[FFmpeg-devel] Democratization work in progress draft v2

[Michael Niedermayer]

Hi all

Heres my current "work in progress": (sending that before fosdem, so people can discuss if they like)

Goals:
    The proposed changes aim to improve the General Assembly's structure to ensure inclusivity, fairness, and resilience against attacks. The key goals are as follows:
    Increase the Size of the General Assembly
        Inclusivity: Allow every contributor to have a vote, ensuring all voices are heard, regardless of their role or level of involvement.
        Enhanced Security: By increasing the number of voters, it becomes significantly harder for a malicious actor or group to influence decisions. A larger voting pool dilutes the impact of any single attack or coordinated effort.
    Make Voting Power Proportional to Contributions
        Fair Representation: Allocate voting power based on contributions, ensuring that those who dedicate substantial time and effort to the project have a stronger voice than those with minimal involvement. This creates a system where contribution equals influence.
        Resilience Against Attacks: Attackers would need not only a large number of people but also a comparable volume of meaningful contributions to influence the vote, further safeguarding the project.
        Motivating Participation: Encouraging higher levels of engagement by rewarding contributors with more influence in decision-making.
    Broaden the Definition of Contributions
        Previously everyone was a software developer. But really there are many people in the community, who are not software developers.


Shares in Alternative P
    1 release                               == 100 shares
    1 entry in MAINTAINERS                  == 100 shares
    1 commit in           git master branch ==  10 shares
    1 subscription in ffmpeg-devel          ==  10 shares
    1 subscription in ffmpeg-user           ==  10 shares
    1 fixed ticket in trac                  ==  10 shares
    1 reported issue in trac                ==   2 shares
    1 mail in ffmpeg-devel                  ==   2 shares
    1 mail in ffmpeg-user                   ==   2 shares
    1 (backported) commit in release branch ==   1 shares

    If the condorcet vote software fails due to the number of shares then
    all shares shall be divided by 2 before all rounding and non integer shares shall be rounded to nearest even
    this shall be repeated until the vote software no longer fails due to the number.

Shares in Alternative F
    Everyone who either has authored a commit in git master or sent a mail to ffmpeg-devel or user
    or fixed or reported an issue in trac has exactly the same vote power. This is a true classical democracy.
    It includes the nearly same people as the previous suggestion but without the
    proportionality. It is vulnerable to a group of a few thousand actual people joining and coordinating
    an attack. The proportionality raises the bar for such an attack by ~2 orders of magnitude.

    We need a list to remap multiple addresses to the same person (this is not needed for the proportional case)

Any single company collective vote power is limited to 10%, associated companies count as the same company here.

If anyone can show that specific activities are automated then the test used for detecting them
shall by confirmed by GA vote and then be added to a list of anti-bot tests. This vote shall be
performed by a GA that is on the closest first january prior to the event adding the disputed shares.

the list of mails on ffmpeg-devel and ffmpeg-user should be filtered by the current subscribers based on the
idea that someone who left by choice does not want to receive vote mails. If they want to vote they can
re-subcribe

In all cases, whenever possible decisions should be made by consensus on ffmpeg-devel.
Voting should only be used when consensus was tried at least twice and failed

A factor related to last activity will be in a seperate vote
A veto power may be in seperate vote

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Some Animals are More Equal Than Others. - George Orwell's book Animal Farm
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