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== Answers Wiki Table ==
== Answers Wiki Table ==
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_1">1. If you could single-handedly change one thing about Fedora, what would it be and why?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|If I could snap my fingers and have the world redraw itself around me, I would lift all the legal barriers preventing patent and DMCA encumbered FOSS code from being included in Fedora. RPMFusion does a very good job of keeping these packages maintained, but it would be much nicer to have these things properly integrated into Fedora. Of course, I realize this isn't likely to actually happen anytime soon. :)
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|This is an odd question to me, given that if I could single-handedly do it myself, then I'd just DO IT.  Most of the issues we face take collaboration and in that spirit I'll answer with: The way we do communications at times.  We have a myriad of lists of varying topics, the wiki, IRC, etc.  And yet we still seem to have trouble getting the proper information to the people interested in it.  I have no great solution for this, but it is the one thing I would like to see improve.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|Better market recognition of what fedora is and who should use it.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|I'd introduce time-shifting to allow us to accomplish everything without slips and yet for all appearance look like we hit schedule with no struggle. I'd also use this to schedule vacations for those contributors who constantly seem busy and overworked. Seriously though, I see continued growing pains in different areas of Fedora - I wish I had a way to single-handedly mitigate some of those growing pains.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|Enable people to find a place that they fit in fedora, more easily,  sometimes it seems to be hard to find out how to scratch your itch.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|I would change the perception that Fedora is just a testbed for RHEL and not a very nice distribution in it's own right. I think we would gain more contributors if this was more widely known.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_2">2. Please name three things you plan to work on and realize while being on the Board or FESCo! </span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
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# Simplifying the Fedora CLA: The existing CLA is a mess, and it is a bit too broad for the needs of Fedora. I plan to work with Red Hat Legal and the Fedora Board to reword the CLA so that it is a minimal, easy to understand document with a smaller audience. Ambassadors and people who want to make wiki changes should not need to sign the CLA, for example.
# Defining the primary Fedora target: This is a tough one, because I do believe that it is a good thing that Fedora has a broad community of users and developers, but it is also important for the Board to define who the _primary_ target of Fedora is, so that we can make smart design and development decisions.
# Working on making it easier for people to participate in Fedora. I want to eliminate red tape and bureaucracy wherever possible and ensure that people are able to be involved and happy in the Fedora community.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|These are in no specific order:
# Continuing the Secondary Architecture effort.
# Continue to try and encourage users to become contributors in a number of ways.
# Aid in defining "what is fedora".  That seems like an entirely challenging topic to tackle, and I like a challenge.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|Stronger focus for the project.  More freedoms for contributors.  Growth of Fedora the project beyond Fedora the OS.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|Secondary arches more widely accepted and worked on. EPEL moved to koji/bodhi requirements for new VCS
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
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# I would like to try and work on the backlog of merge reviews. I think if we can get that monkey off our back we could open up a lot of great possibilities, like re-reviews of existing packages, less frustration for contributors and increase quality.
# I would like to try and see about increasing communication between the various Fedora support channels: IRC, forums and mailing lists.
# I would like to try and increase communication also between FESCo and the community.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_3">3. If elected, how will Fedora as a project be better as a result of your leadership? Or IOW: What strengths will you bring to the Fedora board/FESCo that are currently missing? </span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|Keeping in mind that I am running for re-election to the Fedora Board, I think that I bring a significant amount of experience with Fedora to the Board, having been involved with the project since the Red Hat Linux days. I also feel that as an active packager, I have a high level of appreciation for the pain that Fedora packagers feel, and I am a good representative of that aspect of the community.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|I think the Board is fairly well balanced today.  We have a diverse set of members from a variety of backgrounds.  So I don't think there is anything major that is currently missing. What I will try and contribute is a view on overall release quality and package robustness, as well as representing the community as best I can.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|I think a better focus and more defined project goal will go a long way for Fedora.  We really aren't SuSE, Debian or Ubuntu and shouldn't get compared to them.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|Compared to most of my running mates I am a n00b, having only joined the Fedora Project in early 2006. I hope to bring some of that vantage point to the Fedora Board.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|since i'm on FESCOo i don't offer anything new there.  For the board I offer someone to represent the the smaller portions of the fedora community.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|This seems like more a question for someone not already in fesco, but I think I have a good deal of understanding of how things work in fedora and work in many different parts of it. I think this perspective is very usefull.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_4">4. What do you see as Fedora's greatest strength and weakness, and what will you do to improve upon that? Or IOW: Which processes have worked best in Fedora, and which processes need to be improved?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|I think our greatest strength is our community as a whole, we are passionate and hard-working. There are a few key weaknesses that we still need to improve upon:
* QA: We're making good steps here, but we still need to build automated QA infrastructure.
* Package Review: We need to streamline this process, and automate as much of it as we can.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|Fedora's greatest strength is it's contributor base.  We have a great set of contributors that continute to drive Fedora forward. I think one of our weaknesses (and we do have more than one), is that we as a community can get too hung up on tiny details and can easily lose some of the 'bigger picture'.  For example, creating policies and processes for everything under the sun.  It is my belief that a process should be a benefit and _help_ to the overall project, not a hurdle.  So trying to processize every possible issue that comes up just adds more hoops to jump through and generally increases the amount of effort needed to participate.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|Fedora's greatest strength is it's large contributor base, it's weakness is letting that contributor base flounder a bit.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|One of the strengths Fedora possesses is the relationship with Red Hat. There is made available to the project, because of this relationship, incredible resources in people, time, money, and equipment that would likely not be available otherwise. This relationship has also been a hindrance at times, though largely it's gotten far better than most would have hoped.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|Fedoras greatest strength and weakness is the rapid pace of development. constantly pushing the boundaries and being first in market in many cases.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|I think our contributors are our greatest asset. We need more of them to share their passion for Fedora. Our weakness is growing that pool of contributors. I would love to see us engage our end user community and show them how great and fun it is to become an active contributor.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_5">5. What is Fedora's place in the larger community with respect to other distributions?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|Fedora is a leader. We are pushing the boundaries of Free Software every day, and we have a commitment to working with upstream to make significant improvements. We are also working with other distributions to collaborate on complicated efforts or to standardize our processes. For example, I'm meeting with members of the OpenSUSE community at LinuxTag to see where we can have a common set of packaging guidelines.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|I view Fedora as the leading (sometimes bleeding) edge distribution overall. It is often the first to ship the latest versions of packages, and it strives to do so in a quality manner.  More importantly, it is often the first to ship the combination of the latest packages, which helps shake out bugs in the package interactions and has a trickle down effect for other distros.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|Fedora works with upstream and gets new technologies first.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|Fedora is the place of innovation. This means that many people come here to deploy new technology and features first, and come with the idea that this is the proving ground, that deploying within Fedora will gain them a huge userbase and perfect their product. We've are also rapidly becoming the standard bearer for freedom and openness.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|Fedora is a leader and prover of new technologies.  it is a place where everyone can scratch there personal itch and come together to make a great product for everyone to use.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|Well, Fedora is not an enterprise distro with support channels and such, but otherwise I think it fits a large number of use cases. I think it's ideal for todays desktop/laptop use. I think it's great for development servers for exploring new tech.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_6">6. What are you going to be doing in the Fedora Board that you cannot do outside of it or how would being in board/FESCo help in what you want to accomplish?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|I think that participating in the Fedora Board helps me ensure that Fedora makes intelligent and strategic long term decisions, and that the best interests of the Fedora community are well represented.