[FFmpeg-devel] [DECISION] Project policy on closed source components

[Reimar Döffinger]

On 28.04.2019, at 22:02, Marton Balint <cus at passwd.hu> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> There has been discussion on the mailing list several times about the inclusion of support for closed source components (codecs, formats, filters, etc) in the main ffmpeg codebase.
> 
> Also the removal of libNDI happened without general consensus, so a vote is necessary to justify the removal.
> 
> So here is a call to the voting committee [1] to decide on the following two questions:
> 
> 1) Should libNDI support be removed from the ffmpeg codebase?

I don't see myself qualified to vote, and I'd rather have this vote not happen, because I don't think this specific case justifies the divisions such discussions and votes encourage.
In the end, why should we really care?
Yes, we should respect our users, but those users are PAYING customers of a company. Why should we be taking responsibility for them and not the company that gets paid? They can maintain their own FFmpeg patches.
And it's a case of a company that decided to go closed source and to violate the license. At some point it's "you made your bed, now you get to lie in it".
That said, I am not truly arguing for the taken approach, but I argue it is a bad cause to create more divisions (for example I already see the "who gets to vote" thing coming up).
I also feel that some people might have other concerns triggered by this.
Maybe it would be better to discuss these instead and try to reach common ground.

I hope I have not offended anyone, and I admit I don't even read emails on this list nowadays.
So you are under no obligation to listen to me, but I still kind of love this project and wish for it to have as healthy a community as possible when people with different world views meet head-on, and hope you can discuss in that spirit :)

Best regards,
Reimar Döffinger