[FFmpeg-devel] SWS cleanup / SPI Funding Suggestion

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le keskiviikkona 18. lokakuuta 2023, 0.57.45 EEST Michael Niedermayer a écrit 
:
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 09:50:41PM +0300, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> > Le perjantaina 13. lokakuuta 2023, 22.19.34 EEST Michael Niedermayer a 
écrit :
> > > But some goals would probably be to make sws
> > > * pleasent to work with
> > > * similar speed or faster
> > > * proper multithreading
> > > * proper full colorspace convertion not ignoring gamma, primaries, ...
> > > * clean / understandable modular design (maybe everything can be a
> > > "Filter"
> > > inside sws that get build into a chain)
> > 
> > It sounds very nice. But it also sounds very fuzzy and subjective. Unless
> > you can put this in more objective terms such as would be expected of a
> > statement of work, all the while not compromising the intent of the
> > sponsorship, I would advise against using foundation funds.
> 
> What i had in mind was that the developer who wants to work on this would
> provide a offer that is more clearly defined.

That does not seem like a good idea, due to obvious moral hazards.

> > In my opinion, not "paying properly" is morally wrong, and sets a very bad
> > example that it is acceptable not to pay developers properly.
> 
> It can be "proper" depending on where the developer is from, what she
> exactly will do and how much time she will need. Also the developer may
> have other sources of payment for this work or may benefit from a better
> swscale directly or want to work on this volunteerly and just needs a
> little extra push.

You have to keep in mind that this working model is already intrinsically 
rather precarious (for the developer). It only gets worse if you make it 
underpaid and/or reliant on additional third party grants or motivation. Also 
if there are vested interest in getting the work done anyway, then it really 
should be funded by those vested interests: again, the foundation does not 
look like it can afford to spend much of anything in sponsored development at 
this time.

> But IMO the really important part is a different one. Not how much money we
> have in SPI from donations today. But how much we could have if we USE the
> money.

As long as the additional income does not become a legal liability, by all 
means, spend on stuff with good Return On Investment.

But while I can see the appeal of revamping swscale on a technical level as a 
professional software engineer myself, I am very Very VERY skeptic that it 
would have much if any ROI in terms of donations to FFmpeg.

> Why would someone donate to FFmpeg?

People will donate if they are willing, able and aware. Unfortunately, since 
FFmpeg is predominantly a library and almost exclusive back-end software, 
people do not know that they can even donate, even the few that are able and 
willing to do so.

> we have enough money for hw & travel.

Sure, but that is most certainly not at the top of the list of reasons for the 
dearth of donations.

> If we use it to improve FFmpeg suddenly there is a reason to donate and also
> theres a reason for us to ask for donations.

FFmpeg is nothing short of amazing as it is. Improving swscale is definitely 
not going to make a significant difference in that respect.

> Only when we use the money and actively seek donations can we know what
> amount of money would be available.

If you want to actively seek donations, you need to make people aware that you 
want donations. In other words, you need to do <s>marketing</s>public 
relations.

Improving swscale is NOT that. That's R&D, and it's only of immediate interest 
and notice to technically versed people.

> Also not using the money ever is almost certainly not what the people
> donating wanted.

This is true. A lot of people seem to think that open-source developers are 
permanently teenagers working in their parents' basements, and that donations 
are luxurious pocket money, when it really is small change.

But that does not change the fact that you simply don't have the right scale 
of revenue to sponsor development.

> And many different developers did over the last years indicate the need for
> more solid financial sustainability.

Spending what little money the foundation has on a highly technical and low 
external visibility development project is *not* sustainable by any reasonable 
common acceptance of the word.

When white collars utter "open-source sustainability", they mean is sustained 
and sustainable funding from commercial users of open-source, on a scale that 
is able to support ongoing development and maintenance activities.

A one-shot swscale improvement project is anything but.

> both SPI and FFlabs can be a parts in this. Rejecting SPI seems not wise.
> Having multiple sources of funding seems a good thing.

I am not rejecting SPI by principles. Certainly MediaWiki and Mozilla have at 
times shown that it is possible for foundation to pay their own developpers. I 
am rejecting SPI/FFmpeg because the revenues simply are not sufficient at this 
time.

Get a few hundreds of thousands € a year extra, and we can seriously talk 
about self-funding FFmpeg.

> > Lastly using foundation funds to sponsor specific project may open a
> > pandora box.
> 
> FFlabs opened that already i think

I don't know if FFlabs incited jealousy from developers for whatever real or 
perceived reasons. But FFlabs is (AFAIK) a for-profit business that gets money 
from its clients for specific purposes. Nothing like SPI.

> > What happens if more than one credible developer wants to take up the
> > project?
> 
> Then 15k$ was too much

So that's lowest bidder paradigm. Then you have to have a SoW first. See above.

(...)
> Whats the worst that can happen ?

The project fails because the terms were too vaguely defined. The GA become 
even more reluctant to spend what little money FFmpeg has. Developers are 
turned off from applying for sponsorship from FFmpeg. The contracted developer 
rage-quits.

> We fund a few projects, we ask for donations a slight bit more actively,
> maybe a news entry on the webpage pointing to what work was possible from
> donations.

Sigh. Ask for donations first and then if/when they actually materialise, write 
proper statement of words and *last* fund projects?


-- 
雷米‧德尼-库尔蒙
http://www.remlab.net/