[FFmpeg-devel] Re: [RFC] Funded Task Ideas

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

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Hi Nicolas

On Wed, Oct 15, 2025 at 04:53:28PM +0200, Nicolas George via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> Michael Niedermayer via ffmpeg-devel (HE12025-10-14):
> > As we are now looking for sponsors, we also should look for tasks to fund.
> 
> > PS: once we have enough yearly income we can look at hiring / funding
> > people fulltime.
> 
> I will step into it:
> 
> This is severely misguided.
> 
> FFmpeg is a Libre Software project: its goal is to make beautiful and/or
> useful software.
> 
> FFmpeg's goal is NOT to gain market shares.
> 
> FFmpeg's goal is NOT to turn a profit.
> 
> FFmpeg's goal is ABSOLUTELY NOT to get a livelihood for its authors.
> 

> The problem with people getting paid to work on FFmpeg is that it is a
> misaligned incentive. It creates the incentive to push the code as is
> instead of polishing it, instead of accepting suggestions to make it
> better. It creates the incentive to work alone rather than seek the
> insights of our peers.

I think you see only one possible way of doing this.
But really there are MANY ways

For example, one can pay for maintaince, for fixing issues.
One can pay developers and leave it up to them what to work on.

Just imagine for a moment we had 1M$ income per year in SPI or a ffmpeg foundation
we could pay 10+ developers fulltime and still leave it completely to them
what they work on.
There is no incentive to do things quick and ugly.


> 
> I am sure some developers are able to resist the incentive and not let
> the fact that they are paid for it reduce the quality of their code in
> favor of speed at all. But I am also sure they are not a majority.

From what iam reading on the subject of code quality and people, in general
developers care about code quality (also in commersial settings) this can
be a matter of pride and such stuff. Noone wants "their" code to be ugly
while management and also customers may push for "quick"

Of course if the developer doing the work is not competent the code will
show it but thats not "because its funded", its "because the developer had
a bad teacher or no teacher", or maybe because he wasnt given enough time

Also the real goal of funding, which i think people miss is to
facilitate that people can work on teh code.

That is very few can work fulltime on FFmpeg because, they need to pay rent
for their appartment, pay food, taxes, ... bascially the cost of living isnt 0

Funding a developer, be that as a contractor or emplyoee, is to allow him/her
to work more on FFmpeg.

You can also see it as,
* you pick people who want to work fulltime on FFmpeg and who have demonstrated
  previously they can and produce good code (or whatever other contribution they did) and ...
* then get them funded so they can work fulltime on FFmpeg

Theres no incentive here to produce bad code.

Also theres in fact often incentives to produce better code.
If you hire a contractor for a specific coding job. And the code she
produces is bad quality. Will you hire her again ?
No, so thats an incentive to produce good quality

thx

[...]

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

If you think the mosad wants you dead since a long time then you are either
wrong or dead since a long time.

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