Wow. Some really interesting traffic all of a sudden. Seems like the
f-mktg-list is turning into the f-video-list. :)
Comments inline.
On Thu, 19 Jun 2008, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 7:14 PM, Ricardo Garcia <rick.g777@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Personally, I think stopping ffmpeg development for 2, 3 or even 6
months to do a code restructuring is indeed worth it (the mozilla guys
did it, and now we have Firefox thanks to them). Perhaps it would be
nice to ask the ffmpeg devs again, who knows? It might just work -
specially coming from the Fedora marketing team ;-)
Oh, Rick, if only we had those magical powers. :)
We may be able to use our name to open a legitimate discussion, though.
The absolute key is to be able to bring resources to the table who can
actually do the work. In the world of Free Video, this seems to be the
hardest challenge.
If you want to step up and help them change to be more compatible with
our policy, you are welcome to do that. But you sure as hell better not
walk into their process telling them what they do sucks. You MUST
approach the conversation without judgment or blame and you must do what
you can to show that you are serious about doing the hard work necessary
to help them restructure in a way that is compatible with our policy so
that our users can benefit from their work.
Yep.
We can not blame them for not caring about what we care about. Everyone
works on projects for their own reasons. If they don't care about the
issues of patent encumbrance or API stability, that does not devalue the
work they do. They simply have different interests. What matters is if
that their project structure is open enough to include new people with
new interests who are willing to work in good faith to make ffmpeg
easier to use and distribute. And we aren't going to find that out if
people want into their process telling them what they are doing is
wrong. It's not wrong, its just not what we need. So we need people in
our community who have the development skills, and a civil tongue, to
offer to help them make ffmpeg a better fit for our needs in a way, for
the greater benefit of all.
Yep again. This is why Jef is on the Fedora board. ;)
Still, in a code project, nothing talks like code. Sometimes the best
thing to do is just write some code.
When the project maintainers say "we don't have time to do this work,"
frequently the most useful question to ask next is, "do you have time to
describe the work so I can do it for you?" Because that really is the key
part of the task: actually understanding what work needs to be done, and
why.
The ffmpeg guys likely have thought about the problem space, and have some
idea about how to solve it, but don't have the motivation. Maybe we can
help them find that motivation. Maybe you can locate "the right guy" and
pick his brain. Maybe offer him beer. Maybe, if he's *really* "the right
guy", and Rick, you are *really* "the other right guy", Red Hat could
figure out how to get you in the same place, at the same time, to work on
the project together for a weekend.
As far as "forking" goes, sometimes it's necessary to carry a temporary
fork. I don't know what the project velocity of ffmpeg looks like, but
it's my guess that a lot of the key bits don't change much, and a "fork"
that conclusively proves its value can usually be merged without too much
trouble. Especially if everyone shares that goal up front.
Anyway, thanks for showing up to the party, Rick. You may be the guy
we've been looking for.
(Oh, and Lucas: maybe you're the guy we've been looking for also.
Basically, whoever Shows Us The Code, wins.)
--g
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