[MPlayer-cvslog] r26411 - trunk/libmpdemux/demuxer.c

[Michael Niedermayer]

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 03:04:14AM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 05:51:58PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 05:21:59PM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > > On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 04:27:50PM +0300, Ivan Kalvachev wrote:
> > > > On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 3:20 PM, Reimar Döffinger
> > > > <Reimar.Doeffinger at stud.uni-karlsruhe.de> wrote:
> > > > > On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 01:38:06PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > > > >> diego           1038     504     1542
> > > > >> reimar           690     246      936
> > > > >> voroshil         312       8      320
> > > > >> nico             212      43      255
> > > > >> benjamin         144      32      176
> > > > >> ulion            153      13      166
> > > > >> eugeni           106      56      162
> > > > >> uoti              99      20      119
> > > > 
> > > > Reimar, looking at these numbers, I'd say that you are de-facto project leader.
> > > > Diego is not coder and none of his commits changes the way MPlayer
> > > > works. He is doing a lot of refactoring and cosmetics.
> > > > 
> > > > Reimar, please take the Project Leader role and resolve the situation
> > > > in the way you like it.
> > > 
> > > yes, seconded, and my emphasis is on _resolve_. Not the "playing deaf" diego
> > 
> > I will write up a statement/explanation before the weekend draws to a
> > close.  I have no time right now because I am meeting friends in a few
> > minutes.
> 
> Sorry, this took much longer than promised.  I was very busy these past
> weeks and days and was away for a week without internet in between.
> Admittedly, I also always get carried away by maintenance duties and
> random issues.  Probably also due to the fact that my motivation to
> flame is at an all-time low.  Coding feels so much more fulfilling...
> 
> I'm also very much torn between the desire to write this statement as
> promised and the fear (or rather certainty) that this will stir up
> flaming again and cause grief and time loss.

It seems you view any form of disscussion or critique as flame and bad.
I think this is the wrong way to attack things. Critique means that
there is a disagreement and these should be discussed and resolved,
staying silent (or asking others to stay silent) does IMO achive the
opposite. That is it angers everyone and does not resolve anything.

And angry people do not code, so while staying silent might supress the
public critique it wont turn these missing flames into existing code.


> 
> Since I very much feel that everybody should try to look at the
> situation again with a cool head and not let emotions cloud their
> judgement, this long period of calm might not be such a bad thing
> in the end.  We shall see. 

A: we have a problem
B: yes
admin: <silence>
B: hey admin what will you do about the problem?
admin: <long statement saying i wont do anything>
 time passes
A: we still have the same problem
B: yes
1 developer leaves
admin: complaining about the low manpower
goto begin


> 
> Anyway, here comes my position statement:
> 
> Everybody should step back for a minute, calm down, and think about what
> it really is that we were debating:

We are discussing a solution to the problem that a large number of the
developers
are quite incompatible with uotis provocative, arogant and egoistic way.
The solution you as admin choose is to step back and let people kill each
other. While complaining about the amount of flaming. Its quite ironic


> 
> Uoti committed a bunch of cosmetic cleanups of different types together
> and labeled his commit as "indent".  That was not good and I dislike bad
> commit messages more than the next guy, but it was not catastrophic.
> Plus, it was neither malicious, nor intentional.  Uoti honestly did not
> expect this to be controversial.
> 
> Then Reimar gets upset and heavy flaming, heavy even measured by MPlayer
> standards, erupts.  I speak with Reimar, I speak with Uoti, Reimar
> eventually calms down again.  As suggested by me, Uoti speaks with
> Reimar, they decide to find a way to work better together with less
> friction.
> 
> Everything should be fine and dandy again, should it not?  No, wait, of
> course flaming has not subsided, but reached epic proportions instead.
> The tides of the discussion go ever higher and none of the participants
> is helping it in any way.  On the contrary, all sides are stubborn or
> prone to flames or both and generally have a number of character traits
> not conducive to resolving conflicts.
> 
> But what has really happened?  Whatever you may think of the policy, it
> does not contain a paragraph that forbids committing different types of
> cosmetic changes together.

It contains parts about not mixing cosmetics and functional changes it also
contains parts about not commiting to code maintained by others and something
about sending patches.


[...]
> I have been accused of abusing my powers.  Let's face it, I am regarded
> as the de-facto project leader, I have heard it many times in private.
> Plus, in situations like these, I get treated as bearing all the
> responsibilities of a project leader - with no privileges.

