[FFmpeg-devel] Donations and what happens with them

[Rob]

On 27 January 2011 17:54, Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 09:48:56AM +0100, Rob wrote:
> [...]
>> >> >They belived they voted on a ultra secret compromise to bring mans back into
>> >> the project
>>
>> I lent my support to the goals, not to a compromise of you out and
>> Mans in. Do not put words in my mouth.
>
> you possibly wherent part of the discussions, dont blame me about that please
> i had assumed everyone was shown the full discussions before their agreement
> was asked.

I was involved in the discussions and tried to steer them in the
direction of fairness, respect and dignity. I stated that if things
proceeded in an undignified fashion it would reflect badly on the
group. That is exactly what is happening. Very little of this
discussion is about making things better (or at least when anyone
tries, it quickly degenerates into mud-flinging).

> [...]
>> >> > The official repository is the videolan repository, the other repository will
>> >> > be removed from that page.
>> >> > This is a decission of me as leader of the project.
>> >>
>> >> >Iam also asking diego and mans to resign as roots with this mail.
>> >>
>> >> You are insisting that everyone else resign, yet you yourself still
>> >> refuse to resign as "leader". ?This is ridiculous. ?You are even worse
>> >> than Mans and Diego: you want everyone else to give a mile when you
>> >> won't give a single inch.
>> >
>> > The problem is if a group of people forks they must choose a new name and
>> > new domain. people cannot "fork" and then pretend they are the new leadership
>> > of an existing project and the existing leader is no more.
>>
>> As I now disagree with the way the announcement was done, I will agree
>> that if there had not been an overwhelming majority amongst active
>> developers that the group should have forked and not taken over.
>
> I think a fork would move us toward a solution.
> I think me and mans finding an agreement and staying together in one single
> repo would also be a move toward a solution but people really must want this
> otherwise we will start fighting again.

For me, this was never about M?ns and Michael per se. If the person,
people or entire community holding the power manage things in such a
way that _drives development_ and actually does work to improve the
core of FFmpeg, it really doesn't matter to me what entity has power.
It seems that for Michael and M?ns it is a personal battle.

Michael, will you work with M?ns?
M?ns, will you work with Michael?

>> > And people signing that announcement didnt even know that it would not be a
>> > proper fork (i talked to several of them thats why i know)
>>
>> Everyone who lent their support to the announcement read it first. We
>> were all careful about this. If we regret it then it's due to
>> hindsight, lack of (time and energy for) foresight or that the
>> announcement was not read when asked "do you agree with this
>> document?".
>
> have you been on the evil_overlord channel or where you asked by phone/mail?

I was in the channel from fairly early on and involved in discussions
when I had the time to give it some attention. These days I am mostly
online during work hours and obviously then I am working.

> the actual discussion has been on that channel AFIAK, and your mail makes me
> belive you where not part of the discussions that led to this text,
> and instead was just shown the public text with a yes/no question.
> But i may be wrong, so please correct me

The text was written and a number of people on that channel made
comments for alterations. When I read it, the first thing I didn't
like and wanted to rewrite was that it was to be a takeover of the
infrastructure and an assumption of power. I tried to rewrite that
part as a proposal for changes a few times but I couldn't come up with
anything that wasn't a ridiculously complicated sentence. Then I had
to get back to work and I didn't try again despite reading the text
through again fully. After that I let myself be carried by momentum.

I honestly don't know the reasons for the urgency. I suspected it was
because the group was growing, had some momentum and consensus amongst
the supporters that change was needed and that the git switch had just
been made. I can't think of any other reasons.

But I was definitely involved in a lot of the discussions and some
discussion leading up to this text.

Regards,
Rob