Shades of Evil [LWN.net]

Shades of Evil

Posted Jan 24, 2011 23:48 UTC (Mon) by iive (guest, #59638)
In reply to: Does FFmpeg and other FOSS development makes people better or worse? by przemoc
Parent article: FFmpeg turmoil

@przemoc,
Great comment. I wish I was able to write one of equal quality. Your comment convinced me to to shed some light. Everybody be warned I may be biased.

In essence the coup is led by core group that also happens to administer the server where FFmpeg is hosted.

There have been a long standing conflict between Mans Rullgard and Michael Niedermayer. Mans is a quite skilled and active developer and root server admin, but who have bad temper. He seemed quite unhappy from the fact that Project Leader had authority over him, so he specifically targeted Michael who held the title. There have been small stings and mild insinuations for years (including behind Michael's back), using more persistence than strong words. (Such things affect people.) The conflict finally burst when Mans stated he doesn't recognize Michael as project leader. There's been accusation that Michael doesn't follow project rules . Michael immediately requested vote of confidence ( http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.ffmpeg.devel/118594 ). It turned out that Michael did follow the accepted and written rules, but not everything other people have been subjected to. The vote took a while. I thought that most of the people voted for option "C" ("I want michael to stay our leader, but to abide by the same rules as everyone else."), but when I counted it today, it was 15x"A" (Stay), 1x"B" (Leave) and 5x"C". Even before getting overwhelming support, Michael agreed to follow same routine as everyone else. Mans since ceased all public and private communication with the community (or so we thought) and even disabled some of the services he hosted (FATE). The level of flames plummeted.

Meanwhile, at the day the conflict burst, (2 Oct 2010) - Attila Kinali (the root admin who bought, found hosting, installed and is responsible for the server) suspended both Mans' and Diego Biurrun's root access, until the matter is resolved. At 12 Oct 2010 Attila restored their root access citing absence of confidence vote (It didn't make sense to me, but he never gave official answer to my objection).

Because Mans has been the primary root admin of the server and he was still absent, it was necessary to find another admin ( http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.ffmpeg.devel/119382 ). Unfortunately no replacement was found, so instead we accepted an offer to move the repository on videolan.org server. As they host only git repositories, the project would have to switch to git first.

When the switch is about to happen, Diego "urgently" contacts some developers, and calls them for meeting (on irc). There he manages to convince them (he could be quite smooth talker). Mans is also there. The announcement is signed.
(Comparing the list of voters, I see that around 15 of the "undersigned" people have not participated in the confidence vote, I suspect they may not have been aware of Michael's attempts to amend his mistakes. I know at least one of them didn't. )

On the next day, when FFmpeg completes the switch to git.videolan.org, the root admins create another git repository on git.ffmpeg.org and mail the announce.
Mans gets back on the stage.

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Shades of Evil

Posted Jan 25, 2011 15:38 UTC (Tue) by micka (subscriber, #38720) [Link]

Those who don't vote... well, don't.
In every case, one could at most understand that as "I don't care" (which is certainly not the case), not "against" (against what ?).

Shades of Evil

Posted Jan 28, 2011 1:59 UTC (Fri) by jannex (guest, #43525) [Link]

One might claim that signing that declaration might be counted as voting.</sarcasm>

Shades of Evil

Posted Feb 8, 2011 0:24 UTC (Tue) by randomguy3 (subscriber, #71063) [Link]

Hmm? And were there other people that didn't vote who may have gone for option A?

Shades of Evil

Posted Jan 26, 2011 14:07 UTC (Wed) by przemoc (subscriber, #67594) [Link]

@iive
Thank you for some details about preceding events.

It's worth to add that Micheal has not resigned yet. He still reads mailing list and responds sometimes (obviously not as often as before distressful upheaval).

Michael recently got information that made him a bit less self-possessed. The thread he started at ffmpeg-devel theoretically could be summed by following quote:

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 07:18:06PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 07:12:51PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>> > On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 11:17:40AM -0500, compn wrote:
>> > > On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:45:05 +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>> > > >Hi
>> > > >
>> > > >I really wanted to leave, resign and be rid of this retarded political piss game
>> > > >
>> > > >But then one of the developers on my side told me he has been offered money
>> > > >to work for / join the new maintainers.
>> > > >From where is that money?
>> > > >from our foundation it seems
>> > >
>> > > probably ask that developer for mails before jumping to any conclusions.
>> >
>> > I will, but i trust him, i dont think he invented this.
>>
>> mail sent, iam waiting, but if its really not from the foundation then it must
>> come from someone else or this is a very odd misunderstanding
>
> Ive seen the mail, ronald do i have your permission to post the mail here?

I guess. You should ask this privately, not in public, if you want to
protect privacy, though.

Ronald

(no more details are publicly known AFAIK apart from Ronald statement, sent before, that it cannot be foundation's money as all directors, including Micheal, need to vote over such decisions)

However it cannot be summed with above quote, because there is a second sub-thread.

Benjamin Larsson suggested funding Micheal's work on ffmpeg. I'm pretty speechless, because things are getting weirder and weider. Idea per se, extended by Stefano Sabatini, who believe that raising funds for sponsoring main ffmpeg contributors should be the one of the main objectives of the foundation, is unmistakably great (meant also partially as right, not as innovative). But there is the context that cannot be just forgotten, especially by Micheal. Therefore (sorry, but I cannot skip this rough association) such offer looks like kind of make-up. Why, why, oh why there was no such proposal before?

