[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] financial sustainability Plan A (SPI)

[Thilo Borgmann]

Am 26.10.23 um 21:02 schrieb Kieran Kunhya:
>>
>> * If you have some flashy FFmpeg project you want to work on with a cost of
>>    between 5-15k $ then propose it on the mailing list, make yourself ready
>> for
>>    some paperwork complexities and some public debate as thats the first
>> time we
>>    try this, there will be extra issues likely. And once the community
>> approves
>>    it and stefano with you double checks with SPI if we will be able to
>> fund it.
>>    Then you can start working on it
>>
> 
> The mailing list is already an absolute disaster as it is and you now want
> to put money into the mix?

Of course. FFmpeg has a donations account. So the money is already there and 
already used for the reimbursement requests. Whatever we spent it for needs to 
be decided by the community. Spending more money instead of just watch it 
growing is a good thing. That this will lead to more "disaster" is an assumption 
without basis. Even if this does happen and fails, its still better than not 
having even tried.

Also, you just advertised FFmpeg and asked for more financial support in your 
talk at Demuxed [1] - so I figure your prefered way of doing that would be to 
channel money into some company without the community being involved?

And since you also advertised explicitly for FFlabs - what is your relation to 
FFlabs? I own 25% of that company and I am not aware of any relationship. You 
just did advertise FFlabs because... FFlabs exists? FFlabs is a company co-owned 
by some FFmpeg developers, it's not FFmpeg nor can it represent it or act on its 
behalf.

As soon as we pay developers via SPI it can become a good zero-trust environment 
for donators to offer tasks & money to FFmpeg and handle the money flow via SPI.
The donators can be sure that their issues are handled properly in the project 
(on the ML) and do not flow away into some other sink and the developers can be 
sure to get their money from SPI because the offer is public and backed by the 
FFmpeg SPI account. Sounds like a quite trustworthy and most importantyl 
transparent way to handle things and build up trust in potential donators that 
the money they spent actually end up with FFmpeg.


> I don't think developers should be paid via SPI for this reason.

I think supporting FFmpeg developers via SPI fits perfectly into what we have 
SPI for in the first place - an independant entity that handles the community 
funds with absolute objectivity and no intrinsic interest whatsoever. In 
contrast to any company, including (my own-ish) FFlabs.

-Thilo

[1] 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B9VoiT6sjW4vWWsp6ipudLz73QtdBbGi/view?usp=sharing