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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.

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.
      - phpnode 11y ago
        That looks very much like a hostile takeover, it's unsurprising that it failed.
        makomk 11y ago
        It was very much a hostile takeover. If I remember correctly, the people who controlled the infrastructure like the website and mailing list booted out not only Michael but also a bunch of the existing maintainers of ffmpeg code and it got really ugly.
        lu_zero_ 11y ago
        You might check your facts before spouting this kind of sentences. Sadly the people on the Libav side never spoke up and nobody really checked or asked since they are "EVIL".
hokkos 11y ago
Even without if you remove him and the common committers between the 2 projects the 9 first top committers of FFMPEG commit more than top 2 of libav : https://lwn.net/Articles/650816/ https://lwn.net/Articles/650816/
- jbk 11y ago
  That's incorrect. Those statistics include all the MERGE commits from libav into FFmpeg, which happen several time per day. Michael did not do 1500 commits more than the second commiter.
  - paulmd 11y ago
    No, those statistics exclude merge commits . Here's the command that generated those outputs [1]: git shortlog -ns --no-merges v11..HEAD | head -n15 git shortlog -ns --no-merges n2.4..HEAD | head -n15 [1] http://marker.to/smY3KT http://marker.to/smY3KT Michael Niedermayer is an EXTREMELY prolific dev who has been banging out FFMPEG code for more than a decade. It's by no means a one-man show, many other devs make large and valuable contributions - but in relative terms Niedermayer absolutely dominates FFMPEG, both in terms of personality and code output.
    - Manozco 11y ago
      This remove only merge commits, but the commits themself are from libav
      - moomin 11y ago
        But they'll have the correct author against them, no?

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.
    - phpnode 11y ago
      That looks very much like a hostile takeover, it's unsurprising that it failed.
      - makomk 11y ago
        It was very much a hostile takeover. If I remember correctly, the people who controlled the infrastructure like the website and mailing list booted out not only Michael but also a bunch of the existing maintainers of ffmpeg code and it got really ugly.
        lu_zero_ 11y ago
        You might check your facts before spouting this kind of sentences. Sadly the people on the Libav side never spoke up and nobody really checked or asked since they are "EVIL".

hokkos 11y ago

Even without if you remove him and the common committers between the 2 projects the 9 first top committers of FFMPEG commit more than top 2 of libav : https://lwn.net/Articles/650816/ https://lwn.net/Articles/650816/

jbk 11y ago
That's incorrect. Those statistics include all the MERGE commits from libav into FFmpeg, which happen several time per day. Michael did not do 1500 commits more than the second commiter.
- paulmd 11y ago
  No, those statistics exclude merge commits . Here's the command that generated those outputs [1]: git shortlog -ns --no-merges v11..HEAD | head -n15 git shortlog -ns --no-merges n2.4..HEAD | head -n15 [1] http://marker.to/smY3KT http://marker.to/smY3KT Michael Niedermayer is an EXTREMELY prolific dev who has been banging out FFMPEG code for more than a decade. It's by no means a one-man show, many other devs make large and valuable contributions - but in relative terms Niedermayer absolutely dominates FFMPEG, both in terms of personality and code output.
  - Manozco 11y ago
    This remove only merge commits, but the commits themself are from libav
    - moomin 11y ago
      But they'll have the correct author against them, no?