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|To be honest, not much.  One of the things I like the most about Fedora is that you don't have to be in a committee or on the Board to really make an impact on the project.  We strive to keep that true and I continue to be impressed at the amount of work that gets done without any sort of Board/FESCo interaction. That being said, I do want to participate in some of the higher level project discussions that the Board tackles.  Things like trademark guidelines, 'What is Fedora', etc.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|I'm hoping to focus more on visionary goals for Fedora on the board.  In my current position I work a great deal on implementation of those goals but not so much in forming them as that's the board's job.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|I personally would love to help drive consideration of a Fedora foundation-like entity.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|Make sure that those smaller groups inside fedora get heard. Provide a strong voice for secondary arches.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|I'm not sure that it does really. Anyone can contribute and step up without being in fesco. Being in fesco allows one to help guide things as a whole and help others come up with the best way forward. I look forward to helping others with their ideas in fesco and bringing my ideas and plans there.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_7">7. What do you consider to be Fedora's raison d'etre? In the past the focus of Fedora has shifted from release to release. Do you see a long-term goal or a "target audience" Fedora should strive for? How do you define your role in helping the project reaching that goal?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|This is a difficult question to answer. I think that the long term goal of encouraging Free Software is key to Fedora, and I do believe that we should define a primary target for Fedora to ensure that our efforts are not spread too thin or confused. I also don't think that we should take any steps that would limit the effort of motivated community members to shape Fedora for their own needs or wants. To put it bluntly, if our primary target is the Desktop PowerUser, we should still try to make every effort to not make life difficult for a SIG working on making a Fedora Server spin. Its a difficult balance to walk, but I think we have to try.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|I think this is something we as a community are struggling with right now. For a long time, just getting a quality release out the door on time was enough to satisfy people.  And that may still be valid for many.  I know that is usually enough for me, as I tend to enjoy the whole rel-eng aspect of things. However, others are looking for this long-term goal as a way to guide their contributions.  The Board has recently started tackling this issue with the 'What is Fedora' discussions, and I do hope to participate in those.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|Fedora is the Linux technology leader.  I also want to help Fedora become more of a tool for the larger OSS and technology players.  When Dell, IBM, or whoever says "I want to put $NEW_PRODUCT together and give it a try."  I want Fedora to be the first in that list for deployment and partnership.  I'd also like Fedora to be a way for the big players to get in touch with the tons of little players for feedback, testing, input, etc.  Fedora is a perfect platform for this.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|I think focus that shifts from release to release is a good thing. One it's driven by the people doing the work, and as this is a meritocracy, the people doing the work should continue driving the direction of Fedora. I can't help but think that by pigeonholing ourselves as a 'desktop focused' distro or 'server focused' distro that we end up losing valuable contributors, and that it would unnecessarily constrain innovation. I honestly think that the four foundations really encapsulates a lot of Fedora's mission and fear too much being set in stone. I don't envision the Board as being the oracle on high who tells us which direction to go, but rather the guard rail on the edge of the precipice that keeps the project within bounds and out of danger.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|I think fedora is more of a techie, developer distro. it is a place where you can prove that your new shiny thing works and is valuable to all. it is useable by everyone  but not neccesarily always the best choice.  Fedora is not for those wanting long term support, that is where CentOS and RHEL fit in. I personally run servers with fedora on them.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|I think it's impossible to come up with one 'target audience'. Fedora is what  we contributors make it. If you want to have a distro that works well on desktops for end users, then work on that. Of course some use cases are out of scope or incompatible. In those cases I think we need to choose where best to spend out resources. We should strive to allow various use cases where there are contributors working on those areas, and if its possible to.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_8">8. What are your unique strengths and what are your weaknesses?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|Strengths: I haven't come across a piece of code that I couldn't get into an RPM package, and I understand FOSS licensing better than most hackers. Weaknesses: I'm not as good of a software coder as I would like to be. I (occasionally) have great ideas, but lack the skillset to implement them.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|I have no amazing super-powers.  I generally consider myself fairly competent on the engineering side of things, with a focus more on code than packaging. I also try to be open minded, but I'm not afraid to take a position on something if I feel strongly about it. As for weaknesses, I have those too.  I'd like to be more educated in how the non-engineering communities of Fedora function.  I can be overly negative at times.  I also have a decreasing tolerance for trolls and flame-fest email threads, though I do still try to read them.  I dislike kittens and ponies.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|I'm a fast learner who knows when it's time to work, and when it's time to have fun.  I'm a results oriented person though the path from point A to point B is also important.  I also value simplicity which I see as a strength.  My weaknesses include the occasional short temper and horrible spelling.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|As a relative n00b I think I understand the challenges faced by some of the more recent contributors, and the people who have yet to begin contributing. At the same time, I don't have the experience leading the Fedora Project that most of the other candidates do.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|I have a good understanding of how the different parts of fedora work how they all fit in together from buildsys to releng and everything in between.  I may not always know how a regular user may use something. helping my mum use fedora has shown me that.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|well, I have been involved with fedora for a long time, and know a lot about how things are put together. I think thats both. New perspectives may come up with a better ideas, but knowing the history and reasons for things is important as well.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_9">9. How will you make the work for in Fedora easier and more fun?</span>
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|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora Board
|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
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|Less paperwork, less manual steps, more areas of opportunity. :)
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
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|Fun is a relative term.  For example, if you don't find packaging fun to begin with, I doubt I can do anything to really make it more fun.  And 'easier' isn't always a goal either.  To be honest, some of the items and issues we face _are_ hard and trying to make them easier usually doesn't get any progress.  There are times we need people to simply dig in and work such items, even if they aren't fun or easy. That being said, there are things we can do to make sure we aren't making things harder than they really are.  I answered a previous question with the example of too many policies and procedures.  Things like that can and should be avoided and should hopefully make Fedora a more enjoyable project to contribute to.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
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|I think Fedora is in an interesting transition period right now in an industry that's currently in transition.  Getting a better focus in place so that all of our thousands of contributors are working towards the same goal will keep expectations in line more.  Additionally, in the more practical sense, I'll continue my work in Fedora Infrastructure to keep things fast as well as continue to help make more tools feature rich and useful.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
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|I would hope that staying out of the way would help work progress in a fun and easy manner. Perhaps I could tell a few jokes, though my wife claims I have no talent when it comes to humor.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
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|I will try to make it simpler and more consistent.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|I would like to see more engagement and community amoung contributors. Perhaps some non tech gatherings on irc, or more use of #fedora-social or the like.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_10">10. Who is Fedora for?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|That's the big question, isn't it! I truly believe that Fedora is flexible, in that you can make it work for your needs, but in the same breath, that there needs to be a well defined primary use target. This may be controversial, but I don't think that primary target is "Aunt Tillie, Desktop User, afraid of the Command Line". I think Fedora is more for a power-user, someone who is comfortable with using a computer, but also wants good tools (GUI and CLI) to help them be productive with their day to day tasks (Email, Web, Games, Development, Communication, Multimedia). I think Fedora is for folks who like to know how things work, even if they will never make a single code change.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... More seriously, this is a really hard question to answer.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|Fedora should be for enthusiasts, hobbyists and people that are actually doing the work that ultimately becomes a free software product.  Every Fedora user could be a contributor.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|What I think you are really asking is 'What is Fedora's target demographic?' The people that Fedora should be targeting is contributors. This isn't to say the Fedora is a 'developer's distribution' necessarily, nor is it to say the contrary. What it does say is that it takes a ton of work, a huge portion of that volunteer, to make Fedora successful. That means, at least in my mind, we should stop trying to nail down where we are in the sea of free software and let the waves of contributors direct us by their actions. If we seek out and grow Fedora contributors we make Fedora more successful. Dennis Gilmore wrote 'I work really hard on those things I believe in.' in his nomination for the board, and I think that sentiment is true in large part all across Fedora. When people care about something, they work passionately at it. Fedora is for those passionate contributors. We're happy that others, like OLPC, Moblin, RHEL, and the millions of Fedora users across the globe like recognize the excellence that those passionate contributors make, but those are largely serendipitous.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|everyone
