Shades of Evil

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.