[vlc-devel] [Asso] Update on the VLC project

[Jean-Paul Saman]

On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 5:10 PM, Jean-Baptiste Kempf <jb at videolan.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> VLC is doing great as a product but not really much as a project.
> Here are a few ideas to fix/improve the current situation.
>

I agree. It was time we had some behaviour rules.

Kind regards,
Jean-Paul Saman.

>
> About the VLC product, except the remaining issues we have on 2.0.x,
> notably on audio clock and volume-scale+delay, we are doing fine:
>
>  - We are approaching the 1 billion downloads,
>  - We have crossed the 31M downloads bar in one single month in April,
>  - The Anime community does not hate us anymore,
>  - We have now a great visibility in the press, in Europe, at least,
>  - We have now a very strong brand,
>  - The website and services are doing fine,
>  - The libVLC relicensing has been quite well welcomed, and used.
>
>
> On the project side, the situation is a bit less cool.
> While we have more and more contributors, we have less core
> contributors, both in numbers and in proportion. And the bugs to fix are
> harder than before.
>
> Our support is not good, knowing that we have only one user on our forum
> (plus a few people helping), that our documentation is still lacking and
> the mailing lists are hard to answer.
>
> On the development side, a lot of projects are going on quite nicely,
> including adaptive streaming, webbroswers, Mac OS UI, translations but
> many of the core tasks are lacking work (audio core, sout, libVLC APIs...)
> Many of us, core dev, are getting frustrated, depressed, tired and
> agressive...
>
>
> To not help this fact, the tone on this mailing list and on IRC are not
> correct. I have made this remarks quite a few time, in public and in
> private, to MULTIPLE persons, but we have to go beyond that, since the
> message did not go through.
>
> Let me remind you of a few unacceptable actions:
>  - insults on mailing list operated by VideoLAN,
>  - insults on public IRC channels operated by VideoLAN,
>  - forwarding a private conversation to a public mailing list (videolan@
>     and asso@ are private)
>  - IRL insults and phyiscal fights,
>  - any false accusation, or slander,
>  - any kind of threats,
>  - ad hominem attacks,
>  - blackmail,
>  - insults on forum, wiki, trac and other web services.
>
> Let me remind you of a few unwanted actions:
>  - commits and reverts wars,
>  - threats of revert wars,
>  - rejection of other code without explanation,
>  - rejection of other code with bunky explanation,
>  - modification of our dev infrastructure without notification or
>   with explicit disapproval,
>  - commit with explicit disapproval from other core members.
>  - shouting fights,
>  - fights about some bikeshedding,
>  - abuse of op rights on IRC.
>
> The tone on the repositories has been mostly fine, lately, with no
> commits wars nor pushing of very discutable piece of code.
>
>
> In order to avoid the same situation we've been into, I suggest a few
> things:
>  - the creation of a technical arbitration committee, to avoid the
>   YES/NO discussions, and whose decision will be final, like Debian or
>   Rockbox,
>  - a set of sanctions scale,
>  - a review of those sanctions at our next meeting in Talinn and
>   modification of Rules of Household, in consequence.
>  - application of sanctions on this current situation.
>
>
> Possible sanctions we have, on the scale:
>  - Ban of mailing lists,
>  - Ban of IRC channels,
>  - Removal of commits rights,
>  - Removal of non-profit rights, including travel and hardware donation,
>   or dev program access,
>  - Ban of dev machines access.
>
> All of them can be temporary or definitive, depending on the issue.
> Temporary sanctions should be automatic, in case of violation of the rules.
> Recidive would increase the length of the ban.
> Definitive sanctions should be voted at the next assembly.
>
> Complaints should be done as soon as possible to abuse at videolan.org or
> asso@
>
>
> About the current situation, here is what I suggest (from suggestions):
>  - Public excuse of behaviour of Rafaël on the mailing list,
>  - Private excuse for insults on the mean of communication involved,
>   by everyone who did those (last count was 5 people),
>  - 1 day ban of Rémi, Rafaël and the other people from IRC channel for
>   insults,
>  - 1 week removal of commit access for Rafaël,
>  - Warn Rafaël and other protagonists that any redo or teasing will create
>   an immediate stronger sanction,
>  - Vote at the next meeting to enforce any sanctions in a more permanent
>   way or take another set of sanction (including but not limited to the
>   debarment of individuals from the association or the project).
>
> As Laurent suggested, complete removal of git rights should be kept only
> when commits are screwed up, which is not the case here.
>
>
> Hoping that this could set a better way to work together...
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> PS: sorry for the late mail, but personnal matters were occupying me a
> lot lately, as you might have seen.
>
> --
> Jean-Baptiste Kempf
> http://www.jbkempf.com/ - +33 672 704 734
> Sent from my Electronic Device
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