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|Many folks. Early adopters. Folks who like new tech. Desktop users. Development server users. Many others.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_11">11. Should any steps be taken to make sure releases don't get as much last minute delays as in the past? If yes: which?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|I think that Release Engineering makes every effort to try to minimize last minute delays, but some are simply unavoidable. With the exception of Fedora 10, which was delayed due to the security intrusion during the release cycle, I think we've had a better handle on what needs to be done to minimize "slips" in our release cycle. Improving the QA and bug triage earlier in the release process is key to minimizing last minute delays, and we're making positive progress in those areas.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|Possibly, yes.  There is a Fedora Activity Day June 8-10 that will try and address some of this.  I am participating in that and look forward to what we can come up with to help here.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|More QA in earlier steps, earlier feature freeze.  The former of which requires more people.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|This is FESCo's domain, and not a Board issue. From a personal perspective, I'd love to see no delays, and I think some of the current discussions on fedora-devel about length of composes, time spent running updates, etc are beginning to show some of the growing pains that we are experiencing as a project. I look forward to seeing some of the novel approaches to dealing with this.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|As much as we can we should try to always improve how we do releases/ handle blocker bugs.  but i fear we will always find last minute blockers.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|I'm not sure what could be done, aside from trying to slow fedora down. Delays happen. Perhaps we could place more resources on those areas that have caused delays in the past.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_12">12. How or to what extent would you say are Fedora's governance bodies responsible for protecting volunteers and volunteer based efforts against interference from within Red Hat by either person or policy?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|[Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat, but they do not tell me what to say.] In general, I think that in almost every possible situation, Red Hat is content to let Fedora do whatever it needs to do to be successful. The only places where Red Hat steps in are areas where Fedora's actions would construe a legal, financial or security risk to Red Hat as a company, and these are few and far between. I think that outside of those conditions, the Fedora Board (and FESCo) should feel entirely unencumbered by Red Hat's interference, keeping in mind that Red Hat (and its employees) are major contributors.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|I don't understand this question.  It seems to be predicated on the theory that Red Hat has some nefarious notions in store for Fedora, and I simply don't think that is the case.  Fedora has existed for a number of years now, and during that time it has continually become more open and less Red Hat governed. I'd be happy to discuss it further if there were more concrete examples or concerns.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|I think it's the FPL's position to fight for Fedora freedom wrt our primary provider.  In particular I think our agreement with our contributors should protect each party equally.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|As I said earlier I see the Board (and FESCo and every other governance body) as a guard rail. Ideally they never get in the way and are largely unnoticed by the vast majority. However, they serve an excellent purpose as a safety measure to keep things from going awry. As I mentioned earlier the bond with Red Hat is great for Fedora and at times bad for Fedora, even if it's only in perception. I see the various governance bodies as there to make it easy to contribute and get things done. To the extent that RH (or even groups within Fedora) makes that difficult, I definitely think that it's within their purview to try and fix the situation. I'll note that previous Boards dropped the onerous CLA process from something that often took weeks to complete to something that is click-through now. Another example is FESCo's relatively recent move to make getting sponsored as a packager easier, by limiting the rights that packagers have and creating a new class called provenpackager.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|I think we need to ensure that all people are free to do the work that interests them regardless of who there employer is.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|I'm not sure I understand the question. What sort of 'interference' ?
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_13">13. The Fedora Project suffers from a lack of communication. In 2009 for 8 out of 21 FESCo meetings no meeting minutes were sent to the lists. What would you do to improve communication between the different groups in Fedora and especially between FESCo, Board and the community?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|I can't really talk to the FESCo management. I know that documentation is not fun to do, but it seems to me like there is room for improvement in that space. On the Board, we've worked hard to take good meeting notes with gobby, and then publish those notes on a timely basis for the entire community to see. We also have regular public meetings, and I think they have been extremely productive. In my role as Fedora Packaging Committee Chair, I've worked hard to ensure that as new guidelines are added (or old ones amended), an explanatory email is sent out to the development community, so that no one is surprised later on at an unexpected change.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|FYI there is a FESCo ticket opened to fix this very item.  As a member of FESCo, I agree we screwed up earlier in the year in regards to meeting minutes and hopefully we'll come up with a good mechanism to get them written and published in a timely manner soon. In terms of the Board communications, I am not entirely sure what, if anything, more could be communicated.  The Board discusses confidential material often, and I think John has done a good job with the meeting minutes so far.  If I am elected to the Board, I will keep an eye on this issue and make sure that as much information as can be disclosed is.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|I think too many people have their eyes in too many projects.  If the FESCo meetings were important to someone, they are free to go to the meetings or log them.  Meeting minutes don't force people to pay attention and if a contributor doesn't have time to read the meeting log, it's possible they shouldn't be involved with the FESCo workings anyway.  I think more of our contributors should focus on fewer things and focus on the quality of those things, not the number of things they're involved in. Group to group communication can be a problem.  There are technical fixes to this but also policy changes.  I think there's room for better communication between groups, but I feel more accountability towards the group leaders for communication.  Poelstra has done wonders in this respect and the release readiness meetings.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|Having been responsible for meeting logs I can empathize with those doing the work that it's not easy to get done particularly with everything else going on in a meeting. That said such communication is vital, but for openness and just general communication. I've noticed that other organizations and even one of our SIGs uses a meeting bot, to record and publish meetings. That would help alleviate the situation you refer to specifically, but doesn't deal with all of it. I've noticed that the Board has engaged a non-member to handle publishing minutes from meetings, and that strikes me as a good idea, but perhaps not foolproof. As a contributor, I started in early 2006 and kept up with mailing list traffic and was on IRC for certain meetings. Until 2008 I never realized how much really went on in IRC. In some ways I think that's very efficient, in others I think it's unfortunate as it essentially hides a lot of the inner workings from people. Perhaps logging and posting minutes of key channels is the answer, but that's also a  LOT of content, and I think it would largely go unread. At a minimum I think groups should be publishing at least informal agendas for meetings to the mailing list.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|Look into having a meeting logging irc bot.  that will post minutes for us making them consistent between the different groups within fedora.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|Sadly, this was a failed attempt at spreading the log taking out. We need to be much more clear who is responsible for the logs and minutes, and I think we should require they be posted the same day as the meeting, if not right after. It's usually much easier to just do them as the meeting happens than try and go back and do them later anyhow. I would be happy to just do them moving foward if that's needed.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_14">14. What would you do to cleanup and organize the Fedora project packaging guidelines, rules and other wiki pages to make it more consistent and easier for new contributors?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|Can I have 6 extra hours each day? :) This is definitely something that could use some work, and I would encourage anyone who has a suggestion for cleanup or reorganization (without making changes to the actual guidelines) of the Packaging Guidelines to talk to me.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|Encourage the people that take interest in that.  I'll be honest and say that at a personal level, I can't see me having the time to focus on cleaning it up myself.  However I would certainly want to make sure that those willing to do that work aren't hindered in any way.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|I don't think that's the boards job, so running for the board I don't feel that I'd get involved unless there were a major issue, like packages no longer getting accepted into Fedora. As far as new contributors I feel more documentation is required on the part of the major groups.  