Hi On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 05:13:17PM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote: > Hi, > > On Fri, 8 Aug 2014 08:16:24 -0500 > Joe Neal <vlvtelvis@speakeasy.net> wrote: > > > On both servers and desktops, I've been a Debian user since Sarge. I > > use Debian not only because of its strong technical merits, but because > > of the strong sense of ethics the project has always had. > > > > A fork that tries to forcibly steal the name and infrastructure from > > the original project while ousting the original maintainer and a good > > number of developers is not ethical. > > This lie has been spread over the last few years and repeated multiple > times. I would like to apoligize for being off topic and using > debian-devel to debunk this lie. But for me, this is a personal insult. > > Back in 2004, when the main server that MPlayer used (and FFmpeg used > as cvs repository only, nothing else yet) died, MPlayer started to > collect donations to buy a new machine. FFmpeg joined the efford, as > they used part of the same infrastructure. Thus end of 2004 a new > server was bought by me and set up together with Diego Buirrun and > Mans Rullgard. > > The server was set up at an ISP which were friends of mine as a personal > favor. Also, legally, the server was registered under my name, as > MPlayer (who "officially" owned the server) was not legal entity. > > In the following years most of the infrastructure used by MPlayer and > FFmpeg were provided by Mans Rullgard, Diego Petteno, Luca Barbato, > my brother, a dozen of my friends and me. These included stuff like > mirrors, blogs, testing infrastructure, DNS and mail servers, etc. > I.e. almost everything that MPlayer and FFmpeg used as their infrastructure > were linked to just 4 people: Mans Rullgard, Diego Petteno, Luca Barbato and me. > > I would like to point out that none of my friends nor my brother ever had any > relationship to MPlayer of FFmpeg, beside knowing me. > > I also want to point out, that up to 2011, the main server on which > most stuff run was considered beloning to MPlayer with FFmpeg being > a paying guest. That was also the reason why everyone refered to the > server as "mphq" back then. > > In 2011, when the split happend, the three people who were root > on mphq (Diego Biurrun, Mans Rullgard and me) and Luca Barbato > were signatories of the document that was the first public start > of the split[1]. The one missing name from that list, Diego Petteno, > was also of that group that later became libav, but did not sign > the mail as he didn't consider himself an FFmpeg developer. > > At that time, we (we being root, ie Mans Rullgard, Diego Buirrun and me) > explicitly tried not to involve MPlayer at all, because we thought of > this as an FFmpeg internal issue. That's why mphq (the server) was > otherwise untouched. [3] > > Unfortunately, in April 2011, Michael Niedermayer threatened to sue > me personally over a redirection on the MPlayer homepage (for some > reason http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu redirected to http://libav.org), > which i was not even aware of that it existed (i was not involved > in the website at all, beside keeping the webserver running). > Incidentally, he claimed to write to me in the name of all MPlayer > maintainers. Because i didn't want to waste my time and money in a pointless > legal battle, i decided to end my, over a decade long, involvement in MPlayer > and shut down mphq after some grace period to give them time to move the > services to an other server[2]. attila, you know me, we met in person before the split, i would never sue you, i dont understand why after 3 years you still think so. also i had stated that immedeatly after the mail you quoted back then http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.mplayer.devel/59284 I wont sue you or anyone else from libav. Iam a boring geeki guy spending most of the day and night infront of my computer, i dont sue people, even less so other free software developers. > > As you can see, all the infrastructure that people claim have been > stolen, misapproriated etc belonged to people who were of the libav > camp in the first place. And naturally, this infrastructure went with > them in the split. (would you invest your time and energy into maintaining > infrastructure for a project where its main proponents call you a "lying pig" > and threaten you with their lawyers?) i dont even have a lawyer, i never needed one and i sure hope i never will. The closest i got to needing a lawyer was when i got a snail mail from one of the root admins lawyers about the ffmpeg logo but lets not follow that path of mudslinging, that would only make any resolution of the ffmpeg / libav conflict harder. [...] -- Michael GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB Avoid a single point of failure, be that a person or equipment.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature