12 ms·

FFmpeg's future and resigning as leader

374 points by ux 11y ago

jacquesm 11y ago
Wow, that's a pretty classy move. Now lets how this will help heal the wounds with the libav community and they will in fact move to the other side. I think he should have left out the bit about 'will I ever return', that might actually cause libav contributors to hold off from making the switch. Still, it's great to see the recognition that in the end this is all about the product and its users.
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
  Why are the two groups upset at each other?
  - Intermernet 11y ago
    Some info: http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html There are more links in that post to fill you in on the details.
    - ftomassetti 11y ago
      I suggest take a look at a different point of view (https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud-and-why-i-still-contribute-to-libav/ https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud...) This post is from someone involved in libav but it refers to the different public e-mails that were exchanged when the fork was originated and they document factually things (at least, as far as I can understand)
      - Intermernet 11y ago
        I've read that before and it comes across as overly defensive and very personally biased. If I were heavily invested in one side or another I possibly would have written a similar post defending one side or another. I'm not saying the points aren't valid, but I stand by my statement that "libav is working to the same goal as ffmpeg. The split is due to idealism and politics, not due to the goal of the project."
        lu_zero_ 11y ago
        Would you mind telling me where it is biased?
        cthalupa 11y ago
        I had never heard of any of this mess until today, don't particularly care about either project, but this comes across as extremely biased, even from the most basic aspect of tone. >former FFmpeg leader Michael Niedermayer. Former? Well, he resigned today, but this blog seems quite old. >Since FFmpeg was a project famous for horrid code quality and sketchy and irregular API Was it? Is it? All I know is a bunch of stuff uses it. Where is that fame? >“The people behind Libav stole the FFmpeg infrastructure”, some of the admins even got questioned in their workplace if they really stole something. Pity that most of the people related in keeping the infrastructure functional were doing so on their own hardware and co-location, but obviously checking facts is hard, better go help shoveling manure on people. Server infrastructure is one thing. You mention yourself that you guys didn't have the trademark, yet you took the domain name too? I dunno about the laws in all of the locations where this played out, but in the US at least, that'd be theft. >started to merge daily everything Libav does more or less since the beginning, making FFmpeg effectively a strict derivative of Libav. Again, tone, wording, etc. This statement does not stand on its own: If I have a 50 million line project that had a small subsection forked, and every day the fork's changes were merged, that does not make my project a strict derivative. I'm not saying libav is a small subsection, or making any sort of claim about the ratio of ffmpeg original work vs. libav merges, but you have provided zero information or evidence to support the claim one way or the other either. >Now things are a little more fair and at least FFmpeg more or less states that is a derivative of Libav with additional features in their download page. Ah, here you go. Kinda. But again, tone. And not much evidence. The ffmpeg download page seems to be open about including code from libav, but uh, additional features could be major. What's the difference in features? What is the actual volume of work in comparison? >On the other hand I’m not cool at all in having an unfair competition, with a side piggy-backing on the other like it is happening: everything in Libav is merged inf FFmpeg, enjoying the fact the code is polished and cleaned before. This is a feature, not a bug. Unfair competition? Piggy backing? You are developing an open source project. Do you only want things to be open if the people using it are people you like? >sometimes the amount of nonsense thrown at you by those rabid fans not knowing anything is appalling. You write this, and immediately follow with: >Hopefully writing more about it might help defusing this situation. Blog posts like this are very inflammatory. You hurl insults, make a lot of claims without providing evidence that backs them, and generally come across as someone who has a lot of personal bias on the matter. That isn't to say that you're wrong: I have no idea who is right or wrong on this. I don't particularly care. But your blog post is about as biased as it gets. And to note, biased doesn't necessarily mean wrong - you can be biased and still be right.
- Afforess 11y ago
  I disagree. FFmpeg is/was heavily dependent on Michael for active development and bug fixes. In the last few years, more than half of the commits are from him. Without his contribution to development, nor a clear leader and succession plan, FFmpeg may stagnate again. I don't blame Michael for any of this situation, but this is not a win for the community, product, or users. Development is going to slow way down, bugs are going to go unfixed, and the overall quality will decline in the short to medium term. It is unfortunate that vitriol over the fork led to this situation, where neither libav nor FFmpeg win, and everyone loses.
  - jbk 11y ago
    > In the last few years, more than half of the commits are from him. This is completely incorrect. Most of his commits are merges from libav and other forks, and not code commits. He's doing a great job at it, but he is not irreplaceable.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    What else should/could he have done that would be better?
