in other
projects.
Also contributors came and go, you can not force them to stay and maintain
code mess.


> 2. the review process can be though and it's easy to miss a ping and
> patches get lost, very defeating for a new developer
>

Specially when single patch get lost in twenty trivial refactoring patches
that spam the list.
There should be at least separate list for refactoring patches, and keep
this list only for important stuff like new features and bug fixes, if no
switch to Github/Gitlab is wanted.


> 3. there is net negative help from trolls who spread toxic poison, which is
> confusing and uninteresting for the new blood
>

That is internal community reaction to 1. and 2. points. Think it about
like auto-immune reaction to state of human body.


>
> 2 out of 3 can be solved technically, while the last one needs a cultural
> shift - overall I think we're doing a good job at slowly changing pace and
> having a bit of a better structure to solve situations when they arise, but
> there is still a lot of work to do
>

Cultural shift - Cancel culture.

The only point I agree about above is very last part of very last sentence.


> --
> Vittorio
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>
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Query from Reuters on XZ, open source, and Microsoft

[epirat07]

On 11 Apr 2024, at 5:59, Vittorio Giovara wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 9:19 PM Michael Niedermayer <michael@niedermayer.cc>
> wrote:
>
>> […]
>>
>> To bring some of the new blood into the project the project needs to
>> first understand why they dont. And asking thouse who manage with
>> difficulty
>> to join could be a biased oppinion.
>>
>
> In my experience this boils down to three points
> 1. there is a legit barrier of entry in a large codebase such as ffmpeg,
> but over time newcomers can learn about it
> 2. the review process can be though and it's easy to miss a ping and
> patches get lost, very defeating for a new developer

This has honestly been one of the most discouraging things when contributing
here.

The ML workflow just contributes to make this even worse for me, as it makes
it really hard to keep track of things. (Of course everyone is different
and I get why some people like the ML-patches workflow, but having experienced
both at VLC, I can say for myself I vastly prefer Gitlab-like solutions)

> 3. there is net negative help from trolls who spread toxic poison, which is
> confusing and uninteresting for the new blood
>
> 2 out of 3 can be solved technically, while the last one needs a cultural
> shift - overall I think we're doing a good job at slowly changing pace and
> having a bit of a better structure to solve situations when they arise, but
> there is still a lot of work to do

Another factor is IMO the general tone here on the ML, let’s just say it is not
the most welcoming environment. It doesn’t help that sometimes technical discussion
and „politics“ are mixed together so you have no way to escape it when you don’t feel
like being dragged down by the state of this community some days…

> -- 
> Vittorio
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> ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org
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>
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> ffmpeg-devel-request@ffmpeg.org with subject "unsubscribe".
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