Podcasts, video casts to welcome people are one idea I've been kicking around.  In particular Fedora is so large that people get overwhelmed and have no idea what to expect.  I'd like to see the groups spend more time on new people expectations.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|This is a FESCo issue, though watching some of the involvement with FPC and the Docs Project to accomplish the consistency and ease of use has been interesting. Personally I think this is an issue everyone agrees on, and there are already efforts underway (although surely slowed due to the impending release) to get this accomplished and I think it should run its course.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|Move them out of the wiki into a CMS perhaps, or perhaps look at making them into something that can be printed as a book/pdf.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|Part of the problem with a wiki approach is that things get slowly modified over time and overall organization gets lost. I think in order to do better in this area we need to step back and come up with a plan for reorganizing things.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_15">15. There is a proposal out there to moderate fedora-devel.  What should be disallowed?  Racist or sexist speech?  Profanity?  At what point does a complaint against a small project become a personal attack? ie "Your idea is utterly stupid."  Should we disallow trolls or posts likely to start flamewars?  Who will decide the difference between intelligent debate and flaming?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|I think that some people on the Fedora mailing list have gone beyond respectful and reasonable discussion/disagreement in their comments, and unfortunately, were creating a negative environment for people to work in. I proposed that our moderation policies be based around the idea that we should all "be excellent to each other", even when we disagree. I think when people start to make personal attacks against individuals or projects, that goes over the line. You can get the same message across with: "I feel strongly that the idea that you have proposed is not good for Fedora, because foo and bar and baz." as opposed to: "Your idea is F*%$&^% stupid, and only a *&(^%& would think it was good." We'll have to wing it as we go along, but I'm hopeful that this new moderation policy will help people to think twice before they decide to say something that they may later regret.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|There is a balance to be struck.  Criticism of the project is often one of the best ways to help us grow, but there are times where it can go too far.  And I'm not sure you can really quantify and codify what the boundaries are. Frankly, I think even the specter of moderation is likely to help.  It can be surprising how often a gentle reminder to be polite can work.  I also think that as a community we should trust our elected leadership to do the right thing.  If they aren't, and there are egregious examples of abuse by the leadership, I'm fairly confident that they can't be censored from the internet completely and they'll be pointed out.  I am not worried in the slightest about this.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|I'm against censorship in any form.  If trolls want to be trolls, people can ban them on their own via mail filters, etc.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|Wow that's a lot of questions - I'll be honest and say I really dislike the idea of moderation, and do so for several reasons. Censoring some or all 'bad speech' is a zero sum game. And it's always going to infuriate someone. The worst offense that censorship brings is waste. Some of the most talented, hardest working people in Fedora are the same people who are likely to have to moderate, what a waste of precious cycles. At initial blush, I'd almost guess that something akin to greylisting might be employed once a thread reaches some arbitrary number (100 is the number sticking in my head). So essentially once a thread hits that arbitrary number, messages for that thread are rejected for 36-48 hours. This doesn't directly solve the problem of people not 'being excellent to each other' but does make the medicine a bit less painful, and hopefully automated. Every instance of 'bad behavior in recent memory seems to have occurred in massive threads that can't seem to die. Perhaps that's a stupid suggestion, after all it's 1am, and I'm still up working on these questions. Realistically there is no good solution to people behaving badly in a volunteer community, you are essentially left choosing the difference between multiple evils.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|I think there is no right or wrong answer here.  people being rude or argumentitive need to know that its not there right to be that way with others.  I think sometimes we need to think if what we are about to send is something that would be considered appropriate if that person was in front of us. a little more thought about our actions is a good thing.
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|I am thinking we should not do moderation on that level. Instead we should make fedora-devel  a better place by becoming more technical and usefull. When someone makes a post thats an attack or other, we should stop responding to them. I think we can lead by example here, as well as stopping feeding the trolls and non productive folks. I note that since this proposal, the list has been a good deal more tame. Is it the threat of moderation? People realizing they were not adding to the discussion? Or just more techincal on-topic posts? I'm not sure, but I think moderating is a pretty slippery slope.
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_16">16. Please give three examples of other boards or communities you have participated in and the positive differences you made there.</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|I'm currently a seated member of the Fedora Board, and I have previously served on FESCo. In addition, I'm leading the Fedora Legal effort, and helped to build the Licensing guidelines that help ensure that Fedora remains committed to Free Software. I'm also the chair of the Fedora Packaging Committee, and have helped create the Fedora Packaging Guidelines.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|
# Rel-eng: I have generally tried to help rel-eng overall, focusing lately on updates pushing and powerpc.
# FESCo: I've been on FESCo for quite some time now, and I can't think of a singular instance of making a huge impact.  I'm OK with that, as FESCo is really about the long term impacts.
# Fedora user: I've been a Fedora user since FC1 and have tested and helped with a number of bugs along the way.  And yes, this counts.  The Fedora user community is one of the most important communities we have :).
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|I've never been involved in another board and my first community experience was with Fedora.  I've committed my time to it.  I've communicated with many other projects, like SuSE for example and smolt.  The key is to find common goals and work towards them.  Be polite, empathetic, and understand there are multiple ways to do something.  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|• NA Ambassadors - Along with Clint Savage, John Rose, Brian Powell and many others helped drive a resurgence in the NA Ambassador Community. We went from leaning (some might say leeching) on Red Hat to produce our swag, send RHT speakers, etc to truly driving the schedule, doubling and in some cases tripling our appearances at LUGs, BarCamps, and conferences, filling speaking slots with community members rather than contributors from RH who are paid to speak. We also greatly improved our swag efficiency and handle making all of it. UCLUG - Steering committee member. Along with others pushed a revitalization that in some cases increased our attendance by an order of a magnitude. Creating content that appealed both to new users and graybeards alike. Pushed multiple community outreach programs. Southeast Linuxfest Foundation - Secretary of the Foundation - organized (well still in the process really) and help build a regional Linux conference in the Southeast that appears will successfully happen on June 13th. Blue Ridge Amateur Radio Society - multiple term vice president - led community outreach with non-technical groups as well as government and other radio groups. Grew organization to the largest of its kind in the state, and putting on the largest amateur radio fest in the state.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|OLPC, Spacewalk
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|Well, I am quite active in #fedora trying to help users there. I have also taken to trying to help out people on fedoraforum. I am also active in some of my local LUG groups (nclug.org and lug.boulder.co.us).
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|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_17">17. Simple question: Among the two, do you prefer Gnome or KDE?</span>
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|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|For most things, I prefer GNOME, although, I do keep both installed on my primary workstation.
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|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|I don't prefer either really.  I find likes and dislikes with both.  This is not a political answer either. On my machines, I typically run the default Gnome install, but use some KDE applications such as k3b and amarok.  I find that I reinstall machines (for testing!) too often to really bother changing defaults or being tied to a particular environment.
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|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)  
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|KDE.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Kevin Kofler (Kevin_Kofler)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Adam Miller (maxamillion)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Bill Nottingham (notting)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Jens Petersen (juhp)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Andreas Thienemann (ixs)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Seth Vidal (skvidal)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Ian Weller (ianweller)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Christoph Wickert (cwickert)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|David Woodhouse (dwmw2)
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|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Main
|vi - ohhh wait that's the next question. At the moment I am using Gnome, though I have been one of the KDE-faithful for most of my Linux desktop 'career'.
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|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|If you could single-handedly change one thing about Fedora, what would it be and why?
|KDE
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|If I could snap my fingers and have the world redraw itself around me, I
would lift all the legal barriers preventing patent and DMCA encumbered
FOSS code from being included in Fedora. RPMFusion does a very good job
of keeping these packages maintained, but it would be much nicer to have
these things properly integrated into Fedora.
 
