> On Jan 26, 2015, at 8:19 PM, wm4 <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> I think the problem is rather that you're not even trying to contribute.
> 
> This is an open source project. You have to get involved, not expect
> that "support" will take care of you.

I’ve been on this mailing list over three years. Numerous times I’ve attempted 
to engage this list in discussions in hopes of definitively understanding 
FFmpeg at a deeper level, and leaving a discussion trail which others traveling 
the same path which I have could benefit from who  I’ve inquired about 
documentation, design and architectural decisions. I’ve asked questions about 
how various X things are accomplished for the same reason. I’ve contributed a 
fully working real-time capture-encode-stream app whose code has sat on Github 
for over a year and has been linked to several times on this mailing list. This 
time, I once again tried to find a way I could contribute something to FFmpeg 
which based on the clients I serve, is exactly what FFmpeg needs — and so I 
appealed to the community in hopes of finding others whom it would help as 
well. All of this is directly aimed at contributing. 

In all of the cases above, the efforts proved futile (save some of the folks 
I’ve met and good conversations I’ve had a result off-list as a result). The 
very ingrained collective personality of this mailing list is a one-trick pony 
— when you can’t stand toe-to-toe technically, turn the turrets on the person, 
and make the conversation personal. Same thing here…avoid the issue, fault the 
person. If you want a fail-safe formula for pushing contributors away, well 
you’ve got it. 

As I stated before…you win. Your worries about threatening FFmpeg by bringing 
its API out of the realm of the propellor-heads and propagating clarity and 
understanding rather than keeping FFmpeg a black art are unnecessary. I’ll 
contribute elsewhere. 

Brad

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