    - av500 11y ago
      he could have stepped back much earlier
      - phpnode 11y ago
        or someone else could have stepped up much earlier?
        thresh 11y ago
        Well people actually have tried that 4 years ago: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.ffmpeg.devel/123868 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.ffmpeg.devel/123868 and somehow leadership was still a thing for Michael at that time, which really contradicts with something he says now.
billjings 11y ago
> Especially as somehow "leader" is being interpreted by everyone as "the guy who does all work noone else does, and takes all responsibility noone else wants to take" Hmm.
- tacos 11y ago
  Aka "my technical skills outshine my people skills and I'm highly motivated to get things done." I'm guilty as charged as well. It's ... exhausting. But it's also the exact set of personality flaws that results in so much stuff actually getting done on the planet. Everyone knows that guy. He's probably fixing your build screwup right now. Give him a hug or a beer. And find him a mentor and some competent helpers.
  - philtar 11y ago
    That's not at all what he's saying. You're trying to validate what you do. Your AKA is pulled completely from your mind and has nothing to do with with original statement. A leader has people skills above all else. > I'm guilty as charged as well You two are not being charged for the same thing.
    - tacos 11y ago
      I related to much of what he was saying. Between the lines I felt what was going unsaid. So I brought experience and humanity to the discussion. I am not seeking validation. > A leader has people skills above all else. Leadership skills and interpersonal skills and management skills are completely separate. Amazing leaders/motivators who are downright shitty people are not uncommon in our industry. This particular leader made the classic mistake of doing too much. "Nobody else wants to do it? Nobody wants to take responsibility for this? I will. I'll do it" is the definition of a bad manager. And admitting it in your farewell post doesn't demonstrate great people skills either. Regardless, these people are all around us. And they deserve a beer and a mentor and some help. Next time you're looking for a project to contribute to, consider helping that guy.
      - 11y ago
tacos 11y ago
Sigh. This is one of those situations where the world has received so much benefit and they didn't realize it until that person finally got fed up. FFmpeg is sort of an ongoing disaster, but it reflects the nature of media on the web, and it works. I'd love to say that my hunch is things will get better but I don't think that will be the case short or long term. libsndfile -- another key component everyone takes for granted -- is in a similar position. Full of known problems, super-smart but slightly neurotic leader, and GPL issues that people are pretending not to notice in hopes he finally does a release after 5 years. I've done major community work and man, is it ever exhausting. It's a shame we haven't found a way to get people the assistance they need. Some of which is psychological.
- pm215 11y ago
  The approach I'm trying to take with the community I'm involved in is to keep the effort required spread out -- so for instance I manage mainline releases but somebody else deals with stable branches and point releases, and a third person does the "pick up otherwise orphaned patches from the mailing list and get them applied" work. If I was trying to do all those jobs at once I'd never find time to do any of the things I actually find interesting!
  - bonzini 11y ago
    As (I think) the third person you mention above, I totally agree---and thanks for the great work keeping the tree in good state.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    This is probably one of the issues with being a the aforementioned super-smart / super-productive leader: they can take all of that load if needed. Should they? God no. No one can run that workload as a volunteer for a decade+. But I can see how the default reality probably bends towards "Well, someone left and we need this job filled" -> "I'll just temporarily add that job to my workload" -> "It'd be more effort to move that job's responsibility to someone else, so I'll just keep doing it."
av500 11y ago
not that he was likely to go without making a ton of derogatory remarks about the livav split. and if he never liked the leadership role as he claims, he was given ample opportunities to get rid of it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Intermernet 11y ago
  He states: "I had hoped for a long time that the fork situation would resolve and both sides somehow merging back into one team. All the Libav developers joining FFmpeg again. But even now as the last distributions are preparing to remove Libav, still theres no hint of that happening. Maybe even the opposite." and "Do friendly merges, and if you like do hostile merges. Its all up to you now!" That isn't "a ton of derogatory remarks". libav is working to the same goal as ffmpeg. The split is due to idealism and politics, not due to the goal of the project. I'm not going to pick a side in this, as interpersonal relationships are impossible to accurately gauge from an external viewpoint. I'm not sure if you have a personal stake in this argument, and I apologize, and sympathize if you do. Best of luck in the future Mr Niedermayer. Thanks for all the work over the years.
  - av500 11y ago
    "...and its very difficult to be the leader when one is on one side of this split and the other tries everything to push me out..." that the gist of it, it's always the other side wanting him harm. he never ever acknowleged any wrongdoing on his side.
    - Intermernet 11y ago
      That also is not a derogatory remark. Protective and one-sided, but not derogatory. You can't claim that everyone that disagrees with you is being "derogatory". EDIT: Example: "I disagree with you" = not derogatory "You're an idiot" = derogatory
AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
So who is likely to take the reins on the FFmpeg end?
snorrah 11y ago
Interestingly, a recent LWM article on ffmpeg coming back to Debian touched on the possible implications of Michael stopping work on the project: https://lwn.net/Articles/650816/ https://lwn.net/Articles/650816/ "Reinhard asked whether FFmpeg is a one-developer project that would find itself in trouble should Michael stop working on it. "To me, this constitutes a serious bus-factor: Without Michael, (probably) nobody is able to replace him." He went on to suggest, though, that Michael's departure could do a lot to bring an end to the fork."
Zarkonnen 11y ago
Can someone give us a backgrounder on what the split in the ffmpeg community is about?
- DanBC 11y ago
  http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html There's probably some great popcorn in mailing lists. Edit: libav have a big "personal conflict resolution" section here which is another hint: http://libav.org/about/ http://libav.org/about/
  - ftomassetti 11y ago
    I suggest take a look at a different point of view (https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud-and-why-i-still-contribute-to-libav/ https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud...) This post is from someone involved in libav but it refers to the different public e-mails that were exchanged when the fork was originated and they document factually things (at least, as far as I can understand)
- lu_zero_ 11y ago
  https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud-and-why-i-still-contribute-to-libav/ https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud... My take.
- Rondom 11y ago
  The linked articles in this LWN article (and the article itself) give some pointers. https://lwn.net/Articles/607591/ https://lwn.net/Articles/607591/
hartator 11y ago
Thanks Michael for all the awesome work. Sad you are leaving for these reasons, hopefully in the futur, libav contributors will come back to FFmpeg and be less agressive with the leadership, but it might not happen.
brokentone 11y ago
I don't know the extent of the drama, but I have used FFMpeg a decent amount and it's been a lifesaver. I know that OSS leaders are extremely under appreciated, and I'd like to thank Michael for all of his efforts doing so.
- jbk 11y ago
  > I don't know the extent of the drama As a heavy user of FFmpeg/libav, for VLC (I'm the VideoLAN president), the drama has been huge, and more aggressive than most forks we've seen in the open source community. Most of the information you find online is biased, wrong or down-right lying, including the usual blogposts that are quoted from one side or the other one. (like the pkh.me pasted or the Debian wiki one) Whose fault is it? Well, it's a bit complex to answer, and there has been very dick moves from both sides. Especially since the beginning of the story started in private and was not reported publicly. Who is doing more work between the forks? That's also very hard to answer, because most of the libavcodec and libavformat work has been done in libav, but most of the libavfilter, ffmpeg and tools work has been done in FFmpeg. What you should know is that the current codebase of FFmpeg is messier compared to libav, but has quite a few more features, notably filters and more formats supported. Choosing one or the other gives you different set of features, but mostly different set of bugs and level of support of codecs. It's a big mess...
  - flihp 11y ago
    Really unfortunate because the software is so useful.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      And that's probably one of the reasons for this whole debacle. A project without adoption would not be worth fighting over.
  - ux 11y ago
    I'd be surprised if you had actually read the blog post I wrote (pkh.me) :) > most of the libavcodec and libavformat work has been done in libav Well, I believe this is a bit more complex. While it might be true for API changes and cleanups, FFmpeg has dozens of additionnal codecs and formats, as well as way more assembly/optimization code. > What you should know is that the current codebase of FFmpeg is a huge mess compared to libav Honestly, this is pure FUD and it's very surprising to read that from you. You seem to have no idea about the cleanups of FFmpeg because we do not advertise them (they are not relevant for the users). What is so much a huge mess? This is very insulting for the work done by FFmpeg developers these last years. Hey, even libmpcodecs (the MPlayer filter wrapper) is no more. A lot of work was also done on the documentation. Seriously, please stop doing FUD like this. > Choosing one or the other gives you different set of features Not exactly true.
72deluxe 11y ago
This is all news to me but the FFMpeg / libav split and apparent attempted coup d'etat of FFMPEG the other year all looks very sad. This reminds me of the XFree86 / x.org splits, the EGCS/GCC splits etc. All very sad but makes for interesting OSS history! I find FFMpeg very useful, but then again I find VLC and libav useful. In fact, it is all useful. I hope it all works out.
- jkot 11y ago
  Why sad? XFree86 and GCC had HORRIBLE code, first thing done in forks was to delete 70% of code.
  - frozenport 11y ago
    As a Gentoo user we're gonna have terrible dependency problems for the next few years. Specifically VLC and Qt. Somebody at Redmond is laughing at the OSS community for failing to provide functionality that comes out of the box on the latest Windows systems.
    - __david__ 11y ago
      Nothing that Microsoft has comes close to the functionality of ffmpeg. Apple, either, for that matter. Last time I checked neither OS even supported reading Matroska containers natively, and containers are pretty simple compared to codecs. $ ffmpeg -codecs 2> /dev/null | wc -l 396 ffmpeg and libav are simply the most comprehensive collections of video codec software in existence.
