Legal Threats Against MPlayer, Server To Disappear

[XorEaxEax]

Hey, that was a cursory glance. I didn't do any in-depth analysis of git commits or anything. That seemed like a lot of effort

Heh, I know the feeling!

This is the ffmpeg git tree, which merges most changes from the libav team now. I don't know all the members of the libav team, but I think it includes Anton Khirnov, Mans Rullgard, Justin Ruggles, Ronald S. Bultje, Jason Garrett-Glaser, Janne Grunau, Luca Barbato and, I think, Alexander Strange. That is a pretty impressive list, isn't it?

Yes, some names even I recognize, like garret-glaser, rullgard from x264 project and Bultje. Anyway, best scenario is that the projects merge again and bad blood be put away. And if that doesn't happen we'll just have to wait and see which one emerges as the project of 'choice', as in which lib applications will link to.

[popper]

now compare that ffmpeg list above to the http://patchwork.libav.org/project/libav-devel/list/ and the people on the libav-devel and x264-dev IRC channel's etc, clearly there's a very high proportion of active developer's there and contributing patches to libav right now including the so called Mplayer dev's.

clearly most average people dont realise just how small a team the core patch developers are in the video related app's you use every day, for instance the ever massively popular VLC core devs are in reality 2 people, and in need of more windows devs to contribute patches directly to that platform... they take their core code from FFmpeg/libav and x264 just like #handbrake-dev and most other 3rd party app's devs do today

[loonyphoenix]

You are basing this on the 'volume' of mailing lists? I mean I could understand if you based it on examination of svn entries, but mailing lists? I've seen project mailing lists with tons of chatter but absolutely no development and vice versa. I hope I am misunderstanding this.

Hey, that was a cursory glance. I didn't do any in-depth analysis of git commits or anything. That seemed like a lot of effort

All right, I was pretty curious too, so I made a small investigation.

$ git log --since '1 jan' --pretty=short | git shortlog -s -n
   228  [B]Anton Khirnov[/B]
   220  [B]Mans Rullgard[/B]
   174  Michael Niedermayer
   155  [B]Justin Ruggles[/B]
   147  Stefano Sabatini
   100  Peter Ross
    87  [B]Ronald S. Bultje[/B]
    83  Martin Storsj?
    62  Diego Elio Petten?
    55  Reimar D?ffinger
    53  Anssi Hannula
    50  [B]Jason Garrett-Glaser[/B]
    40  Baptiste Coudurier
    37  Carl Eugen Hoyos
    37  [B]Janne Grunau[/B]
    24  [B]Luca Barbato[/B]
    22  [B]Alexander Strange[/B]
    22  Daniel Kang
    19  Philip Langdale
    18  Alex Converse
    18  Nicolas George
    14  Georgi Chorbadzhiyski
    14  Young Han Lee
    12  Cl?ment Bœsch
    11  Maksym Veremeyenko
    11  Vitor Sessak
    10  Aurelien Jacobs
    10  Sascha Sommer

This is the ffmpeg git tree, which merges most changes from the libav team now. I don't know all the members of the libav team, but I think it includes Anton Khirnov, Mans Rullgard, Justin Ruggles, Ronald S. Bultje, Jason Garrett-Glaser, Janne Grunau, Luca Barbato and, I think, Alexander Strange. That is a pretty impressive list, isn't it?

[XorEaxEax]

Comparing the volume of libav and ffmpeg lists,

You are basing this on the 'volume' of mailing lists? I mean I could understand if you based it on examination of svn entries, but mailing lists? I've seen project mailing lists with tons of chatter but absolutely no development and vice versa. I hope I am misunderstanding this.

[loonyphoenix]

Isn't it kind of obvious that the project leader in question is Michael Niedermayer? He is after all answering in a way that leads not much doubt about that. I have no knowledge about this two guys, but sadly, intuitively, I believe this is just happening because Michael Niedermayer got a bit pissed of by the fact that ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu is pointing to libav.org. He probably wrote or said some exaggerated things, and he has every right to be pissed of. Regardless of the reasons for forking ffmpeg, is really bad idea (read: stupid idea) to do such a thing. It leads to the believe that ffmpeg has just changes name to libav, and the fact that both ffmpeg.org and libav.org looks pretty much the same does not help at all. Also, libav.org don't actually call it a fork, but

Yes, I agree with that, somewhat. However, I can see where these developers are coming from. Comparing the volume of libav and ffmpeg lists, it is obvious that more active development is going on in the libav team. Meaning that those 8 developers are 8 core developers of ffmpeg/libav, and should, in their opinion, be considered the majority of developers. I can even see how they thought they had the right to take over the project completely instead of forking it, even though they are not technically the majority -- and they might have succeeded, if the ffmpeg trademark owner hadn't sided with Michael. And if the majority of development is happening in libav camp, it seems to me that libav might, by some standards, be considered the main fork, at least from libav developers' point of view. In their opinion, it is only a technicality that Michael's fork continues under the name of ffmpeg, while theirs bears a different name.