Excerpt from Benjamin's last reply to Micheal in this thread:

>> I'm not aware such events. Most likely not true. But how about we fund
>> you to keep working on your fork? I'm sure there are areas where we can
>> find an agreement for this to happen.
> 
> Thats an odd offer in this thread, but what amount are we talking about?
> 

Suggest a project to the foundation board and an amount that you think
is reasonable for the task. I know (and most of us) that you are
qualified for almost anything FFmpeg related so just pick something that
you would prefer to work on. Depending on the suggestion the board will
then decide if we want to fund the project or not. As long as the
project is a welcome contribution to the FFmpeg project as a whole I see
no reason why it wouldn't be accepted.

MvH
Benjamin Larsson

(Diego Biurrun even already suggested a project suitable for Michael, how nice)

Stab and placate week later... I'm somewhat afraid of one thing. Not as a make-up, but rather as a not bad option to continue serious development of ffmpeg, Michael may agree to funded way of development, but there is no guarantee, that it won't be used against him in the future (present?). Actually same goes for the opposite, i.e. resigning. Uneasy situation.

And still lack of at least one simple word from signatories as a whole team (not individuals alone) to the Michael bothers me. I'd like to hope that it was just done non-publicly...

Culmination point?

Posted Jan 27, 2011 3:05 UTC (Thu) by przemoc (subscriber, #67594) [Link]

I think that real consequences of "illegitimate takeover" (Arpad Gereoffy's words, the shortest possible description of recent actions taken in ffmpeg community) will be seen really soon. I agree that Michael got even less self-possessed which can be seen in his (IMHO inappropriate) burial jest (after Ben Littler's repartee Michael replied that he went over the top and later clarified that it was meant to be funny). He's maybe even a bit unstable right now, but I doubt that anyone being in his shoes would be totally unmoved by recent insanity in part of ffmpeg crew.

Nicolas George criticized Micheal for insisting in using 'leader' label and indecisiveness of fulfilling leader's duties:

I know you wanted to be funny, but there is a base of truth behind it: you seem to insist on keeping the title "leader" out of mischief and protest against the coup, while you said yourself a few days ago that you felt tired of the leading duties.

If you really are tired of being project leader, maybe you should consider endorsing the self-appointed new leaders: state clearly the conditions you would find acceptable to do so.

Endorsing the self-appointed new leaders? WTF? That would mean he agrees to terrible way of "solving" problems. He obviously cannot do it.

It's pretty clear already that Micheal will be "crucified" by part of ffmpeg developers. Coup was done week ago, let's forget about it? Or maybe revolutionist should be even praised? What's wrong with this world? He cannot even defend himself? Micheal is apparently cutthroat dictator making people take subverters side. Why there was no serious explanation of all the working behind Michael's back?

At last Micheal sent assertive mail that should be sent long time ago, but only just a short time ago he got more information:

The official repository is the videolan repository, the other repository will be removed from that page. This is a decission of me as leader of the project. This soap opera was going on for long enough and has caused tremendous harm already, carl practically left, ramiro too, i met him and he said he unsubscribed from all lists. i have dozends of mails from developers in my inbox that object to this and the people voting never knew they where voting about a takeover of ffmpeg. They belived they voted on a ultra secret compromise to bring mans back into the project which would have required me to loose leadership. Thats also why iam being deleadered by it its just a demand of mans to come back not the actual wish of the people signing. There never where 18 people who wanted me not to be leader, there where 18 people who considered the compromise of me loosing leadership and mans coming back in exchange to be worth a try. And several people refused to sign, some contacted me and told me they feel ashamed that their name is on that list. And all the rules for the new maintainers, they AFAIK where invented in a few hours on IRC while discussing other things thats why they are nonsensical selfcontradictionary rubish

This went too far. It ends now.

Iam also asking diego and mans to resign as roots with this mail. While i do not see any ill intent, the leadership and organisation of ffmpeg is not a playground for such secret agreements. Even less so when they break the project into 2

What is the first (public) reaction? Jason Garrett-Glaser's mail about backing Michael's opinion in private mails under particular condition and his stubbornness that will end in Jason's resign if he'll "manage to sneak back into the position of "leader""...

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>There never where 18 people who wanted me not to be leader, there where 18
>people who considered the compromise of me loosing leadership and mans coming
>back in exchange to be worth a try. And several people refused to sign, some
>contacted me and told me they feel ashamed that their name is on that list.

I was one of this "some".

I backed your opinions via private mail, but only under the condition
that you stop this.  You haven't stopped this -- instead, you've gone
back to being your prior self in every possible worst sense of the
phrase.

>They belived they voted on a ultra secret compromise to bring mans back into
the project

"You're an incompetent leader who's drunk on power" has nothing to do
with anyone except yourself.  In fact, I would have probably been more
supportive of the "compromise" if Mans wasn't involved and wasn't
coming back.

> The official repository is the videolan repository, the other repository will
> be removed from that page.
> This is a decission of me as leader of the project.

>Iam also asking diego and mans to resign as roots with this mail.

You are insisting that everyone else resign, yet you yourself still
refuse to resign as "leader".  This is ridiculous.  You are even worse
than Mans and Diego: you want everyone else to give a mile when you
won't give a single inch.

I trusted that you would try to learn something -- anything -- from
your mistakes.  I was wrong to do so.  If you somehow get your way and
manage to sneak back into the position of "leader", I'm out of the
project.

Jason

P.S. You're still a better coder than I am, at least in the two hours
a year you spend coding and not flaming people.

Sneaking? Wow. Michael's cruelty has no limits, how he dared to not approve the obscure convulsion? Still, especially after subversion... Really, this is ridiculous.

Summary: ffmpeg lost some developers, because of the upheaval. Who's responsible for that? Simple. Micheal, because he as the leader was the root of so many problems, that he must have been booted out. He's still there? So ffmpeg will lost even more developers.

Sorry for my sarcasm, but the amount of direct and indirect malice towards Micheal is insufferable.

This one simple word from signatories as a whole team (not even mentioning proper discussion that would follow it) will not be seen, almost granted.