      - jfb 11y ago
        That doesn't make either one good.
        astrange 11y ago
        I can promise nearly every implementation in ffmpeg is better than the competitors. No commercial product has the motivation to keep making improvements to their code that already works "well enough", and they don't have as good a set of working optimizations to apply to new codecs. They can get new features out the door, though. One reason for the original fork in ffmpeg was that the very strict code review culture made it difficult to get anything in that was experimental or depended on personal taste.
srj 11y ago
A huge thank you to Michael. It's easy to forget how difficult playback was just 5-10 years ago. FFmpeg has been invaluable.
shmerl 11y ago
I didn't follow the background of that fork. Will ffmpeg and libav be able to merge now? Was it a leader conflict or something else?
mahouse 11y ago
Not going to comment on his skills to lead such a community, which more than obviously are very very good, but for a project manager of 14 years he really writes like a newcomer.
- jjbiotech 11y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. Looks like the writing of someone posting to a drug forum blacked out on benzodiazepines.
  - Pinatubo 11y ago
    That's oddly specific.
    - ytdht 11y ago
      maybe speaking from personal experience...
- astrange 11y ago
  The ability to read the H.264 spec and the ability to write well can't always exist in the same Austrian savant developer.
- rdancer 11y ago
  His Frenglish is quite good, no?
- bumblebritches5 11y ago
  He's Austrian, and his first language is German...
aidenn0 11y ago
For those who were around for it, I'd be interested in a comparison with the ffmpeg/libav issue and the GNU Emacs/XEmacs times.
ratsmack 11y ago
Every project needs a strong leader. I seems that projects seem to fall apart when decision making become driven purely by consensus. If Linus was not a strong leader in giving Linux definitive direction, this same thing may have happened for Linux by now.
supertruth 11y ago
Before Yahoo! went public David Filo contacted Larry Wall and gave him the option to buy a good portion of pre-IPO stock at a low price. The reason? Yahoo! could not have existed without Perl. FFmpeg has been used in so many profitable ventures (hint[1] hint[2] Netflix). I sincerely hope there is a business leader with the same level of consciousness and grace that will do the same for Michael. He's one of the heroes of the past decade. Internet video streaming would certainly not exist as soon as it did without him. [1] https://twitter.com/nicolasweil/status/466248052454727680 https://twitter.com/nicolasweil/status/466248052454727680 [2] http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Streaming-Media-East-Netflix-Making-the-Move-to-HEVC-but-Efficiency-Gains-Lag-96981.aspx http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Ar...
- alecco 11y ago
  Kudos to Yahoo! What a different time, thankful tech companies. But this is no more, only after public shaming did the Googles/Facebooks chip in money for OpenSSL and GnuPG when those projects almost collapsed. And they gave rounding-error level of their multibillion cash piles. This is why the community is broken and sadly some of us feel cornered to do Affero or just not open source. I used to be hardcore BSD, but times changed and had to adapt. These the majority of the community is selfish, doesn't contribute back, doesn't even give credit to most of the tools behind their UIs. See: http://zedshaw.com/archive/why-i-algpl/ http://zedshaw.com/archive/why-i-algpl/
  - astrange 11y ago
    Being LGPLv2 was enough to get FFmpeg some income streams, because almost any shareware video converter you could find shipped it without credit or source distribution, and the SFLC would go after them for copyright violation. Not sure if there was much contribution or acknowledgement for the longest time from any company (Google, FB, Vimeo, Netflix, Zencoder, etc) using it, and I remember the best they'd do for bug reports was say "yeah it crashes sometimes" and refuse to send sample files. Eventually Google did have some people contributing full-time, of course. They paid me 1x GSoC (one week's engineer salary) for more than a year of work once. Um, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
As a VLC user, I'm sorry to hear things in the FFmpeg community got so bad. However, I thank all involved (including VideoLAN) for the work they did to make something that plays about anything on the major systems. Good news is, since it's open-source & mature, it has a chance of rebounding back into good shape either in current or new hands.
josteink 11y ago
Sad to see the hostile fork "win". I know if I were ever in the position to contribute to general OSS video, libavcodec would be on the list of projects i would never be willing to support. Hopefully these projects can reconcile and libavcodec and its shamed name can be put down and development can continue under the projects true name to honour its true roots.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > Sad to see the hostile fork "win". I wouldn't put it that way, considering that the last distros still shipping libav are abandoning it in favor of ffmpeg.
ytdht 11y ago
Thank you for all the work that you have done so far Michael Niedermayer
ftomassetti 11y ago
Just to add context: this is a post from a person involved in the project since 2004. It is a bit bitter but I found it interesting to read ("What happened to FFmpeg" by Kostya) http://codecs.multimedia.cx/?p=339 http://codecs.multimedia.cx/?p=339
wedesoft 11y ago
To whoever contributed to it: the swscale library (colorspace conversions) was really helpful during my PhD work.
mark4o 11y ago
The message on the FFmpeg site http://ffmpeg.org/index.html#message http://ffmpeg.org/index.html#message sounds hopeful for a reconciliation of the forks.

