[FFmpeg-devel] Is the GA democratic ?

[Soft Works]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces at ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Nicolas George
> Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2025 9:01 PM
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-
> devel at ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Is the GA democratic ?
> 
> Michael Niedermayer (12025-01-21):
> > Being a "member of the commuity" should give them a vote if you
> want to
> > call it a democracy in relation to the FFmpeg community
> 
> At this point I think it would be very useful if you took the time to
> write down the reasons you think this whole thing is a good idea.

Another question that would need to be answered is how to make this safe against manipulation. I can't see how the previously mentioned idea of checking whether a mailing list registration can be "traced back to a real person" could work out for this in reality - not even when we had an actually working procedure for verifying "real persons". For example:

I would easily be able to reach out privately to users in our community (like various beta groups), asking them to register to the ML under their real names and ask them to vote for certain things.
I for myself wouldn't be able to vote, because you can't trace it back to a real person.

Same would be possible in companies, asking colleagues to register and vote.

Using commits as a metric still appears to me as the most suitable and manipulation-safe metric. How it works in detail can be questioned and can be adjusted. But ML membership doesn't appear viable to me.

sw