You can step down from the position as root. But as long as you are
root you will have to live with the critique about your decissions or lack
thereof.


> 
> I am not trying to lament here, just stating facts.  Leadership requires
> standing up and not following loud voices in the direction of least
> resistance.  This is such a situation.

Leadership requires to solve problems and prevent the project from breaking
apart. It also requires to create an environment in which developers feel
comfortable to work in.
If a "employee" wants plants in the room and a playboy pic on the wall 
and wants to work at night, a good leader does everything in his power to
ensure that he gets what he wants.

If two "employees" dont get along and no amount of discussions help
a good leader puts them as far apart as possible, like in different rooms.

If one "employee" harasses half of the others, a good leader warns him
once, maybe twice and then fires him.
If due to whatever reason he chooses not to fire him, he seperates
the people who do not want to accept the harrasment to their own room and
gives them a key to lock the door.

Lets look at mplayer
Voting rights about project decissions: no
Protection from random changes by random other developers: no
Any rules which are equally applied to all: no
Democratic votes being ignored at will by the one in charge: yes

Why is uotis commit access not limited to the files he maintains?
Or a compromise, why can he commit to files i, aurel, iive,... maintain?
I can and likely will fork if i see a single commit from uoti breaking
the policy again. Just my personal fork in which i maintain my files
and merge commits from mplayer as i see fit. It restores a environment in
which i feel comfortable, one where no random messy commits pop up under my
fingers.


> 
> We have 5 people (Michael, Ivan, Alban, Aurelien, Roberto) voting for
> Uoti's removal and 4 people speaking up against (Uoti, Eugeni, Benjamin,
> Diego).  This is a far cry from a clear situation, especially given that
> each of the latter 4 is more active than all of the 5 combined.

Its true for the current activity but if i look at all commits of all
times i much rather loose all of the later 4 than a single one of the
first 5.

Also you speak about this as a throw him out vs. keep him in the project.
If one looks at it like that it surely is better to keep him, but its not
so simple. its that >50% of the people do not get along with him and
loosing 1 vs. loosing 50% of the developers is something quite different


[...]

> I do not wish to alienate anybody, but I have to think about the
> long-term well-being of the project.

You think about it but your actions are the ones which hurt the project
more than any other possible choice of actions IMHO


> 
> This projects has many problems, but renegade commits are not one of
> them.  Lack of manpower is much more serious

Well frankly the lack of manpower is caused by the hostile environment IMHO
Let me repeat what i said above:

Voting rights about project decissions: no
Protection from random changes by random other developers: no
Any rules which are equally applied to all: no
Democratic votes being ignored at will by the one in charge: yes

Would you join such a project?
If you say yes, id like to point out how you complained about iive
changing the spelling of xvid. Which honestly is totally irrelevant
compared to changes to the code.


> as is the constant flaming,

> intransigent insistence on minority standpoints and architectural issues
> in the codebase.  Flaming a developer that works on architectural issues
> out of the project is not the way forward.

Letting him bully 50% of the other developers out is so much better.


> 
> We are not Linux kernel and we are not a wealthy company.  We have very
> limited manpower and we cannot just go out and hire the people we want
> and need.  We have to be content with whomever we've got aboard and
> with whatever skills and personality they have got.
> 

> Let's face it: competent developers do not joing MPlayer every month.
> On the contrary, they are few and far between; a resource not to be
> squandered.  If they happen to be difficult to work with (and we have
> many of those aboard), we have to find ways to make ends meet.

The problem is that you did not yet find a way to make ends meet.
Convincing me or reimar on the phone does not solve the problem.
Make uoti less arrogant and egoistic and we would be a long way
toward a solution. But people are what they are, noone can change
them ...



> 
> Conflicts need to be mitigated and resolved, not fought out.  The
> imperative should be to work constructively together and give each
> other a bit of leeway and the benefit of the doubt.
> 

> This is what I attempted to do in this situation.  I successfully
> mediated between Reimar and Uoti, which is where the problems
> originated.

You have convinced todays victim to accept the harrassment and not
complain. You have not stoped the one harrassing ... 
This is not going to solve the issue. Maybe uoti will leave, maybe
everyone else will leave but if neither does the whole will repeat
eventually.

Anyway, if you dislike that i replied, just delete my mail and ignore
me. I could have stayed silent like i did many other times but it wouldnt
have done any good. Maybe my mail here is also useless still i felt like
i should reply.

[...]

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness. -- Aristotle
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