374 points by ux 11y ago

Wow, that's a pretty classy move. Now lets how this will help heal the wounds with the libav community and they will in fact move to the other side. I think he should have left out the bit about 'will I ever return', that might actually cause libav contributors to hold off from making the switch. Still, it's great to see the recognition that in the end this is all about the product and its users.

CyberDildonics 11y ago
Why are the two groups upset at each other?
- Intermernet 11y ago
  Some info: http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html There are more links in that post to fill you in on the details.
  - ftomassetti 11y ago
    I suggest take a look at a different point of view (https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud-and-why-i-still-contribute-to-libav/ https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud...) This post is from someone involved in libav but it refers to the different public e-mails that were exchanged when the fork was originated and they document factually things (at least, as far as I can understand)
    - Intermernet 11y ago
      I've read that before and it comes across as overly defensive and very personally biased. If I were heavily invested in one side or another I possibly would have written a similar post defending one side or another. I'm not saying the points aren't valid, but I stand by my statement that "libav is working to the same goal as ffmpeg. The split is due to idealism and politics, not due to the goal of the project."
      - lu_zero_ 11y ago
        Would you mind telling me where it is biased?
        cthalupa 11y ago
        I had never heard of any of this mess until today, don't particularly care about either project, but this comes across as extremely biased, even from the most basic aspect of tone. >former FFmpeg leader Michael Niedermayer. Former? Well, he resigned today, but this blog seems quite old. >Since FFmpeg was a project famous for horrid code quality and sketchy and irregular API Was it? Is it? All I know is a bunch of stuff uses it. Where is that fame? >“The people behind Libav stole the FFmpeg infrastructure”, some of the admins even got questioned in their workplace if they really stole something. Pity that most of the people related in keeping the infrastructure functional were doing so on their own hardware and co-location, but obviously checking facts is hard, better go help shoveling manure on people. Server infrastructure is one thing. You mention yourself that you guys didn't have the trademark, yet you took the domain name too? I dunno about the laws in all of the locations where this played out, but in the US at least, that'd be theft. >started to merge daily everything Libav does more or less since the beginning, making FFmpeg effectively a strict derivative of Libav. Again, tone, wording, etc. This statement does not stand on its own: If I have a 50 million line project that had a small subsection forked, and every day the fork's changes were merged, that does not make my project a strict derivative. I'm not saying libav is a small subsection, or making any sort of claim about the ratio of ffmpeg original work vs. libav merges, but you have provided zero information or evidence to support the claim one way or the other either. >Now things are a little more fair and at least FFmpeg more or less states that is a derivative of Libav with additional features in their download page. Ah, here you go. Kinda. But again, tone. And not much evidence. The ffmpeg download page seems to be open about including code from libav, but uh, additional features could be major. What's the difference in features? What is the actual volume of work in comparison? >On the other hand I’m not cool at all in having an unfair competition, with a side piggy-backing on the other like it is happening: everything in Libav is merged inf FFmpeg, enjoying the fact the code is polished and cleaned before. This is a feature, not a bug. Unfair competition? Piggy backing? You are developing an open source project. Do you only want things to be open if the people using it are people you like? >sometimes the amount of nonsense thrown at you by those rabid fans not knowing anything is appalling. You write this, and immediately follow with: >Hopefully writing more about it might help defusing this situation. Blog posts like this are very inflammatory. You hurl insults, make a lot of claims without providing evidence that backs them, and generally come across as someone who has a lot of personal bias on the matter. That isn't to say that you're wrong: I have no idea who is right or wrong on this. I don't particularly care. But your blog post is about as biased as it gets. And to note, biased doesn't necessarily mean wrong - you can be biased and still be right.
Afforess 11y ago
I disagree. FFmpeg is/was heavily dependent on Michael for active development and bug fixes. In the last few years, more than half of the commits are from him. Without his contribution to development, nor a clear leader and succession plan, FFmpeg may stagnate again. I don't blame Michael for any of this situation, but this is not a win for the community, product, or users. Development is going to slow way down, bugs are going to go unfixed, and the overall quality will decline in the short to medium term. It is unfortunate that vitriol over the fork led to this situation, where neither libav nor FFmpeg win, and everyone loses.
- jbk 11y ago
  > In the last few years, more than half of the commits are from him. This is completely incorrect. Most of his commits are merges from libav and other forks, and not code commits. He's doing a great job at it, but he is not irreplaceable.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  What else should/could he have done that would be better?
  - av500 11y ago
    he could have stepped back much earlier
    - phpnode 11y ago
      or someone else could have stepped up much earlier?
      - thresh 11y ago
        Well people actually have tried that 4 years ago: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.ffmpeg.devel/123868 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.ffmpeg.devel/123868 and somehow leadership was still a thing for Michael at that time, which really contradicts with something he says now.

