[FFmpeg-devel] Worsening messages

[Niklas Haas]

On Thu, 26 Dec 2024 15:59:06 -0300 James Almer <jamrial at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/26/2024 12:07 PM, Kieran Kunhya wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 25, 2024 at 1:31 PM Michael Niedermayer
> > <michael at niedermayer.cc> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Community, Community Commitee, Moderators
> >>
> > 
> > Your removal of this message as of 1504 GMT 26/12/2024 is completely
> > unacceptable with one days notice posted on a public holiday in most
> > countries.
> > Furthermore, you make regular allegations based on conspiracy theories
> > against me and others in the project without consequence.
> > Yet, a largely factual criticism of your behaviour from Vittorio is
> > censored immediately.
> 
> This is a he-said-she-said situation. Both sides of the discussion 
> accuse the other of defamation, to the point things escalated to absurd 
> levels. I have already lost the plot and don't even know what riled 
> people so much.
> 
> I don't want a list of accusations from Vittorio, you, or Michael, and 
> also don't want people to start throwing insults again, but, politely 
> and clearly, what is the core issue here? What is the problem that if 
> solved, would make everyone finally calm down? Is it the thing about 
> transparency and management? What else needs to be done that hasn't yet 
> be done for either of those.

Having read (but not participated in) a good chunk of the recent discussions,
here is my attempt at a summarization of the core issue: FFmpeg brands itself
a democratic project, but it effectively runs on a "benevolent dictator for
life" model. The main source of frustration is this disconnect between what
the relevant parties think ought to be, and what is. One side clearly wants to
move the needle towrds decentralization of power, and the other side clearly
wants to retain, or even strengthen, a centralized power model.

There are several tangential discussions to this main point, which as best as
I can tell, are merely being used as leverage to support their relevant side,
or to try and gain some slight amounts of power either way (e.g. discussions
about documentation vs obfuscation of infrastructure).

I think that ultimately, the only thing that can be done here is for Michael,
the as of today still *de facto* project leader, to decide whether a
democratization of FFmpeg is in order. The outcomes I can see are:

1. Michael agrees to democratize FFmpeg. The GA holds a "vote of no confidence"
   against him.

1a) Michael loses, and transfers root and DNS rights to whatever party the GA
    decides should replace him. The rest of the infrastructure flows downstream
    from there. The community picks up the pieces from there and rebuilds under
    whatever management process the GA votes on.

1b) Michael wins, and anybody who is unhappy with this result will simply have
    to accept the democratically elected outcome or else change their
    argumentative standpoint from pro-democracy to anti-Michael.

2. Michael disagrees to democratize FFmpeg, claims to support a democratic
   process but ignores (or otherwise blocks) the GA vote, or simply ignores
   the issue in hopes it will go away; leading to:

2a) Proponents of a democratic FFmpeg accept this fact and either cease their
    position, or else continue bickering on the mailing list for the rest of eternity.

2b) The project splits in two (again), and a whole lot of very nasty power
    games decide who gets to keep what names, trademarks, infrastructure
    elements, and so on.

For simplicity, I am assuming (based on what I can see) that Fabrice and other
de-facto moderators and long time (root) administrators of various infrastructure
are sufficiently loyal to Michael to follow along with whatever he decides.

With this in mind, it seems clear to me that no amount of discussion amongst
the community can change the *matter of fact* that it is Michael who (directly
or indirectly) holds the keys to power, and therefore Michael who can
almost unilaterally decide whether we tread down path 1 or 2.

For what it's worth, we currently appear to be stuck in the scenario 2a for
the past year (or more).

I hope I'm not completely misrepresenting the situation here, but do correct
me if I'm way off.

Happy holidays,
-Niklas

> 
> And as part of the CC (until the new one is finally formed), i also will 
> inform everyone that this and other threads may be moderated if things 
> keep going off the rails, with a proper announcement if so. Same for 
> moderating users if insults keep flying around.
> 
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