[FFmpeg-devel] Not so preliminary announcement about the current situation

[Attila Kinali]

Dear friends, developers, contributors and vultures,

First i want to give you a warm FUCK YOU ALL! for what you've
written and done the last few days.

After being prodded by a few people to read what's going on
i've spend the last hour with reading the mailinglist instead
of doing what i should be really doing: sleeping so that i can
get up early tomorrow morning and care about my day job.

Instead i've read flames, accusation, bad jokes. People i've never
heard of are using strong words about things they cannot possibly
have the slightes clue about. People who everyone thought have
left for good long ago are comming back and picking at the flesh
of the wounded like vultures send from the depths of hell to inflict
pain no man has ever known.

Hence i would like to clarify a few things here and then move on
to something that involves less lies, less venomous words.

0) For those who do not know me: I'm "The Root", master over
the machine that hosts ffmpeg.org and most of the infrastructure
around FFmpeg and MPlayer. I've been active around MPlayer and
FFmpeg nearly since the beginning, but due to lack of time and
knowledge moved into the shadows and tried to support both projects
as good as i could as sysadmin. I seldom appear in the daily busines
of either project unless i feel that something is so much amiss that
it will become much worse if i don't act. (Which only happens once
every few years)
M?ns and Diego are my co-admins who help me getting things done
when i'm too busy (which is pretty often) or just simply not available.
I also know Michael personally and was for a long time the only one
around MPlayer and FFmpeg who has met him (this didn't change until
very recently). I consider all three of them my friends.

1) My name is on "The List". Yes. I signed it. I exactly knew what
i'm agreeing with. The wording might be less than optimal. I should
have known it, yes, but i was (and still am) busy with a lot of other
things that keep me "distracted" from FFmpeg. Hence i didn't realize
it when reading the announcement. But i still agree with it says
and its intentions. 

2) And contrary to what Michael wrote, i knew about what was going on for
quite a few months. Even though i was by far not the first one to join,
i was on the boat quite early. When time permitted, i tried to stear
it into a more positive direction, or tried to negotiate between the
sides. With very little success as can be seen.

3) I resigned from being root last october because it started to take
too much energy from me because some "project leader" could not solve
his problems himself, but asked me (as root, not as a project member)
to do it for him. Each time threatening me that he would move FFmpeg to
another server if i didn't do what he wanted. I told him repeatedly that
i'm not his nany and would like him to solve his personal problems himself.
But seeing that it continued it like this forever i resigned and asked that
a replacement to be found. 
To this date, no replacement for me has been found, which made me continue
my duties as root even though i didn't want anymore.

4) Even no replacement as root could be found in the last 4 (four!)
months and hence forcing me to go on with something i didnt want
to do. I now read that Michael was able to find two people who
would be willing to take over in less than a week. Please consider
me as FUCKING PISSED!

5) I agreed to continue as root under the "new goverment" under the
condition, that i'm only responsible for the technical issues. And
even there, that more of the work i'm doing is taken over by M?ns and Diego.
I.e. I wanted to have more time for the more important stuff in my life
and less to worry about the well being of the server. And no babysitting
of developers who have difficulties to get along.

6) Michael called my on my mobile phone two times beginning of this
week. I didn't have the time to answer him and asked whether it would
be ok if we talked on the weekend. He agreed, but asked me to provide
the logs of #ffmpeg-devel and the evil_overlord channel.
Well, you can find the logs of ffmpeg-devel from Sat Sep 11 17:34:25 2010
until today that i have at [1] (the rest of the logs are burried in
the depths of my fileserver and i dont feel like searching for them).
I will NOT give anyone the logs of the other channel. No matter who
asks. It was and is a private channel. And i will not fail the
trust of anyone and give away private communication. The same goes for
all the mails and diskussions i had with Michael in private. These were
diskussions between Michael and me and thus of nobody elses business.

7) As long as FFmpeg/MPlayer server is registred under my name,
i will keep an eye on how it is used. This means that i will not
allow it to be taken over for anything but development on FFmpeg
and MPlayer. I wouldn't have agreed to the forementioned announcement
if i would have the slightest impression that it is a personal revenge
from M?ns or anyone else.

8) I do not think that Michael is a good project leader. He has too many
shortcommings in this regard. And he fails to understand things he's
been told openly. And even if he says he understands and agrees, he
still continues in his old ways. I think he is a good developer and
admire his knowledge and intelligence (especially knowing his background).
Heck, i dont know anyone who could have pulled off a 99% working wavelet
based video codec within just a few months, just he was bored and wanted
to know what this fuzz about wavelets was about (i wouldnt be surprised
if Michael didnt even know what wavelets are before he started).
I think that Michael should not lead FFmpeg anymore but keep doing what
he is really good at: writing code.

9) I do not consider the way the diskussions here are led as being
construcive or even as civlized. It's just a lot of finger pointing,
accusing and lying. And ontop of it, the biggest flamer in the history
of OSS has reappeared and trying to troll everyone into even more 
brainless shit throwing. Yes, i'm talking about you, Gabu!

Here would be now my conclusions about the discussion and what i wrote
above. Unfortunately, it ended up in a very strong way and i dont see
how i could word it better (not this late in the night). Thus i deleted
it again. Just this much: you wouldn't have liked it, none of you.
I will think next week whether i will write my conclusions or not.

So, i'm now going to bed because i have to get up in less than 5 hours.
I wish you a nice night/evening/morning/whatever. Please stop this
lying, accussing and bikesheddering and start talking in a civilized way.


				Attila Kinali

[1] http://attila.kinali.ch/ffmpeg-devel.log.gz

PS: Michael: i will not call you this weekend. After what i've read i dont
feel like talking to you in the next time. I just want to have a weekend
without having to think about all this mess and what you all made out of it.
-- 
It is the unknown we fear when we look
upon death and darkness, nothing more.
	-- Albus P. W. B. Dumbledore