[FFmpeg-devel] VDD 2023, FFmpeg meeting notes, (23-11-2023, 4pm, Dublin)

[Cosmin Stejerean]

> On Sep 24, 2023, at 5:45 PM, Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Sep 24, 2023 at 04:10:00PM +0100, Ronald S. Bultje wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> I believe the GA should have sole control and ownership over the domain and
>> trademark. I suggested to kindly ask Fabrice to transfer ownership and/or
>> legal control permanently to a non-profit controlled by and composed of
>> only our GA. I believe this can be amicably worked out.  If you believe
>> Fabrice should continue to have *some* (although not *sole*) say over
>> FFmpeg and ffmpeg.org, then we could propose for him to be a GA member,
>> too. I think that makes a lot of sense - he historically has a ton more
>> work in FFmpeg than me.
> 
> I disagree
> * Who is and is not a member of the GA is in flux, there can be disputes
>  even on GA membership.
> * You cannot have something owned by a group like that. There needs to be
>  an individual like a treassurer who has the actual key.
>  So you again trust one person, this is not different from what it is
>  now.
> 
> Also democracies can make really bad decissions. Which iam sure you have
> never seen occur ;)
> 
> And last but not least, this is attackable even unintentionally
> you just need for a single moment a majority in the GA that is
> bad. This is not hard to reach, a group can easily pose as enough
> active developers to achieve 51% and if the domain then really is
> legally controlled by the GA. yeah goodby domain
> this is not a scenario possible with fabrice having theretical veto
> power.
> So Yes, i strongly favor fabrice keeping this veto power.

These are legitimate concerns that exist in every member driven non-profit. There are common tools though to deal with this. I'm not proposing anything specific for ffmpeg, I don't get a vote here, but I'm just going to list some suggestions:

- a board, elected by the GA with staggered board seats such that 1/N come up for a vote every year
- rules around how or when something can be put to a vote by the GA
- bylaws requiring a supermajority of the vote such as 2/3 or 3/4 for certain decisions that shouldn't be left to simple majority
- new members of the GA needing to be voted in by existing members in addition to requiring certain criteria for eligibility such as number of commits 

Perhaps some of these things have been considered in the past.  The more important point is that these are common concerns with common tools to deal with them. I don't believe concerns about a name takeover should require an ad-hoc governance model when more common and arguably more equitable governance models exist. 

- Cosmin