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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 so

by 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."

by tacos 11y ago

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."