billjings 11y ago

> Especially as somehow "leader" is being interpreted by everyone as "the guy who does all work noone else does, and takes all responsibility noone else wants to take" Hmm.

tacos 11y ago
Aka "my technical skills outshine my people skills and I'm highly motivated to get things done." I'm guilty as charged as well. It's ... exhausting. But it's also the exact set of personality flaws that results in so much stuff actually getting done on the planet. Everyone knows that guy. He's probably fixing your build screwup right now. Give him a hug or a beer. And find him a mentor and some competent helpers.
- philtar 11y ago
  That's not at all what he's saying. You're trying to validate what you do. Your AKA is pulled completely from your mind and has nothing to do with with original statement. A leader has people skills above all else. > I'm guilty as charged as well You two are not being charged for the same thing.
  - tacos 11y ago
    I related to much of what he was saying. Between the lines I felt what was going unsaid. So I brought experience and humanity to the discussion. I am not seeking validation. > A leader has people skills above all else. Leadership skills and interpersonal skills and management skills are completely separate. Amazing leaders/motivators who are downright shitty people are not uncommon in our industry. This particular leader made the classic mistake of doing too much. "Nobody else wants to do it? Nobody wants to take responsibility for this? I will. I'll do it" is the definition of a bad manager. And admitting it in your farewell post doesn't demonstrate great people skills either. Regardless, these people are all around us. And they deserve a beer and a mentor and some help. Next time you're looking for a project to contribute to, consider helping that guy.
    - 11y ago

tacos 11y ago

Sigh. This is one of those situations where the world has received so much benefit and they didn't realize it until that person finally got fed up. FFmpeg is sort of an ongoing disaster, but it reflects the nature of media on the web, and it works. I'd love to say that my hunch is things will get better but I don't think that will be the case short or long term. libsndfile -- another key component everyone takes for granted -- is in a similar position. Full of known problems, super-smart but slightly neurotic leader, and GPL issues that people are pretending not to notice in hopes he finally does a release after 5 years. I've done major community work and man, is it ever exhausting. It's a shame we haven't found a way to get people the assistance they need. Some of which is psychological.

pm215 11y ago
The approach I'm trying to take with the community I'm involved in is to keep the effort required spread out -- so for instance I manage mainline releases but somebody else deals with stable branches and point releases, and a third person does the "pick up otherwise orphaned patches from the mailing list and get them applied" work. If I was trying to do all those jobs at once I'd never find time to do any of the things I actually find interesting!
- bonzini 11y ago
  As (I think) the third person you mention above, I totally agree---and thanks for the great work keeping the tree in good state.
- ethbro 11y ago
  This is probably one of the issues with being a the aforementioned super-smart / super-productive leader: they can take all of that load if needed. Should they? God no. No one can run that workload as a volunteer for a decade+. But I can see how the default reality probably bends towards "Well, someone left and we need this job filled" -> "I'll just temporarily add that job to my workload" -> "It'd be more effort to move that job's responsibility to someone else, so I'll just keep doing it."

av500 11y ago

not that he was likely to go without making a ton of derogatory remarks about the livav split. and if he never liked the leadership role as he claims, he was given ample opportunities to get rid of it.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Intermernet 11y ago
He states: "I had hoped for a long time that the fork situation would resolve and both sides somehow merging back into one team. All the Libav developers joining FFmpeg again. But even now as the last distributions are preparing to remove Libav, still theres no hint of that happening. Maybe even the opposite." and "Do friendly merges, and if you like do hostile merges. Its all up to you now!" That isn't "a ton of derogatory remarks". libav is working to the same goal as ffmpeg. The split is due to idealism and politics, not due to the goal of the project. I'm not going to pick a side in this, as interpersonal relationships are impossible to accurately gauge from an external viewpoint. I'm not sure if you have a personal stake in this argument, and I apologize, and sympathize if you do. Best of luck in the future Mr Niedermayer. Thanks for all the work over the years.
- av500 11y ago
  "...and its very difficult to be the leader when one is on one side of this split and the other tries everything to push me out..." that the gist of it, it's always the other side wanting him harm. he never ever acknowleged any wrongdoing on his side.
  - Intermernet 11y ago
    That also is not a derogatory remark. Protective and one-sided, but not derogatory. You can't claim that everyone that disagrees with you is being "derogatory". EDIT: Example: "I disagree with you" = not derogatory "You're an idiot" = derogatory

AdmiralAsshat 11y ago

So who is likely to take the reins on the FFmpeg end?

snorrah 11y ago

Interestingly, a recent LWM article on ffmpeg coming back to Debian touched on the possible implications of Michael stopping work on the project: https://lwn.net/Articles/650816/ https://lwn.net/Articles/650816/ "Reinhard asked whether FFmpeg is a one-developer project that would find itself in trouble should Michael stop working on it. "To me, this constitutes a serious bus-factor: Without Michael, (probably) nobody is able to replace him." He went on to suggest, though, that Michael's departure could do a lot to bring an end to the fork."