Of course, I realize this isn't likely to actually happen anytime soon. :)
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|This is an odd question to me, given that if I could single-handedly do it
myself, then I'd just DO IT.  Most of the issues we face take collaboration
and in that spirit I'll answer with:
 
The way we do communications at times.  We have a myriad of lists of varying
topics, the wiki, IRC, etc.  And yet we still seem to have trouble getting the
proper information to the people interested in it.  I have no great solution
for this, but it is the one thing I would like to see improve.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Better market recognition of what fedora is and who should use it.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'd introduce time-shifting to allow us to accomplish everything
without slips and yet for all appearance look like we hit schedule
with no struggle. I'd also use this to schedule vacations for those
contributors who constantly seem busy and overworked.
Seriously though, I see continued growing pains in different areas of
Fedora - I wish I had a way to single-handedly mitigate some of those
growing pains.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Enable people to find a place that they fit in fedora, more easily,  sometimes
it seems to be hard to find out how to scratch your itch. 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I would change the perception that Fedora is just a testbed for RHEL
and not a very nice distribution in it's own right. I think we would
gain more contributors if this was more widely known.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Enable people to find a place that they fit in fedora, more easily,  sometimes  it seems to be hard to find out how to scratch your itch. 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'd rename the "Desktop Live" spin to "GNOME Live". I think we really ought to
call a spade a spade and not falsely imply there's only one desktop.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Marketing/Ambassador focus - Fedora already leads the GNU/Linux
world (and in my opinion the entire Open Source world) in innovation
and upstream contributions. The Fedora 11 feature list is second to
none but where I feel sometimes we fall behind is the efforts put
forth to get Fedora "out there" and I don't want anyone to think that
I am saying our Ambassadors or Marketing Teams are not doing a great
job, because I think both are doing a bang up job but I feel that
other GNU/Linux projects that are ranking as "more popular" on user
polls on sites like linuxmagazine.com due to their hightened marketing
focus from their respective project.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|The culture of the development list (and by extension, possibly the
development community itself) needs to change. Every week there's a new hot
issue (or three) that has raised the ire of someone and leads to a long and
protracted discussion that rarely has any benefits.In a couple of weeks,
it ends up being forgotten as the next big issue pops up. It gets to
the point that when I see any reasonably high number of unread messages,
my initial thought isn't "ooh, let's see what interesting work is being
done"; it's "oh no, what's the problem *now*?". I've even received e-mail
and messages from others who find it so bad that they don't even want
to post development discussion there, as they feel it will just get drowned
in more pointlessness and flaming.
 
