[FFmpeg-devel] Searching for a ffmpeg BCLO (bastard chief legal officer)

[Chris Ribe]

On Fri, Jan 25, 2008 at 8:05 AM, Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at>
wrote:

> Hi
>
> The number of LGPL and GPL license violations increases, we already have 6
> on roundup.
> I first thought ill try to contact them but i guess it would be more
> efficient if someone else could do that and i could concentrate on
> developing which id also prefer :)
>
> So what are the requirements for the BCLO:
> * Short temper (not the kind type of guy who nicely talks with them for
>  3 month)
> * legal knowlegde (you dont have to be a lawyer but you should know
>  the (L)GPL and have an approximate idea of copyright law)
> * ability to read C code, use strings and grep
> * ability to use traceroute and the others to find the ISP, domain name
>  provider, ... of a company
>
> Things which would be nice
> * some good contacts to online sites/local radio/newspapers which might
>  be interrested in publishing an article about such copyright violation
> * actually being a lawyer
>
>
>
> Payment
> none from us but if a company pays us something due to a license/copyright
> violation it certainly would be acceptable if some part of that would be
> given to you, maybe 30% or so, rest would go to the ffmpeg project ...
> But then this also opens the donations tax problems box, so someone would
> have to solve that first ...
>

I am interested in this position, and am interested in assisting Diego if
the position has become his.  I meet all of the requirements and would be
able to fulfill many of the duties as part of my day job.  I am an IT
Engineer for a TV station, and have put ffmpeg to work extensively within
our station.

A significant portion of my job involves putting together transcoding
workflows, and I am keen to stay up to date with the offerings of the
commercial A/V codec marketplace (and keener still to see the whole of them
replaced by OSS solutions).  I regularly deal with the companies selling
transcoding products to the broadcast industry.

As for payment, I would request only that the developers turn a kind ear to
my ffmpeg related questions, and that 30% of recovered monies be placed in a
"Pro A/V bounty fund" for furthering ffmpeg support of professional A/V
codecs and formats, whose targets I would define.

I have long wished to contribute to either ffmpeg or my other favorite
libavcodec based projects, mplayer and mythtv, but have lacked a clear way
to apply my bash-hacking and email-composing skills to its benefit.  I hope
I have found one.

Bastardly yours,
   Chris Ribe


-- 
TV/IT Engineer
WCJB-TV Gainesville, FL
(352) 416 0648
cribe at wcjb.com