[FFmpeg-devel] Worsening messages

[James Almer]

On 12/26/2024 10:29 PM, Niklas Haas wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Dec 2024 22:06:11 -0300 James Almer <jamrial at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/26/2024 9:51 PM, Niklas Haas wrote:
>>> On Thu, 26 Dec 2024 15:59:06 -0300 James Almer <jamrial at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 12/26/2024 12:07 PM, Kieran Kunhya wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, Dec 25, 2024 at 1:31 PM Michael Niedermayer
>>>>> <michael at niedermayer.cc> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Community, Community Commitee, Moderators
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Your removal of this message as of 1504 GMT 26/12/2024 is completely
>>>>> unacceptable with one days notice posted on a public holiday in most
>>>>> countries.
>>>>> Furthermore, you make regular allegations based on conspiracy theories
>>>>> against me and others in the project without consequence.
>>>>> Yet, a largely factual criticism of your behaviour from Vittorio is
>>>>> censored immediately.
>>>>
>>>> This is a he-said-she-said situation. Both sides of the discussion
>>>> accuse the other of defamation, to the point things escalated to absurd
>>>> levels. I have already lost the plot and don't even know what riled
>>>> people so much.
>>>>
>>>> I don't want a list of accusations from Vittorio, you, or Michael, and
>>>> also don't want people to start throwing insults again, but, politely
>>>> and clearly, what is the core issue here? What is the problem that if
>>>> solved, would make everyone finally calm down? Is it the thing about
>>>> transparency and management? What else needs to be done that hasn't yet
>>>> be done for either of those.
>>>
>>> Having read (but not participated in) a good chunk of the recent discussions,
>>> here is my attempt at a summarization of the core issue: FFmpeg brands itself
>>> a democratic project, but it effectively runs on a "benevolent dictator for
>>> life" model. The main source of frustration is this disconnect between what
>>> the relevant parties think ought to be, and what is. One side clearly wants to
>>> move the needle towrds decentralization of power, and the other side clearly
>>> wants to retain, or even strengthen, a centralized power model.
>>>
>>> There are several tangential discussions to this main point, which as best as
>>> I can tell, are merely being used as leverage to support their relevant side,
>>> or to try and gain some slight amounts of power either way (e.g. discussions
>>> about documentation vs obfuscation of infrastructure).
>>>
>>> I think that ultimately, the only thing that can be done here is for Michael,
>>> the as of today still *de facto* project leader, to decide whether a
>>> democratization of FFmpeg is in order. The outcomes I can see are:
>>>
>>> 1. Michael agrees to democratize FFmpeg. The GA holds a "vote of no confidence"
>>>      against him.
>>>
>>> 1a) Michael loses, and transfers root and DNS rights to whatever party the GA
>>>       decides should replace him. The rest of the infrastructure flows downstream
>>>       from there. The community picks up the pieces from there and rebuilds under
>>>       whatever management process the GA votes on.
>>
>> Can't this outcome happen without DNS changing hands? I'm not exactly
>> sure the GA, with it's current low requirements for membership, should
>> have control of the domains.
>> Can't DNS still remain in Fabrice (or Michael's) hands? Everything, like
>> changing hosts for all infrastructure (Gitea/forejo/gitlab migration to
>> *anywhere* included), can still be done by GA decisions that way. No
>> reasonable request should be denied.
> 
> If the bar is 'not trusting unknown third parties', then I don't see why not.
> I wrote that paragraph under the assumption that the bar is 'not trusting
> Michael (and his friends)', in which case DNS remaining in control of a party
> that the community would have decided to vote out of power seems a bit odd.

I don't think the issue is not trusting Michael, but that things aren't 
happening because it all currently depends on him agreeing.

> 
>> If there's some legal way for Fabrice, as the trademark owner, to regain
>> control of the DNS if he deems it necessary, then maybe some legal
>> entity can be made to effectively manage it (and not one individual),
>> with the TC being in effective control of it.
> 
> That seems to me like more of an implementation detail for scenario 1a, rather
> than a question that will get us closer to resolving the core issue.

It's a question to ensure 1a is guaranteed to be successful. Everyone 
wants to move to gitlab/forejo already. The entry bar for new blood is 
too high with the current ML + git send-email/format-patch style.

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