Dark is also the primary and original dev for x264, IIRC. I remember talking with him last year on IRC when I was working on a little patch for ffmpeg (memory leaks). Very nice and helpful (especially since ffmpeg as a whole is very sloppy and disorganized). A++ would buy again.
Just to note, though, diego was really being an asshole in that thread. Yeah the guy was violating the license, but it's not like suing him is going to do anything other than make him comply with the license. Might as well take 10 seconds and type out what he needs to do and save some time and energy. That kind of rudeness makes me not want to work with the project again as I don't like people being needlessly aggressive over people who aren't actively being malicious. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Not the original dev. Laurent's the original dev, and Loren's the dev who has done the most work over the years. I'm theoretically the secondary dev though I do more work nowadays than Loren does, by and large.
With respect to the topic Diego is being somewhat rude, but it's definitely within his rights; one cannot expect a person to be friendly to those who pirate his software. This is primarily the result of hundreds if not thousands of programs infringing ffmpeg copyrights; it has gotten out of control. Almost every single shareware media converter infringes ffmpeg's copyright, for example. After a while, one loses all patience whatsoever--so while I don't fully agree with his approach, I understand completely where he is coming from.
I don't understand the "within his right" response that was made in a few comments here. Everyone is within his right to behave like an asshole; it isn't against the law. You see people like diego behaving the way they do, and other devs supporting this behavior, and you reach your own conclusion.
I'm not talking about laws, I'm talking about reasonableness.
As a simple example, if you insult someone, they are "within their rights" to get mad at you. You may disagree with them getting mad, but the fact that they got mad was not unreasonable.
I completely agree that it's reasonable to get mad at someone who's willfully violating the license to your code. But there's getting mad, and there's consistently behaving like a trollish asshole. If you think diego's behavior at the link above is reasonable, our notions of reasonable behavior are incompatible.
Just to note, though, diego was really being an asshole in that thread. Yeah the guy was violating the license, but it's not like suing him is going to do anything other than make him comply with the license. Might as well take 10 seconds and type out what he needs to do and save some time and energy. That kind of rudeness makes me not want to work with the project again as I don't like people being needlessly aggressive over people who aren't actively being malicious. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.