[FFmpeg-devel] Politics

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces at ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of Soft Works
> Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2021 7:16 AM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-devel at ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: [FFmpeg-devel] Politics

Hi,

let me clarify a bit on the status and the motivation.

I have started this development, because I needed the functionality.
The decision - which retrospectively turned out to be stupid
and non-rewarding - to do it in a way that it could also be
merged into official ffmpeg has always been secondary.

Nonetheless I have followed all suggestions (which were specific 
and constructive) to match everybody's expectation.

At this point the development cycle for thy has come to an 
end. I have achieved all the goals I had and all things 
are working as expected without regressions in existing 
functionality.

I find it offending when some developers which have followed my
patchset over time and have even given earlier advice are
approaching me now at the end and at the 23rd versions 
with ideas that would require going back and starting over
to a large part or changing things that would endanger 
stability and require an enormous amount of work to get
to the same degree of stability again.
My response to that is: Sorry - you could have come earlier,
but the window for such changes has closed long ago.

(Nicolas, no need to respond, it's not about you)


So what's the status?

My patchset is an offering to ffmpeg - nothing more, nothing
less. At this point, I am ready to do:

- Small corrections or adjustments to satisfy requirements
  to get merged
- Fixing all bugs and issues that get reported
- Future updates, improvements and adding additional features
  and filter after merge

As a benefit, this brings features and functionality to ffmpeg 
that have been lacking and highly requested for almost a decade.

It's rather unlikely that a comparable submission will be made
by anybody else in the next few years, even less likely from 
those who haven't managed to get going in that area for a long
time.

I understand that some developers are dissatisfied with the
existence of the subtitle_pts field in the AVFrame struct.
But it is a requirement for my patchset to work and I will
not change it. Not because I don't want, but because it doesn't 
work without it. 
Not that I hadn't tried, but it remains the grain of salt 
that can't be avoided.


So I think it burns down to the following:

Everybody will need build his own opinion and decision 
about which of these things will outweigh the other:
An undesired field in the AVFrame struct vs. a whole range of
new functionality added to ffmpeg.

(of course in addition to all other decision criteria every
body will find important to consider).


Maybe it's possible to put this up for a vote?

If there's a majority against it, then it will be fine for
me. It would just be great to find out better sooner than 
later, because then I could stop wasting my time on this.

Kind regards,
softworkz