Zarkonnen 11y ago

Can someone give us a backgrounder on what the split in the ffmpeg community is about?

DanBC 11y ago
http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html There's probably some great popcorn in mailing lists. Edit: libav have a big "personal conflict resolution" section here which is another hint: http://libav.org/about/ http://libav.org/about/
- ftomassetti 11y ago
  I suggest take a look at a different point of view (https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud-and-why-i-still-contribute-to-libav/ https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud...) This post is from someone involved in libav but it refers to the different public e-mails that were exchanged when the fork was originated and they document factually things (at least, as far as I can understand)
lu_zero_ 11y ago
https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud-and-why-i-still-contribute-to-libav/ https://blogs.gentoo.org/lu_zero/2015/02/20/demotivation-fud... My take.
Rondom 11y ago
The linked articles in this LWN article (and the article itself) give some pointers. https://lwn.net/Articles/607591/ https://lwn.net/Articles/607591/

hartator 11y ago

Thanks Michael for all the awesome work. Sad you are leaving for these reasons, hopefully in the futur, libav contributors will come back to FFmpeg and be less agressive with the leadership, but it might not happen.

brokentone 11y ago

I don't know the extent of the drama, but I have used FFMpeg a decent amount and it's been a lifesaver. I know that OSS leaders are extremely under appreciated, and I'd like to thank Michael for all of his efforts doing so.

jbk 11y ago
> I don't know the extent of the drama As a heavy user of FFmpeg/libav, for VLC (I'm the VideoLAN president), the drama has been huge, and more aggressive than most forks we've seen in the open source community. Most of the information you find online is biased, wrong or down-right lying, including the usual blogposts that are quoted from one side or the other one. (like the pkh.me pasted or the Debian wiki one) Whose fault is it? Well, it's a bit complex to answer, and there has been very dick moves from both sides. Especially since the beginning of the story started in private and was not reported publicly. Who is doing more work between the forks? That's also very hard to answer, because most of the libavcodec and libavformat work has been done in libav, but most of the libavfilter, ffmpeg and tools work has been done in FFmpeg. What you should know is that the current codebase of FFmpeg is messier compared to libav, but has quite a few more features, notably filters and more formats supported. Choosing one or the other gives you different set of features, but mostly different set of bugs and level of support of codecs. It's a big mess...
- flihp 11y ago
  Really unfortunate because the software is so useful.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    And that's probably one of the reasons for this whole debacle. A project without adoption would not be worth fighting over.
- ux 11y ago
  I'd be surprised if you had actually read the blog post I wrote (pkh.me) :) > most of the libavcodec and libavformat work has been done in libav Well, I believe this is a bit more complex. While it might be true for API changes and cleanups, FFmpeg has dozens of additionnal codecs and formats, as well as way more assembly/optimization code. > What you should know is that the current codebase of FFmpeg is a huge mess compared to libav Honestly, this is pure FUD and it's very surprising to read that from you. You seem to have no idea about the cleanups of FFmpeg because we do not advertise them (they are not relevant for the users). What is so much a huge mess? This is very insulting for the work done by FFmpeg developers these last years. Hey, even libmpcodecs (the MPlayer filter wrapper) is no more. A lot of work was also done on the documentation. Seriously, please stop doing FUD like this. > Choosing one or the other gives you different set of features Not exactly true.

72deluxe 11y ago

This is all news to me but the FFMpeg / libav split and apparent attempted coup d'etat of FFMPEG the other year all looks very sad. This reminds me of the XFree86 / x.org splits, the EGCS/GCC splits etc. All very sad but makes for interesting OSS history! I find FFMpeg very useful, but then again I find VLC and libav useful. In fact, it is all useful. I hope it all works out.

jkot 11y ago
Why sad? XFree86 and GCC had HORRIBLE code, first thing done in forks was to delete 70% of code.
- frozenport 11y ago
  As a Gentoo user we're gonna have terrible dependency problems for the next few years. Specifically VLC and Qt. Somebody at Redmond is laughing at the OSS community for failing to provide functionality that comes out of the box on the latest Windows systems.
  - __david__ 11y ago
    Nothing that Microsoft has comes close to the functionality of ffmpeg. Apple, either, for that matter. Last time I checked neither OS even supported reading Matroska containers natively, and containers are pretty simple compared to codecs. $ ffmpeg -codecs 2> /dev/null | wc -l 396 ffmpeg and libav are simply the most comprehensive collections of video codec software in existence.
    - jfb 11y ago
      That doesn't make either one good.
      - astrange 11y ago
        I can promise nearly every implementation in ffmpeg is better than the competitors. No commercial product has the motivation to keep making improvements to their code that already works "well enough", and they don't have as good a set of working optimizations to apply to new codecs. They can get new features out the door, though. One reason for the original fork in ffmpeg was that the very strict code review culture made it difficult to get anything in that was experimental or depended on personal taste.

