[FFmpeg-devel] FFmpeg developer meeting 2019/12/9 notes

[Ronald S. Bultje]

Dear all,

below are the notes I took of the 2019/12/9 FFmpeg developer meeting. The
meeting was held on a Google Meet, and there was an IRC proxy channel
(#ffmpeg-meeting) also.

Kind regards,
Ronald

- jb opens, agenda for this meeting
o what happened at last meeting (at VDD)
o various next steps, technical committee, community committee
o any votes that we might want to have for next time
o time/date for next meeting

- jb, summary of vdd:
o who can vote
o temp committees to bootstrap function
o final committees will be during fosdem
o long email about decision was mailed to ffmpeg-list
o most feedback was positive, except from durandal

- jb asks cehoyos for feedback on whether 20 commits is still ok
  to be considered participatory in voting
o cehoyos says (on IRC) that he thinks 3 years is long, but other
  people (michael, ronald, jdarnley) appear fine with 3 years.
o cehoyos also says non-coding contributors should be recognized
  (packages, server admins, mailing list admins), e.g. moritz or
  alexander strasser, and multiple people appear to agree, no
  disagreement is raised
o j-b proposes to add them to the voting list for now, under the
  rule of "limited number of other non-coding contributors"
o jamrial also thinks nevcariel should be added, thilo agrees
o we decide to exclude kurosu and kierank for now, since they are
  not very active ATM
o the same (for now) will go for libav contributions (anton, martin,
  janne)
o should packagers get a vote? cehoyos thinks they should in some
  cases, e.g. gentoo, osx, windows, debian
o several people raise various objections. ronald thinks they are
  not part of a core group. lynne proposes we only include people
  that contribute back. cehoyos says he specifically intends to
  bring in the pkg maintainers of debian, osx, windows (zeranoe) and
  gentoo since they do valuable work in "spreading our work" and
  contribute back. however, cehoyos suggests they should get one vote
  per package. j-b proposes we vote on each packager individually. the
  general consensus appears to be we want this, but limited
o should people on technical committee also get voting right regardless
  of whether they meet the 20 vote threshold or not?
o we understand that this is excluding people like kurosu and kierank,
  but as soon as they are active again, they will get in :)

- jb brings up whether rodger's proposed voting mechanism is generally
  agreed upon (or even if anyone cares)
o michael says on IRC: i suggested "Schulze STV" (to rodger)
o nobody else seems to care much, primarily what matters is who gets
  to vote, not how we vote (jamrial)
o [11:38am] <cehoyos> BBB: I wonder if the reason nobody comments is
  that nobody is aware that this does have "consequences"...
  [11:38am] <cehoyos> (I suspect it has consequences but still don't
  know what is "good" and what "not")
o iilya (on IRC) says "all the condorcet methods should produce almost
  the same results anyway"

- jb: next topic, technical conflict resolution committee
o TC right now is: michael, james almer, ronald, martin, anton
o jb will write down process as a markdown document
o ronald says "we'll see how it works the first time, right?"
o on IRC, anton, james almer, thilo agree to just see how it works out

- jb: next topic, community committee
o jb: "code of conduct?"
o "what does videolan do?"
o videolan has very specific rules about what you can not do in terms
  of behaviour on IRC etc., and how long you get kicked (escalation
  process) if you violate the rules
o cehoyos on irc: using the one from videolan as basis could be done
  but is difficult to agree with or not since it is very non-specific
o cehoyos and ronald: the CC should probably be tasked with updating
  the CoC to be more specific than the one we currently have.
o michael on irc: the problem with the coC was primarily that we didn't
  enforce it. steven liu agrees
o kierank and jamrial on irc think the current coc is not fit (kierank:
  "not fit for purpose", jamrial: "has no defined rules")
o lydia proposes one round of feedback so people can say what works for
  them and what does not
o most people agree with CC proposing changes to CoC, then all people
  voting on the result from that. jb/lydia will help with that.

- cehoyos asks about reimbursement limits for conferences from the ffmpeg
  funds.
o there appears no disagreement that the amounts he's quoting (EUR 320
  for hotel, EUR hotel for flight) is fine
o jb thinks this should not be done on list to protect people's private
  information re: reimbursements because it includes details like where
  you went or where from
o michael and cehoyos think the general requesting of reimbursements
  should be public so people can comment/object, but there is agreement
  some more personal information should be allowed to be kept private
o jb: videolan has travel policy with how much is ok for going where etc.

- Lynne asks about non-conference expenses, since we have funds but no
  clear process to "spend" ffmpeg's money
o jb asks if she can be more specific about what she's thinking of
o cehoyos agrees with lynna

- next meet?
o one month? or every second month? jb prefers monthly, jamrial/michaelni
  prefer bi-monthly
o stevenliu/anton/james darnley/thilo/koda/nightrose/iilya/jb want early
  january, jamrial/michaelni/ronald want at fosdem, so jan 6 (or around)
  is decided for next meet

- cehoyos also proposes we tell ffmpeg devs they "should" (not "can")
  come to fosdem and that the funds will pay for reasonable travel expenses

- jb closes meeting