Thanks to Jean-François Fortin Tam ~ Nekohayo I came to know about a non-linear video editor named Saya. I did a lot of research on it, so as the avoid the wrong things done and adopt the good things brought out by that attempt.

Saya was started in June 2008, died in April 2009 and was revived in October 2010. It’s lead developer was Rick Garcia. It aimed at creating a cross platform non-linear video editor.

Motivations for new video editor

Let’s come to see why he wanted to create a new video editor from scratch(from his mouth):

Most of the editors are written in Python and wxPython which creates insane version compactibility problems
The end-users have to install Python runtime
Most editors use gstreamer harcoded as the multimedia framework and gstreamer plugins have their own dependencies
Could not get MLT to work his Linux distribution
Non-native user interfaces. Users needs to install huge tookit frameworks

So his solution was:

GNU C++ to avoid installing Python. MinGW for windows port
Inclusion of required libraries in source tree
Using Qt as tookit (Earlier he decided on WxWidgets)

Cross platform compatibility

Rick wanted cross platform video editor. Due to this he went with C++. He didnt like the fact that other open source video editors are not so cross platform. He cited Kdenlive, Kino, PiTiVi, Diva etc as some of them.

Entry and exit of developers

From the Saya dev blog, I can see many posts which talk about new developers joining and older one leaving. Some of such blog posts are

June 17, 2008: A new dev comes, an old dev leaves… possibly
June 19, 2008: New mailing list + one developer less = still good!
July 10, 2008 New dev, engine warming up :)
July 14, 2008 Car accident; Human Interface Guidelines
July 23, 2008: New developer joined!
Feb 8, 2009: Four new developers joined!

I don’t know if I am exaggerating the situation, but it is either the project had some really grave problems or Rick used to write down about every small news of anyone wanting to join the project. Six blog posts talking only about entry-exit of developers in a period of 8 months!

In one blog post, he even quoted

I’m telling you, this project is cursed! Hard drives crashing, people getting fired and/or having car accidents, is this some kind of conspiracy?

He might be joking, but I don’t it as a joke. Something looked wrong!

Autocratic Management Attitude

This is one place where I agree with nekohayo. Looking from the blog posts, it does look like the project was fully dependent upon him. There was a time when he posted on the blog that “Saya development may stall for a couple of weeks”. You might be asking why? This is because (quoting from his blog post)

I need to make an announcement. I’m going to install a new Linux distro on my box (I just can’t stand PCLinuxOS anymore, there’s so many things I need to run and they’re not available on the repositories – plus, my install got borked somehow and I can’t fix it. Primarily because the kernel I installed (2.6.24) isn’t available on the PCLinuxOS free repository. Sigh), so polishing the install and leaving it usable might take me a couple of weeks of my free time

I know any project has shortage of voulenteers(he even posted it on that blog). He should have given the commit access to atleast one person(even if the team had only one person left) when he was away. Nothing is more frustrating than a contrbuter when my patches are lying around and the person with commit/push access is nowhere near to be found. I would move away.

If there was no one ready to take up the development responsibility when he was away, then I feel sorry for Rick.

In one of his blog post titled “Four new developers joined” he mentioned

Welcome to the team, guys! Note: You’re currently under probation until you earn your worth as a developer. Then you shall be given write-access to the repository. Until then, changes will be submitted as patches.

The second part of the quote sounds fine. Write-access should be given to someone who proves himself. At that time the development was taken up in svn, so patches were the way to go forward.

The first part of the quote looks in a tone I never heard in Open Source project. What is probation period? In work life, probation period is the period when you are not confirmed and the employer can ask you to leave before your probation period ends. If you successfully finish your period, then you are confirmed as a permanent employee. I think the term “probation” does not go well with Open Source project as it is associated with conditional employment. I think the better term could have been

Welcome to the team, guys! You will be given all help you want. Ask any question whenever you have a problem after doing your research. Try to take up more responsibilities and think how you can take up the ownership of any small module. Submit patches which will be collectively reviewed. If you are good enough, I small give you commit access and even ownership if you are look committed. Let’s make Saya an awesome editor

This might not be the most friendly and encouraging statement, but still less autocratic sounding.

Technical aspects

On the technical side, it looks like he admitted making a mistake of choosing wxWidgets. He later moved to Qt4 after getting an advice from VLC dev

After an e-mail conversation with one of the VLC developers, I was told that they submitted quite a few bug reports to wxWidgets, and they were all dismissed. I was also told that wxWidgets was very difficult to work with, and recommended to work with GTK, QT, or anything _else_ (wow, is wxWidgets that bad?).

He had frequent IRC meeting chats with his team in which nekohayo(current PiTiVi’s face) was also present. 1 2 3

He had even written a developer guide which sadly didn’t find much use.

He once got a mail from a person who said that he is also writing a video editor in an obscure programming language (he didn’t meantion that programming language). I see that both Saya and that had different goals. Rick worked on Saya with an aim and that guy worked as a hobby

Death of Project

His mom fell ill in Feb 2009, due to which he had to take time off from Saya. This was just a week off. So this was not a big setback. (Sorry I am not linking to the blog post as I am not sure if that would cross any personal boundary)

On April 30th, 2009 he announced that project is stalled beyond his control. The reasons he cited was

He was not finding a job
He was infected with flu (H1N1 as far as I know)
Unexpected depressions

He said, he wants his life back. This is some serious depression. Another quote which he makes was

So the project is stalled and the meetings are suspended until further notice

If there are meeting, then it means there were still contributors. If there were contributors, then why stall the project? If someone is ready to take over for the time being give it to him. If no one is asking doesn’t mean none of them are interested. Just give a shout and ask anyone. This was really a horrible autocratic style. If he had given the ownership to someone else, I think the project could have atleast moved slowly.

He managed to get out of depression in June, 2010 by getting over his personal life problems(wont go in details).

Rebirth

In November 2010 he said that he is hopeful in bringing back the project from death. The last blog post is from April 22nd, 2011 in which he talks about UI Redesign, User Experience enhancements, project format changes etc

When he came back in November 2010, he didn’t have much hope from the project himself. His hopes were as summerized

Don’t get your hopes up, Saya is from now on considered a long-term garage project, with very little chances of succeeding

Rick’s statement of why Saya failed

You might have your own conclusions why this project failed. I have mine, but let’s read the blog post which Rick posted himself explaining why the initiative failed. The most important section of his statement is

Actually, it’s not the project that failed, but me. It’s not about Saya but about me. No, the project didn’t fail. It’s not the project’s fault. It was my fault and mine only.

I would recommend everyone to read all the blog posts, think over what you would have done and what you would not have to keep your development community alive and encouraged. The only advise from my side would be – Make sure you are not the only person on whom the project’s success depends on. The founder can move on, but the project should continue without any hiccups