On Sat, 21 Mar 2026, 15:52 Michael Niedermayer via ffmpeg-devel, < [email protected]> wrote:
> Hi everyone > > 2 days ago "tests/checkasm: switch to shared libcheckasm implementation > #22546" > was opened > > This is not a small refactor. It adds 651 commits, touches 117 files, and > adds 19405 lines and removes 1940. > That scope merits broader review and discussion before any merge decision. > > I have several concerns. > > First, a dependancy on external infrastructure is unnecceasry > > Second, a dependancy on gitlab-CI is not acceptable > We need to be able to run the full relevant test coverage ourselves, under > FFmpeg-controlled infrastructure > > Third, the copyright and authorship situation needs clarification. > The copyrights after the PR > git grep Copyright tests/checkasm/ | sed 's/.*:[ *;#]*//' | sed > 's/([cC])/©/' | sed 's/,//' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n | tail -10 > 3 Copyright © 2024 Marvin Scholz > 4 Copyright © 2015 James Almer > 4 Copyright © 2015 Janne Grunau > 4 Copyright © 2023 Institute of Software Chinese Academy of > Sciences (ISCAS). > 5 Copyright © 2025 Martin Storsjo > 6 Copyright © 2016 Alexandra Hájková > 8 Copyright © 2015 Henrik Gramner > 37 Copyright © 2018 Two Orioles, LLC > 45 Copyright © 2018 VideoLAN and dav1d authors > 45 Copyright © 2025 Niklas Haas > > But the actual authorship in tests/checkasm/ is dominated by FFmpeg > contributors, for example: > git shortlog -s -n tests/checkasm/ | head -10 > 120 Andreas Rheinhardt > 87 James Almer > 80 Martin Storsjö > 44 Rémi Denis-Courmont > 29 Henrik Gramner > 28 Michael Niedermayer > 27 Niklas Haas > 23 Clément Bœsch > 18 Hendrik Leppkes > 18 Martin Vignali > > the authorship in the added commits is likewise specific and > attributable: > git shortlog -s -n origin.. > 450 Niklas Haas > 128 Martin Storsjö > 25 Rémi Denis-Courmont > 22 Cameron Cawley > 11 Marvin Scholz > 6 Nathan E. Egge > 3 KO Myung-Hun > 2 J. Dekker > 1 Brad Smith > 1 Felix Paul Kühne > 1 Henrik Gramner > 1 Konstantin Pavlov > > So at least from a first look, this appears to remove or dilute FFmpeg > attribution > while adding blanket notices such as “VideoLAN and dav1d authors” to > many files, > even though that is not a literal commit author. That needs a proper > explanation before anything proceeds. > > Forth, > "Some changes have been ported over from FFmpeg's copy of checkasm, > with permission to relicense." > > My permission for relicensing was conditional on the resulting project > being hosted on code.ffmpeg.org. > That condition was never fulfilled. So unless I am missing something, > that statement is at best > incomplete and may be misleading. > > Fifth, > the libcheckasm work was done by FFlabs people and discussed in FFlabs > meetings. > So unless I misunderstand the situation, we seem to have funded work > that now removes FFmpeg attribution or identity, > adds a dependency on external infrastructure, and moves testing in a > direction tied to systems FFmpeg does not control and previously did not > choose. > > Please correct me if I am wrong, but from where I stand this proposal > raises significant technical, > governance, infrastructure, and attribution concerns, and I do not think > it should be merged in its current form. > Checkasm came from x264 originally, a VideoLAN project. It is the right decision to not have various forks of checkasm (you would agree, no?). Many companies, mine included, also maintain forks and would like a standalone checkasm. You also seem to misunderstand concepts around collective work in copyright. You are effectively demanding an FFmpeg takeover of Checkasm. This is not acceptable. Kieran > _______________________________________________ ffmpeg-devel mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
