[FFmpeg-devel] FFmpegs future and resigning as leader

[wm4]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 15:53:04 +0200
Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc> wrote:

> Hi all
> 
> Ive been in FFmepg since 14 years and been the leader since 11 years
> and i feel that iam not the best person for the leader position.
> I had hoped for a long time that the fork situation would resolve and
> both sides somehow merging back into one team. All the Libav developers
> joining FFmpeg again. But even now as the last distributions are
> preparing to remove Libav, still theres no hint of that happening.
> Maybe even the opposite.
> 
> The community is split and its very difficult to be the leader when
> one is on one side of this split and the other tries everything to
> push me out
> 
> I hope my resignation will make it easier for the teams to find back
> together and avoid a more complete split which would otherwise be
> the result sooner or later as the trees diverge and merging all
> improvments becomes too difficult for me to do.
> 
> also before my resignation, i offer all maintainers who dont yet have,
> direct write access as i likely will not comb through the ML anymore
> or not as frequently to apply patches, please send me your public SSH
> key if you are de facto maintaining or working on some part of FFmpeg
> or are listed in MAINTAINERs.
> 
> If people want to continue merges from libav, someone else will have
> to do these. Indeed i fully admit the work and pressure caused by
> the merges is a main reason for my resignation.
> 
> FFmpeg belongs to the FFmpeg developers and the FFmpeg community!
> 
> will i ever return ? ... i might ..., if theres a nice and friendly
> environment, no hostile forks or at least none i have to interact with.
> But i will certainly not return as leader, this is not really a role
> i ever truly liked, more one i ended up with.
> Especially as somehow "leader" is being interpreted by everyone as
> "the guy who does all work noone else does, and takes all
>  responsibility noone else wants to take"
> 
> am i still available for consulting jobs releated to FFmpeg?
> yes, of course i cant gurantee it for the very distant future but
> currently yes. And in the very distant future, its a maybe, so just
> ask if theres something ...
> 
> what about root, git admin roles, ...?
> Well iam happy to pass them on to whoever the community chooses and
> trusts. But please be very carefull who you choose!
> until someone else is choosen i can continue doing the basic things
> like security updates and opening git accounts, aka theres no urgency
> in choosing someone, rather please choose wise than quick.
> 
> what about GSoC? I agreed to mentor and admin that and i will of
> course finish that for this summer. I may or may not be available
> in future FFmpeg GSoCs.
> 
> If you now think "ohh god what should i do, michael resigned"
> very simple, FFmpeg is yours, that is everyones. try your best to
> make FFmpeg be the best.
> Post patches, review patches, apply patches, discuss code and design.
> Report bugs, bisect, debug and fix bugs, add features, help users.
> Do friendly merges, and if you like do hostile merges.
> Its all up to you now!
> 
> 
> PS: To push a merge, i think this wasnt documented, you need to
> add a "Merged-by:" to the commit message, thats the only check, i have
> no special premissions or anything to push merges.
> 
> PS2: Be carefull about who will be in charge of key infrastructure!
>      and also where power moves when thouse in charge then resign.
> 
> PS3: I would suggest a new "leader" if there was a clear pick, a year
>      or 2 ago i would have suggested stefano or clement but they are
>      not so active currently. Maybe a good candidate will appear in
>      the future or stefano & ubitux will become more active again
>      in which case i would suggest one of them as leader if the
>      community wants to have a leader and they agree.
> 
> Thanks to everyone, for everything they did and will do in the future
> for FFmpeg and the community !
> 

I didn't always agree with your way of maintaining FFmpeg, but the work
you did was impressive. I also hope that this will eventually lead to
FFmpeg and Libav being one project again. And I hope that this is not
the end of you as FFmpeg contributor.