[FFmpeg-devel] Democratization

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces at ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Michael Niedermayer
> Sent: Thursday, January 2, 2025 3:18 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel at ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: [FFmpeg-devel] Democratization
> 
> Hi all
> 
> I was working in the last few days a little on drafting a
> democratization process

Hi,

After two years of absence I've just come back and read through just few conversations to realize how much I haven't missed this.

Reading those ideas about "democratization" makes we wonder how it can happen that fundamentally intelligent people can fall for the illusion that this could even have a chance to work in a reasonable way. It's sufficient to read through the conversations about it to realize that it cannot work out.

Nothing against democracy, but in this case it is aiming to extend and intensify something that is already the biggest problem in this project and the most toxic barrier for others to join and contribute:

The fact that everybody thinks they must have a say in everything. This is what's causing endless discussions and makes this project to appear hostile, non-welcoming in unpleasant for any developer to contribute to the project.
In case of contributions, nobody is able to provide guidance in a constructive manner, all reviews are solely focused on objections and nitpickings with the only silent agreement being not to contradict objections by others. This is destructive and non-productive. During the past two years, I have talked to several developers about contributions to ffmpeg, who said all something similar to this: "Yes, I've tried once or twice, but it seems almost impossible to get anything reviewed and merged, so I've just given up on it. What? You got commits merged? How the hell did you manage to do that?"

This project doesn't need more people talking into everything, it doesn't need more discussions, community involvement and voting about every single nit.

What this project needs instead is LEADERSHIP!

There need to be positions who are in charge and responsible for certain areas (codecs, formats, filters, tools or whichever separation might be reasonable) which are above individual maintainers and can overrule them.

And then there needs to be one person who is in charge and has the last say in everything - not silently, but executing this where necessary for bringing the project forward.

The people for those positions can be elected in a democratic process - like every 2 or 4 years, but that's all that is needed on the side of democracy.
During all the time in-between there's no need and no place for any such discussion anymore and the project can move forward without continuing to focus on its self-destruction.


This is obviously not a very innovative model. But it's one that is proven to work in zillions of cases.

Sw