[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] Release 6.1

[Michael Niedermayer]

On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 08:14:37PM +0200, Anton Khirnov wrote:
> Quoting Michael Niedermayer (2023-09-26 19:16:30)
> > On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 05:30:19PM +0200, Anton Khirnov wrote:
> > > Quoting Michael Niedermayer (2023-09-26 17:09:47)
> > > > On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 11:13:40AM +0200, Anton Khirnov wrote:
> > > > > Quoting Michael Niedermayer (2023-09-22 11:27:54)
> > > > > > The idea was really just, that i said ill include SDR and i want to
> > > > > > keep this word
> > > > > 
> > > > > Well, you should not have spoken for the entire project without
> > > > > consulting the rest of the community first. Nobody here is entitled to
> > > > 
> > > > This statement is a little misleading, i think
> > > > 
> > > > Iam part of the community, i would think and for 99% of the tweets made
> > > > on the official twitter account i have never been asked or even had a
> > > > chance to comment before they where made. So what you suggest here is
> > > > "the correct way", has never been applied.
> > > 
> > > This is disingenuous sophistry, and honestly I find it insulting that
> > > you expect people to swallow it.
> > > 
> > > You made the tweet in question long after it was clear that the feature
> > > is controversial. Then you tried to use it as an argument in favor of
> > > pushing SDR to master. In other words, you used the fact that you have
> > > Twitter posting rights to promote your opinion over that of other
> > > developers. If that is not abuse of power then I don't know what is.
> > 
> > ok
> > I wrote a SDR input device for free, wanted to give it to the users
> > as i believed it was a cool and usefull feature
> > 
> > i tried to argue for it, i tried to promote it.
> > And as the person doing all releases of FFmpeg since a very long time
> > i thought yeah we will be able to resolve the disagreements and get it
> > in 6.1 with everyone geing happy.
> > I was wrong, i announced this before i actually got people to agree yes
> > I still belive if people where not so "excited" on this whole and if it
> > was just a technical question we could get SDR in 6.1 with everyone
> > agreeing.
> > But now heres a man to be burned at the stake, and thats more important.
> 
> You keep framing this as some kind of a personal campaign against you.
> It is not. From my perspective, the objections to SDR have been largely
> technical, and most of the "heat" comes from your refusal to accept that
> many active developers are against it.

Technical arguments ?
Yes, several people had technical arguments, I remember Tomas and Remi and some
others. But at least subjectively i felt that the bulk of people where alot more
emotional than technical

But let me list a few observations, from memory
First objection was because processing is done in an external library.
Then it was found out that was wrong and actually processing is done in the new code
so the objection flipped and people demanded it to be moved into an external library.

If you object to pink and want blue and when you find out its actually blue you have
to be happy and become a supporter but what happened was the opposit, the objection
was simply adjusted to object to whatever was the case and demand whatever was not.

Ok so thats at least one developers "Technical objection" down here, maybe more
i dont know if anyone else expressed that same initial objection. but lets move on

In all cases we prefer not to have external dependancies, this is the Technical position of FFmpeg
no, there is no technical argument in this.
Also personal preferrances of people is not a technical argument. Noone explained why a
avdevice module with more external depandancies would be ok but a avdevice module with
fewer external depandancies was not. <-- This last sentance is a technical argument
I could go as far as call this a proof by contradiction.

If people are happy with a avdevice module and FFmpeg prefers fewer external dependancies
then my suggestion of first starting with a plain simple self contained avdevice/avformat
module, would have to be fine too.
We can always move this to an external library once there is a technical reason for that
like for example some other software wants to use it

About the attack/rallying/compaign stuff. Ill keep it very brief as its not useful i think.
Also this is my own personal and subjective view. In fact the whole mail is
There was alot of (negative) emotion from 1-2 people about SDR. This emotion was what spread
slash rallied other developers. That came before any technical arguments.
Now people have picked their flag and march to war.

Everyone will deny it, same as every patriot will fight to the death for the colors of
the flag of the country and religion they where born into.

My claim, sorry to be stubborn, is that had this started a slight bit different there
would be little opposition to SDR. Iam not denying that now there are several people
against it.

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Rewriting code that is poorly written but fully understood is good.
Rewriting code that one doesnt understand is a sign that one is less smart
than the original author, trying to rewrite it will not make it better.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 195 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/attachments/20231003/7f903e0b/attachment.sig>