[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] doc/developer: require transparency about sponshorships.

[Kyle Swanson]

Hi,

On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 10:21 AM Nicolas George <george at nsup.org> wrote:
>
> Rationale:
>
> * This requirement should offset a little the incentive to neglect
>   design, code quality and politeness during the review process when
>   done for money.
>
> * The review process itself and future maintenance burden cost efforts
>   to the whole project; knowing that sponsorship has been given, to an
>   individual or to the whole project, helps evaluating if the benefits
>   match the costs.
>
> * Inclusion in FFmpeg implies implicit endorsement by the project;
>   we owe to our users to disclose when this endorsement is not genuine;
>   this is to relate to mandatory flagging of advertisement in mass media.
>
> * Systematic disclosure and transparency make a stronger position
>   against accusations of bias or conflict of interest for difficult
>   policy decisions.
>
> * Documenting bounties may give an incentive to new contributors
>   who may not be aware of these opportunities.
>
> Signed-off-by: Nicolas George <george at nsup.org>
> ---
>  doc/developer.texi | 10 ++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/doc/developer.texi b/doc/developer.texi
> index 5c342c9106..1d77250083 100644
> --- a/doc/developer.texi
> +++ b/doc/developer.texi
> @@ -420,6 +420,13 @@ your name after it.
>  If at some point you no longer want to maintain some code, then please help in
>  finding a new maintainer and also don't forget to update the @file{MAINTAINERS} file.
>
> + at subheading Disclose sponsors and other remunerations
> +If the patch is the result of sponsored work, expects a bounty or benefited
> +from any kind of specific remuneration or payment, include the identity of
> +the sponsors, the identity of the recipients (if it is not exactly the
> +author of the patch) and the amount (or an approximation if it is not
> +possible to define it exactly) in the commit message.
> +
>  We think our rules are not too hard. If you have comments, contact us.
>
>  @chapter Code of conduct
> @@ -664,6 +671,9 @@ are notoriously left unchecked, which is a serious problem.
>  @item
>  Test your code with valgrind and or Address Sanitizer to ensure it's free
>  of leaks, out of array accesses, etc.
> +
> + at item
> +Did you disclose any sponsorship in the commit message?
>  @end enumerate
>
>  @chapter Patch review process
> --
> 2.20.1
>
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Lots of people get paid to work on OSS. It's not a conspiracy, that's
just the way it is. If someone gets paid to write a patch that does
something useful, great. They got paid, and FFmpeg is better. If
someone gets paid to write a patch that's no good, we just don't merge
it. I don't see any reason FFmpeg should be concerned who is getting
paid and how much.

Thanks,
Kyle