If the attitude on the mailing list is that bad that we're actually
driving contributors away, I think it goes to the top of the list as
a place we need to change and a problem we need to solve.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Keep rawhide installable most of the time.  Maybe by having a devel
testing repo of critical/unstable core packages and/or using bodhi voting.
(My second one would probably improving our web UI.)
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'd singlehandedly magic up an unlimited supply of developers,
documentation writers, UI designers and translators etc. That way we'd
have all our bugs fixed, all missing features added and would never miss a
single release again.
Unfortunately, our real problems are not that easily fixed but need
collaboration between our contributors.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Well, I'd want to have the military arm of fedora to be much stronger. Our
strikeforces should legitimately be able to occupy the Isle of Man and
secure all resources there indefinitely. :)
 
Seriously, though, I'd love to have fedora-devel-list and fedora-test-list
be entirely troll-free in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately we can only
do it a little bit at a time.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Introduce corporal punishment for maintainers who don't react to their
bugs.
Just kidding. I think a single change is not enough and I'm not running
for FESCo just to change a single thing, so I cannot really answer this
question.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|This doesn't have to be realistic, right? Or practical? I'd want to
shift it to the Free World so that we can incorporate the RPMFusion
packages, then do a crippled spin for those who really need it.
 
While we're set up to do these 'crippled' spins, we could make a
flagless spin too, one without obscenity, one without naked women...
pick your own nation's fetish :)
 
 
|-
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|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Please name three things you plan to work on and realize while being on the Board or FESCo!
|Xfce. ;)  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|1. Simplifying the Fedora CLA: The existing CLA is a mess, and it is a
bit too broad for the needs of Fedora. I plan to work with Red Hat Legal
and the Fedora Board to reword the CLA so that it is a minimal, easy to
understand document with a smaller audience. Ambassadors and people who
want to make wiki changes should not need to sign the CLA, for example.
2. Defining the primary Fedora target: This is a tough one, because I do
believe that it is a good thing that Fedora has a broad community of
users and developers, but it is also important for the Board to define
who the _primary_ target of Fedora is, so that we can make smart design
and development decisions.
3. Working on making it easier for people to participate in Fedora. I
want to eliminate red tape and bureaucracy wherever possible and ensure
that people are able to be involved and happy in the Fedora community.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|These are in no specific order:
 
1) Continuing the Secondary Architecture effort.
2) Continue to try and encourage users to become contributors in a number of
ways.
3) Aid in defining "what is fedora".  That seems like an entirely challenging
topic to tackle, and I like a challenge.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Stronger focus for the project.  More freedoms for contributors.  Growth of Fedora the project beyond Fedora the OS.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Secondary arches more widely accepted and worked on.
EPEL moved to koji/bodhi
requirements for new VCS
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|1. I would like to try and work on the backlog of merge reviews. I
think if we can get that monkey off our back we could open up a lot of
great possibilities, like re-reviews of existing packages, less
frustration for contributors and increase quality.
 
2. I would like to try and see about increasing communication between
the various Fedora support channels: IRC, forums and mailing lists.
 
3. I would like to try and increase communication also between FESCo
and the community.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Secondary arches more widely accepted and worked on. EPEL moved to koji/bodhi requirements for new VCS
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|- Fight for KDE as a first-class citizen (on the same level as GNOME): KDE
  should get equal space on the download page, on the installer DVD and in
  naming of spins, changes in shared desktop technologies such as PolicyKit need
  to keep KDE in mind, menu entries need to mention the actual name of the
  application because there is generally more than one for each task etc.
- Fight against policies such as restrictions on country flags which are both at
  odds with my idea of freedom and sending us on a collision course with
  upstream projects (including, but not limited to, KDE).
- Act as a liaison between FESCo and the KDE SIG.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|1) The main thing I want to bring to the group is a non-biased
approach to forward innovation, the Steering Committee is only there
to guide the project along, not control. I would most like to cater to
the needs of the developers who are coming to the Committee with the
ground breaking features and ideas of tomorrow.
    2) I would like to address issues such as KDE and Xfce's status. I
agree with the fact that we need a "default" such that there is a
"Fedora look" that is uniform for users but I also think that some of
the communities of none Gnome groups would like to see some more
effort to equate the playing field, which somewhat goes along with my
non-biased sentiment of keeping things equal.
    3) Passion - sound corny? Sorry, but its true. I live for this
stuff, I am an Ambassador and I look forward to every chance I get to
talk to someone about Fedora and to promote the wonder that is our
distribution, our project and our community.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|1. Changing the development culture to be more productive, if at all
  possible
2. Try to work towards consistent guidelines across packages where possible,
  instead of 'every developer has their own guidelines'
3. Continue to drive the feature process to highlight the great work being
  done in Fedora, and to hopefully catch more things before they become
  issues that delay the release
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Making Fedora better and more appealing for international users
(eg YumLangpackPlugin feature).  Help with improving our processes
for better quality and increase stability during the devel cycles.
Try to get the layout of Bugzilla improved for better usability.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|* Helping FESCO and Fedora focus on technical excellence. We are
  supposed to be the leading distribution for interesting new features.
  It's even part of our slogan. Right now however, there's too much
  time spent on discussing politics and not enough time left for
  working on features and fixing ensuing bugs. This should get better
  with less politics in the way.
 
* Strengthening the non-desktop aspects of Fedora. Fedora does a lot of
  development for the desktop use case, but we've got to take other users
  into account as well. The Server SIG will obviously benefit from any
  such involvement but also projects such as ovirt, the Fedora
  Appliance Feature or the Robotic SIG. All these are interested in a
  more lightweight Fedora which we should look into how to best achieve
  this.
 
* More QA and testing. I've been very glad to see a stronger focus put
  onto QA this release. Test Days have proven very useful with users
  having prepared test plans available and developers and other
  knowledgeable contributors at the ready to track down any occurring
  problems. I think this and other initiatives are the way to go to
  improve our release quality and I'd like to support this wherever I
  can.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|    1. Cut the dependency bloat. Pidgin for example must not depend on
        evolution-data-server just because there is an optional feature
        of syncing contacts (which does not work reliable and is useless
        anyway if evo is not installed). Programs must be packaged more
        fine grained and we probably need to make more use of
        alternatives and virtual provides. But these are details that
        need to be discussed in FESCo and FPC first.
    2. Improve communication (read below).
    3. Improve work flows. Some processes are just too bureaucratic,
        which delays development and scares off contributors.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|In general, I'd like to strive to make Fedora the best Linux
distribution -- and the best Operating System overall -- for as many
people as possible. That's not a Fedora fanboi mindset -- if _we_ take
that approach, and if our 'competitors' take the same approach, then
everybody wins.
 
More specifically, that means...
  1. I'll do what I can to make Fedora work, and _keep_ Fedora working,
    on as many platforms as possible. So I'll to what I can do assist
    with secondary architecture development so that hopefully we can
    actually get a secondary release out the door some time soon.
 
  2. I try to resist the 'GNOME disease' which manifests itself by
    telling users "your use case is uninteresting; go away". I think
    we do too much of that (cf. recent flamefests).
 
  3. Promoting packager responsibility. The value-add of a Linux
    distribution is that have put in the effort to make everything we
    ship work together, as a coherent whole that we call 'Fedora'.
    I think it's very poor if some packages are second-class citizens
    and don't get proper maintenance, because their packagers refuse
    to, or are incapable of actually fixing problems in the package.
 
|-
|-
 
|colspan="2"|[[#Questions|Return to top]]
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|If elected, how will Fedora as a project be better as a result of your leadership? Or IOW: What strengths will you bring to the Fedora board/FESCo that are currently missing?
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Keeping in mind that I am running for re-election to the Fedora Board, I
think that I bring a significant amount of experience with Fedora to the
Board, having been involved with the project since the Red Hat Linux
days. I also feel that as an active packager, I have a high level of
appreciation for the pain that Fedora packagers feel, and I am a good
representative of that aspect of the community.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think the Board is fairly well balanced today.  We have a diverse set of
members from a variety of backgrounds.  So I don't think there is anything
major that is currently missing.
 
