[FFmpeg-devel] [VOTE] FFmpeg leader

[Diego Biurrun]

On Fri, Oct 01, 2010 at 11:12:23PM -0700, Baptiste Coudurier wrote:
> On 10/1/10 11:09 PM, Jason Garrett-Glaser wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 10:57 PM, Felipe Contreras
> > <felipe.contreras at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 8:47 AM, Jason Garrett-Glaser
> >> <darkshikari at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> And since your maintainership covers all of ffmpeg, that gives you the
> >>> right to change whatever you want without asking anyone.
> >>>
> >>> How about no.
> >>
> >> In some projects, like git.git, the maintainer sends his patches to
> >> the mailing list like everybody else. If nobody shouts, he pushes. I
> >> believe this is the most sensible approach; the maintainer should not
> >> be considered a flawless god whose opinion is above everybody else,
> >> and thus his patches should not be considered error free, nor
> >> unquestionable.
> > 
> > I agree.  Not even Linus commits his patches unquestionably; Michael
> > should be the same.
> 
> Well FFmpeg is not like the kernel (where everybody is paid to do the
> job) nor a major project like git which has many contributors.

FFmpeg is smaller than the kernel, but smaller than git?  I cannot find
any numbers to support this theory, on the contrary...

> I would personnally be really annoyed to send patches to files I
> maintain. I do however pay really attention to comments made on -cvslog,
> and I address them. Many people review on -cvslog as well.
> 
> Given the coverage FFmpeg svn has now thanks to FATE, this is reasonable
> IMHO, and avoids the burden.

I agree for not too large changes to files you maintain, but if you make
large changes or API changes, then review and comments will always be
valuable.  You just sent a patch for MOV autocrop, which is something
you maintain...

I maintain the MPlayer build system and nobody knows it better than I
do.  Nonetheless I'm sending patches for review now that I am doing
large and fundamental changes to it.  I have profited from these going
down that path.

People get a heads-up that large changes are in the pipe, so there will
be no complaints after the fact.  Bugs got noticed and things I could
fix issues that I overlooked.  Plus, I got some useful suggestions to
problems where I was still stuck.

Michael is one of our best programmers and knows FFmpeg like no other.
However, he is not better than everybody else combined, so there are
situations where discussion of his changes can result in better code.
I see no reason not to exploit this opportunity.

Diego