srj 11y ago

A huge thank you to Michael. It's easy to forget how difficult playback was just 5-10 years ago. FFmpeg has been invaluable.

shmerl 11y ago

I didn't follow the background of that fork. Will ffmpeg and libav be able to merge now? Was it a leader conflict or something else?

mahouse 11y ago

Not going to comment on his skills to lead such a community, which more than obviously are very very good, but for a project manager of 14 years he really writes like a newcomer.

jjbiotech 11y ago
I was thinking the same thing. Looks like the writing of someone posting to a drug forum blacked out on benzodiazepines.
- Pinatubo 11y ago
  That's oddly specific.
  - ytdht 11y ago
    maybe speaking from personal experience...
astrange 11y ago
The ability to read the H.264 spec and the ability to write well can't always exist in the same Austrian savant developer.
rdancer 11y ago
His Frenglish is quite good, no?
bumblebritches5 11y ago
He's Austrian, and his first language is German...

aidenn0 11y ago

For those who were around for it, I'd be interested in a comparison with the ffmpeg/libav issue and the GNU Emacs/XEmacs times.

ratsmack 11y ago

Every project needs a strong leader. I seems that projects seem to fall apart when decision making become driven purely by consensus. If Linus was not a strong leader in giving Linux definitive direction, this same thing may have happened for Linux by now.

supertruth 11y ago

Before Yahoo! went public David Filo contacted Larry Wall and gave him the option to buy a good portion of pre-IPO stock at a low price. The reason? Yahoo! could not have existed without Perl. FFmpeg has been used in so many profitable ventures (hint[1] hint[2] Netflix). I sincerely hope there is a business leader with the same level of consciousness and grace that will do the same for Michael. He's one of the heroes of the past decade. Internet video streaming would certainly not exist as soon as it did without him. [1] https://twitter.com/nicolasweil/status/466248052454727680 https://twitter.com/nicolasweil/status/466248052454727680 [2] http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Streaming-Media-East-Netflix-Making-the-Move-to-HEVC-but-Efficiency-Gains-Lag-96981.aspx http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Ar...

alecco 11y ago
Kudos to Yahoo! What a different time, thankful tech companies. But this is no more, only after public shaming did the Googles/Facebooks chip in money for OpenSSL and GnuPG when those projects almost collapsed. And they gave rounding-error level of their multibillion cash piles. This is why the community is broken and sadly some of us feel cornered to do Affero or just not open source. I used to be hardcore BSD, but times changed and had to adapt. These the majority of the community is selfish, doesn't contribute back, doesn't even give credit to most of the tools behind their UIs. See: http://zedshaw.com/archive/why-i-algpl/ http://zedshaw.com/archive/why-i-algpl/
- astrange 11y ago
  Being LGPLv2 was enough to get FFmpeg some income streams, because almost any shareware video converter you could find shipped it without credit or source distribution, and the SFLC would go after them for copyright violation. Not sure if there was much contribution or acknowledgement for the longest time from any company (Google, FB, Vimeo, Netflix, Zencoder, etc) using it, and I remember the best they'd do for bug reports was say "yeah it crashes sometimes" and refuse to send sample files. Eventually Google did have some people contributing full-time, of course. They paid me 1x GSoC (one week's engineer salary) for more than a year of work once. Um, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

As a VLC user, I'm sorry to hear things in the FFmpeg community got so bad. However, I thank all involved (including VideoLAN) for the work they did to make something that plays about anything on the major systems. Good news is, since it's open-source & mature, it has a chance of rebounding back into good shape either in current or new hands.

josteink 11y ago

Sad to see the hostile fork "win". I know if I were ever in the position to contribute to general OSS video, libavcodec would be on the list of projects i would never be willing to support. Hopefully these projects can reconcile and libavcodec and its shamed name can be put down and development can continue under the projects true name to honour its true roots.

JoshTriplett 11y ago
> Sad to see the hostile fork "win". I wouldn't put it that way, considering that the last distros still shipping libav are abandoning it in favor of ffmpeg.

ytdht 11y ago

Thank you for all the work that you have done so far Michael Niedermayer

ftomassetti 11y ago

Just to add context: this is a post from a person involved in the project since 2004. It is a bit bitter but I found it interesting to read ("What happened to FFmpeg" by Kostya) http://codecs.multimedia.cx/?p=339 http://codecs.multimedia.cx/?p=339

wedesoft 11y ago

To whoever contributed to it: the swscale library (colorspace conversions) was really helpful during my PhD work.

mark4o 11y ago

The message on the FFmpeg site http://ffmpeg.org/index.html#message http://ffmpeg.org/index.html#message sounds hopeful for a reconciliation of the forks.