Well, no one will switch to ffmpeg – because the people who actually write most of the code you see in ffmpeg think the ffmpeg managers (admins? project leaders?) are assholes.
The whole contributor base – everyone contributing to ffmpeg – tried to get the project leader out of the project, but he refused. So these people forked ffmpeg – or rather, they took all the repos (which they owned), took all the CI servers (which they owned) and would have also taken the name ffmpeg, but the project leader owned that name.
It’s more of "one asshole vs. all the people writing the code he gives away" than anything else.
> The whole contributor base – everyone contributing to ffmpeg
The project leader is also a contributor, so clearly not 'everyone'.
> So these people forked ffmpeg – or rather, they took all the repos (which they owned), took all the CI servers (which they owned) and would have also taken the name ffmpeg, but the project leader owned that name.
There are people that consider Linus to be 'an asshole' and I'm really happy that he at least has the Linux name as a trademark.
To me, looking from the outside in and reading about the whole sage they're all assholes. You keep your dirty laundry inside and you do what you can to present a unified front to the world. As soon as you fail to do that you are failing your project in the most important sense that you can fail it: continuity.
There is no "inside" in an open community. What you're advocating is for an elite of the project making the decisions among themselves and presenting the decision to everyone else as a fait accompli. I think that's a very unethical way to act - users and less prominent contributors deserve a voice too.
To me, it seems like all of them are behaving like little children, too – but that doesn’t change how the people involved think of each other.
I see the issue, I – as user – prefer ffmpeg, but I – as dev – prefer libav. I’d love to somehow see both sides working together, but it sadly just won’t happen.
The whole contributor base – everyone contributing to ffmpeg – tried to get the project leader out of the project, but he refused. So these people forked ffmpeg – or rather, they took all the repos (which they owned), took all the CI servers (which they owned) and would have also taken the name ffmpeg, but the project leader owned that name.
It’s more of "one asshole vs. all the people writing the code he gives away" than anything else.