What I will try and contribute is a view on overall release quality and package
robustness, as well as representing the community as best I can.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think a better focus and more defined project goal will go a long way for Fedora.  We really aren't SuSE, Debian or Ubuntu and shouldn't get compared to them.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Compared to most of my running mates I am a n00b, having only joined
the Fedora Project in early 2006. I hope to bring some of that vantage
point to the Fedora Board.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|since i'm on FESCOo i don't offer anything new there.  For the board I offer
someone to represent the the smaller portions of the fedora community.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|This seems like more a question for someone not already in fesco, but I
think I have a good deal of understanding of how things work in fedora
and work in many different parts of it. I think this perspective is
very usefull.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|since i'm on FESCOo i don't offer anything new there.  For the board I offer  someone to represent the the smaller portions of the fedora community.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora will benefit from a KDE point of view, and more generally an alternative
point of view, being represented in FESCo. I believe we need to get more diverse
points of view into FESCo to avoid the current paradox where several discussions
found a large consensus for one opinion on the mailing list, but FESCo
subsequently voted the exact opposite. Statistically speaking, a less biased
sample is the best way to reduce that effect.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't necessarily think the the Board or FESCo is currently
lacking so much as I think it might be a time for some new minds to be
brought into the equation so that new ideas can be seen within FESCo.
I think I would be able to bring a new outlook to FESCo because I
would be a new and ambissious thought process added to the
discussions.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|My biggest strength is that I bring a broad variety of experience working
on Linux, on Linux distributions, and in Fedora. I've been doing this for
long enough that I feel I've developed a pretty good eye for the right way
and the wrong way to do things and implement things.
 
I'm running for re-election, so it would be disingenous for me to claim
that that's currently missing, of course.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|International and Asian experience and perspectives: I am originally
from Denmark and Britain and I lived 12 years in Japan and now
in Australia.  I have been working on i18n since I joined Red Hat.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Having followed some of the FESCO meetings on IRC I would have liked FESCO
to act a bit less hesitant in controversial cases. Instead of trying to
reach a compromise or making a final decision these controversial topics
are often deferred.
 
I'd like to see more assertiveness in FESCO:
If a compromise cannot be reached because one party is not willing to
compromise, it is necessary to make a final decision even if it is
difficult.
If a feature is not ready for a release, it is perfectly okay to push it
back for one release or even longer.
 
While these decisions are not easy and guaranteed to make people unhappy,
it's better for the project and the distribution to have this cleared up
early.
 
The necessary feature readiness review was rather late this time. I'd
prefer this earlier in order to give necessary feedback and ultimately
helping the developers reaching their goals.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|My main contribution to Fesco is a certain hard-minded-ness that has been
useful on the board for the last many years. Occasionally, folks get too
caught up in the process and forget that sometimes the process is: 1. not
required and 2. not helpful. I tend to bring a "is this really necessary?"
mindset to organizations I work on. I think that questioning
those assumptions is a big strength I bring to fesco.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I cannot pledge that Fedora will be better because I'm in FESCo.
Remember: If I get elected, I'm only a single member and I don't make
decisions by myself.
My strength is a high pain threshold. I'm not afraid of controversial
discussions.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Proper spelling. But seriously, see above.
 
|-
|-
 
|}
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|What do you see as Fedora's greatest strength and weakness, and what will you do to improve upon that? Or IOW: Which processes have worked best in Fedora, and which processes need to be improved?
{|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think our greatest strength is our community as a whole, we are
|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_18">18. Do you think a Fedora Foundation is still worth pursuing? Why or Why not?</span>
passionate and hard-working. There are a few key weaknesses that we
still need to improve upon:
 
* QA: We're making good steps here, but we still need to build automated
QA infrastructure.
* Package Review: We need to streamline this process, and automate as
much of it as we can.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora's greatest strength is it's contributor base.  We have a great set of
contributors that continute to drive Fedora forward.
 
I think one of our weaknesses (and we do have more than one), is that we as
a community can get too hung up on tiny details and can easily lose some of
the 'bigger picture'.  For example, creating policies and processes for
everything under the sun.  It is my belief that a process should be a benefit
and _help_ to the overall project, not a hurdle.  So trying to processize
every possible issue that comes up just adds more hoops to jump through and
generally increases the amount of effort needed to participate.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora's greatest strength is it's large contributor base, it's weakness is letting that contributor base flounder a bit.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|One of the strengths Fedora possesses is the relationship with Red
Hat. There is made available to the project, because of this
relationship, incredible resources in people, time, money, and
equipment that would likely not be available otherwise. This
relationship has also been a hindrance at times, though largely it's
gotten far better than most would have hoped.
 
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedoras greatest strength and weakness is the rapid pace of development. 
constantly pushing the boundaries and being first in market in many cases.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think our contributors are our greatest asset. We need more of them
to share their passion for Fedora. Our weakness is growing that pool of
contributors.
 
I would love to see us engage our end user community and show them how
great and fun it is to become an active contributor.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedoras greatest strength and weakness is the rapid pace of development.  constantly pushing the boundaries and being first in market in many cases.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|- Fedora's greatest strength is its "always up to date" character. In fact, it
  works so well there isn't much to improve, though some packages could benefit
  from more aggressive version upgrades during stable releases. (The kernel and
  KDE are good examples to follow, those packages not even getting
  fully-compatible bugfix point releases in some Fedora releases are examples
  where improvement is possible.)
  Another huge strength of Fedora is its strict commitment to Free Software.
- Fedora's greatest weakness (leaving aside things which cannot be fixed such
  as software patent issues) is the subtle GNOME bias which keeps haunting us
  from time to time (despite all the improvements having happened over time and
  the work done by the KDE SIG) and decredibilizing us in KDE circles. In
  particular, feature pages advertising GNOME-only features need to say so more
  clearly, the download page needs to present KDE right next to GNOME rather
  than hiding it behind an extra link and using "Desktop" as a synonym for GNOME
  needs to stop. Justifying restrictive policies such as a ban on flags by
  saying "it's the GNOME project's policy" as at least one FESCo member did also
  makes no sense whatsoever.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Greatest strengths in my opinion are the leadership in Open
Source, upstream contributions, development of bleeding edge
technologies, and an incredible community at large.
    The question on Fedora's weakness was already posed so I won't
reiterrate but there is another concern I have which is the inability
to find information due to unmaintained wiki pages which is something
I would really like to see get fixed, while this isn't specifically a
FESCo issue I do feel that FESCo can make a push for features owners
and SIGs to keep their pages up to date.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't think those two are actually the same question, as the
strengths and weaknesses aren't necessarily processes. (In fact, if
the strength of Fedora is only in our processes, we're in trouble.)
 
Our biggest strength is our vibrant community; we've attracted a large
variety of contributors working in lots of areas, whether they be
art, development, or our fine infrastructure team. We've successfully
produced not only a world-class Linux distribution, but also a hosting
environment for fostering open-software development, a reference case for
quick global infrastrucutre deployment, and a translation infrastructure
that's now being adopted by other projects. Furthermore, for most usage
cases out there, we've got packagers in Fedora working to bring software
for that case to the users; we do a good job of satisfying the long tail.
 
