>former FFmpeg leader Michael Niedermayer.
Former? Well, he resigned today, but this blog seems quite old.
>Since FFmpeg was a project famous for horrid code quality and sketchy and irregular API
Was it? Is it? All I know is a bunch of stuff uses it. Where is that fame?
>“The people behind Libav stole the FFmpeg infrastructure”, some of the admins even got questioned in their workplace if they really stole something. Pity that most of the people related in keeping the infrastructure functional were doing so on their own hardware and co-location, but obviously checking facts is hard, better go help shoveling manure on people.
Server infrastructure is one thing. You mention yourself that you guys didn't have the trademark, yet you took the domain name too? I dunno about the laws in all of the locations where this played out, but in the US at least, that'd be theft.
>started to merge daily everything Libav does more or less since the beginning, making FFmpeg effectively a strict derivative of Libav.
Again, tone, wording, etc. This statement does not stand on its own: If I have a 50 million line project that had a small subsection forked, and every day the fork's changes were merged, that does not make my project a strict derivative. I'm not saying libav is a small subsection, or making any sort of claim about the ratio of ffmpeg original work vs. libav merges, but you have provided zero information or evidence to support the claim one way or the other either.
>Now things are a little more fair and at least FFmpeg more or less states that is a derivative of Libav with additional features in their download page.
Ah, here you go. Kinda. But again, tone. And not much evidence. The ffmpeg download page seems to be open about including code from libav, but uh, additional features could be major. What's the difference in features? What is the actual volume of work in comparison?
>On the other hand I’m not cool at all in having an unfair competition, with a side piggy-backing on the other like it is happening: everything in Libav is merged inf FFmpeg, enjoying the fact the code is polished and cleaned before.
This is a feature, not a bug. Unfair competition? Piggy backing? You are developing an open source project. Do you only want things to be open if the people using it are people you like?
>sometimes the amount of nonsense thrown at you by those rabid fans not knowing anything is appalling.
You write this, and immediately follow with:
>Hopefully writing more about it might help defusing this situation.
Blog posts like this are very inflammatory. You hurl insults, make a lot of claims without providing evidence that backs them, and generally come across as someone who has a lot of personal bias on the matter.
That isn't to say that you're wrong: I have no idea who is right or wrong on this. I don't particularly care. But your blog post is about as biased as it gets. And to note, biased doesn't necessarily mean wrong - you can be biased and still be right.