[AHSauge]

Of course the libav fork is somewhat questionable, because of all the drama around it, but calling it a "bad fork" outright is poor taste and poor journalism, IMHO. The situation is very difficult to decipher, though I have tried. By the way, the "certain project leader" in question couldn't be Michael Niedermayer, could it? Because that is the ffmpeg project leader, and if that's the things he does, I kinda understand where the libav team were coming from. Then again, it might be somebody else, because Attila Kinali isn't providing any names.

While I understand the tension around libav, mplayer2, in my opinion, cannot be called a bad fork in any way. It just takes mplayer a different direction, that is all. If I were the leader of mplayer2, I'd be offended by Phoronix right now for this groundless accusation.

Isn't it kind of obvious that the project leader in question is Michael Niedermayer? He is after all answering in a way that leads not much doubt about that. I have no knowledge about this two guys, but sadly, intuitively, I believe this is just happening because Michael Niedermayer got a bit pissed of by the fact that ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu is pointing to libav.org. He probably wrote or said some exaggerated things, and he has every right to be pissed of. Regardless of the reasons for forking ffmpeg, is really bad idea (read: stupid idea) to do such a thing. It leads to the believe that ffmpeg has just changes name to libav, and the fact that both ffmpeg.org and libav.org looks pretty much the same does not help at all. Also, libav.org don't actually call it a fork, but

We, as a group of FFmpeg developers, have decided to continue developing FFmpeg under the name Libav. All existing infrastructure will be transferred to the libav.org domain.

[XorEaxEax]

now Michael seems to like Michael, and indeed Michael is a very good assembly and C programmer, so Michael seems to favour Michael at the expense of the other assembly programmers in the other team , confused yet

lol, yeah kinda

[popper]

the so called "for those taking the higher ground and declaring it a soap opera" if nothing to do with taking the higher ground as you put it , and this whole thread is nothing more than Michael coming in to the Mplayer thread totally unprepared and lacking any background....

the simple fact is Mplayer is today an almost unmaintained project with very little active input, the reason is simple , they are all in FFmpeg/libav and on IRC now and are actively transferring many of the filter's to these codebases etc...

this whole Attila Leaving the project comes from and leads directly from this ffmpeg thread outlining the facts as relates to the services provided for instance

http://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2011-March/108249.html

Wed Mar 2 18:07:14 CET 2011

and Michael's ( no not phoronix Michael, but rather ffmpeg Michael) continued dig's at different core developers and service providers etc....

now Michael seems to like Michael, and indeed Michael is a very good assembly and C programmer, so Michael seems to favour Michael at the expense of the other assembly programmers in the other team , confused yet

it seems now Michael has reconsidered his position , and replied again adding his offer to resign (from this almost unmaintained project remember)

http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-dev-eng/2011-April/068020.html

as several IRC chats have obviously taken place etc since that Attila post that started this phoronix thread/news item and yet there are very few posts to their mailing list.....


the simple fact is, there are a very few active assembly dev's and their in the ffmpeg or libav camps, and Michael said he will cherry pick all the libav and other patches as they appear, cant blame him as there are more assembly devs writing and porting x264 code in libav than ffmpeg now.... so as you can see its all very simple its all good for getting clicks for the commercial Phoronix Test Suite OC

[XorEaxEax]

From what I gather, Attila Kinali was one of the main instigators in the libav 'fork' (well, attempted hostile takeover actually) so I can't help but wonder if this mplayer spat is a result of that (seems the projects share a number of developers). There certainly seems to be alot of bad blood in the mplayer/ffmpeg developer pool of late. Of course there are always two sides to this, and one side is never totally right/wrong.

Maybe we will have some light shed on these matters as the dust settles.

As for those taking the higher ground and declaring it a soap opera, these are people just like you and me. We certainly set no higher examples in these forums so why would we expect it from anyone else? And having worked as a programmer for the majority of my working-life I can attest that ego-driven confrontations is nothing out of the ordinary, in my own experience particularly programmers vs management has been a never-ending battle of will's.

[ad_267]

I think you meant:

"While legal threats to free software projects would be disastrous to those seeking to encourage Linux and open-source work"

or maybe:

"While legal threats to free software projects would be great for those seeking to destory Linux and open-source work"