Have you ever written code you wanted to contribute to FFmpeg, but you got a little tripped up in the send-email situation or maybe you got some feedback you weren’t sure how to handle and your patch never made it across the finish line? Maybe you went to github to make a PR, saw PULL REQUESTS ARE IGNORED, followed the link to the contribution documentation, saw a 28 point checklist and backed away slowly from your computer.

Don’t give up the dream! This talk will review the entire FFmpeg contribution process from soup to nuts and demystify the scary parts. It will focus on procedure and potential sharp edges thereof, rather than the actual code contribution itself. If that sounds very dry, rest assure the only thing dry about it will be the wit. This information may be elementary to some folks, but to paraphrase a recent FFmpeg-devel mailing list sentiment: “More diversity would be good.” Making the process more accessible is key to making the circle bigger and encouraging a more diverse group of people to participate in the FFmpeg-devel ecosystem. If we want some new kids on the block, there should be a step by step guide, and this talk aims to be that just that. A brief outline of the talk is as follows: 1. How to lurk (mailing list & IRC) 2. Find a thing to fix, improve, create 3. How to run regression tests (FATE, etc) 4. How to git patch (aka how to send an email) 5. How to address feedback 6. It merged! Now what? This talk was presented at Demuxed 2024, a conference by and for engineers working in video. Every year we host a conference with lots of great new talks like this in San Francisco. Learn more at https://demuxed.com