[FFmpeg-devel] FFmpeg table at NAB

[Thilo Borgmann]

Hi,

On 21.04.24 10:47, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
 > Hi,
 >
 > I have been dragged privately into this issue so for the sake of 
transparency, I will just sum up my side here.
 >
 >
 > Le 17 avril 2024 07:21:18 GMT+08:00, Devin Heitmueller 
<devin.heitmueller at ltnglobal.com> a écrit :
 >> Hello all,
 >>
 >> I wasn't looking to start trouble, but I didn't see any discussion of
 >> this on the mailing list so wanted to bring it to the developer
 >> community's attention.
 >>
 >> I attended the NAB conference and went by the "ffmpeg" booth on
 >> Sunday.  What I found was a single table with the official ffmpeg
 >> banner hanging right next to a banner for the GPAC project, and two
 >> salespeople from GPAC handing out marketing literature and trying to
 >> educate me on why I should use their framework for my next project.
 >
 > Thilo did announce that some unidentified party would be payind for 
FFmpeg to hold a booth (this should be visible in the archives). Kieran 
raised legitimate if not concerning questions based on his prior 
experience at NAB.
I announced that "We reiceived an anonymous corporate sponsorship for 
the booth, so there are no costs for the FFmpeg project to it (and no 
obligations, of course)."

Kieran's reaction was raising concerns that he feels donors wouldn't 
want to see their SPI money spend on NAB [1][2] - ignoring that I'd just 
announced that there will be no donor's SPI money needed as there are no 
costs for FFmpeg.

Kieran's reaction further was claiming that no plan has been provided 
who will actually be present on the booth [1][2] - ignoring that I'd 
just announced that "Any FFmpeg developer is welcome to join in and man 
the booth with me".


 > Thilo did not answer, which is inexcusable, especially considering 
that there were several times that the questions were reiterated.
Ignoring what has been said, making statements raising the impression 
that something contradictory would be the truth is trolling me and 
deceiving the other readers. No reason at all to feed the trolls - no 
matter how often the trolling is repeated.


 > Thilo privately called Kieran a "troll" as the lame pretext for not 
answering the question (I can copy the CC privately if proof of this is 
needed).

And I just did publicly, for what I believe his reaction in the FFmpeg 
at NAB 2024 thread was and everyone can read to get their own impression 
in the archives. You think it's a lame pretext? The "questions" had been 
answered even before they were "raised" by Kieran.


 > In light of this, it seemed obvious that the FFmpeg booth would be a 
disaster, pretty much how Kieran had predicted.

In the light of... the costs being covered and me + any other volunteer 
manning the booth as announced or in the light of... the deceiving 
'ignorance' in Kieran's statements?
_Even if_ the coverage of the complete funding and/or manning the booth 
would have been unanswered, how would that have 'obviusly' concluded the 
booth to become a disaster?
That conclusion itself appears not comprehensible.


 > So there you have it. On the bright side, FFmpeg was not footing the 
bill.

I fear FFmpeg has to pay quite a high bill for all the trolling bullshit 
going on about this NAB presence alone.


 > I think everybody can make their own conclusions without me 
speculating or opiniating further, so I will leave it at that.

I very much hope everyone is making up their own opinion.
Even you, who I think is not stupid, obviously was too easily made to 
takeover the 'payment is unclear', 'manning is unclear', 'will become a 
desaster' narrative here.


 >> I'm not saying that GPAC shouldn't be able to have a table at the
 >> conference, but it feels pretty misleading to have an "ffmpeg" booth
 >> listed in the conference materials, with a table prominently
 >> displaying the ffmpeg logo, with zero people from ffmpeg and people
 >> pushing users to use an alternative framework that some might actually
 >> considered to be a competitor to ffmpeg.
 >
 > Agreed. Thanks for your testimony.
And here you are demonstrating again that it appears to be so much 
beloved behavior in our community to hop on the troll train and 
willingly ignore previous statement for the sake to troll on.
You love to ignore what I relied to Devin's mail where to the most 
important part, Devin's impression could be reasonably explained/voided 
to have been a wrong impression (misleading ffmpeg booth without any 
people from ffmpeg) that to my understanding after talking to him, 
doesn't bother him anymore.

You can think about GPAC what you want and if it is a good idea to share 
a booth with them.
My thoughts about it is that we should absorb them into FFmpeg instead 
of splitting resources and efforts. They know that and yet want to share 
a booth with us.
But since they are doing things like DRM we reject doing at FFmpeg, GPAC 
currently is a valid downstream project adding 'value' of some kind to 
their users beyond what FFmpeg can provide.
Not surprising, since we are a library and literally every user will add 
some value on top, make their own project/product out of it and could be 
considered a 'competitor' in that sense.

IMHO, you just added quite some trollish behavior in your own response 
to the NAB discussion instead of productive, fruitful or even useful 
discussion, hurting FFmpeg and yourself.

-Thilo


[1] 
https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2023-November/317199.html
[2] 
https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2023-November/317214.html