Our biggest weakness is that we have this great diversity of people,
but we don't particularly focus them. So, we end up with large groups of
people each saying that their own usage case or methodology is the most
important, and can't possibly be made worse at the expense of some other
contributor, or even the good of the project overall, even if the harm is
completely imaginary. So we end up in endless arguments (most of them silly),
and miss the opportunity to make the overall project and release better.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think innovation is Fedora's greatest strength - shipping close
to latest and greatest with reasonable stability.  The weakness
is probably the processes and overcomplicated workflow for
package reviews, pkg cvs admin, translations, etc.  I think people
are aware of the need of a unified web dashboard for contributors
and so I believe things will continue to improve.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora's greatest strength is no doubt our community. Having met a variety
of people during several FUDCons I'm amazed what a huge range of
contributors from different countries we have and how easy it is to get
along with most of them. The friends part of our slogan should not be
underestimated as it makes working together so much easier and fulfilling.
 
I do not know what our greatest weakness is, but I see several key
problems preventing us from being the one distribution to rule them all:
 
* Quality. We're getting there, but I'm still finding too many problems
  in core components.
* Communication. We have to make our main communication channels useful
  again.
* Increasing amount of bureaucrazy. Needs less.
* Community Input. We need moar input from affected parties in our
  decision finding process.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|The mailing lists need some work. They get out of hand too quickly and it
deters useful/productive work. Amazingly bugzilla and the triaging process
is one of the more functional processes. Everyone beats up on bz b/c it
takes a while to do certain things. However, whenever it is compared to
anything else, it wins pretty much hands down.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Strength: The great community and it's contact to upstream. We have many
contributors that are also leading personalities in popular projects
like X.org or Firefox.
Weakness: Quality assurance. We have improved recently, but as we all
know it's still a long long way to go.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|One of the things which concerns me is the way that some packagers are
protective of 'their' packages and don't want anyone else to touch them.
I've been vocal about the dangers of that attitude, and I'm very pleased
with FESCo's decision to require FESCo approval for any package which
wants to disallow provenpackager commits.
 
At the moment, there's nothing outstanding that I'm _desperate_ to fix,
in the way that I was to fix that problem. There are always tweaks
required, but in general I think we're doing a good job.
 
We do need to be careful of having _too_ much bureaucracy and too many
policies, rather than relying on common sense.
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|What is Fedora's place in the larger community with respect to other distributions?
|I do not think it is worth pursuing at this time. The problems that originally caused us to stop pursuing that option still exist:
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora is a leader. We are pushing the boundaries of Free Software every
* For patents, OIN does that job for us, and Red Hat is already a member so Fedora gets those benefits.  
day, and we have a commitment to working with upstream to make
* For legal coverage, Red Hat Legal are experts in the fields that Fedora needs coverage in. A independent foundation makes it far more difficult for us to directly leverage their expertise.  
significant improvements. We are also working with other distributions
* For financial reasons, a US non-profit cannot take the majority of their funding from one source, and it is very unlikely that Fedora could be self-sustaining in the near future. Our hosting and bandwidth costs alone are very significant. I also do not feel that Red Hat has interfered with Fedora in any significant way, and that the Fedora Board remains the primary decision maker and governance body for Fedora.  
to collaborate on complicated efforts or to standardize our processes.
For example, I'm meeting with members of the OpenSUSE community at
LinuxTag to see where we can have a common set of packaging guidelines.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I view Fedora as the leading (sometimes bleeding) edge distribution overall.
It is often the first to ship the latest versions of packages, and it strives
to do so in a quality manner.  More importantly, it is often the first to
ship the combination of the latest packages, which helps shake out bugs
in the package interactions and has a trickle down effect for other distros.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora works with upstream and gets new technologies first.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora is the place of innovation. This means that many people come
here to deploy new technology and features first, and come with the
idea that this is the proving ground, that deploying within Fedora
will gain them a huge userbase and perfect their product. We've are
also rapidly becoming the standard bearer for freedom and openness.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora is a leader and prover of new technologies. it is a place where
everyone can scratch there personal itch and come together to make a great
product for everyone to use.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Well, Fedora is not an enterprise distro with support channels and
such, but otherwise I think it fits a large number of use cases.
I think it's ideal for todays desktop/laptop use. I think it's great
for development servers for exploring new tech.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora is a leader and prover of new technologies.  it is a place where  everyone can scratch there personal itch and come together to make a great  product for everyone to use.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora is the distribution doing most of the innovation. All distributions
benefit from us pioneering new technologies.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think we are the bar in which other distributions are measured
against. Though I might be biased in that thought. I think Fedora
leads in every adpect that a free and open source project should with
loyalties to the ideals that entails.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora is committed to making a distribution that anyone can use, modify,
and redistribute freely for any purpose (commerical or otherwise). We
don't include poison-pill software that only has guarantees if received
from Fedora; we don't include binary-only software that the user can't
modify, etc. We're committed to solving problems the right way whenever
possible, even if it's more work, not papering over them with hacks.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I believe the claim of Fedora being the most advanced Linux distribution,
combining and showcasing the newest developments is spot on. Fedora is the
distribution closely following and often even driving upstream development
of a wide range of free and open source software.
 
While other distributions might ship similar versions of packages, it's
Fedora influencing the direction of future Linux offerings.
 
I fear however, that during the process of defining the future we're
sometimes losing track of our current users and their real world problems
with out distribution. If that's true, it should be rectified ASAP.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Freedom-focused, rpm-based leading edge distro. To use terms folks will
get more:
  from a freedom standpoint were Debian-or-better of the rpm-based distro
world
  from a newest-bits standpoint we are alone in trying to get all the
newest items
 
Our policy of upstreaming patches has set us apart from many other distros
and we're starting to see upstream maintainers realize this advantage to
their projects.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|First of all Fedora is one of the big players. We have a large user base
and a lot of installations, although (fortunately) we don't have a lot
of fanboys advocating Fedora at distrowatch or slashdot.
Second, Fedora is the driving force of innovation. Many things we do get
picked up by other distributions sooner or later. We need to enhance
cooperation to make it happen rather sooner than later.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|To strive to be better than the others. And to learn from the others
when we don't manage it.
 
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|What are you going to be doing in the Fedora Board that you cannot do outside of it or how would being in board/FESCo help in what you want to accomplish?
|I have no insight to the original pursuits so I'm not very familiar with the problems that were encountered.  It would be a bit silly of me to state an opinion without having some amount of knowledge on the issue.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think that participating in the Fedora Board helps me ensure that
Fedora makes intelligent and strategic long term decisions, and that the
best interests of the Fedora community are well represented.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|To be honest, not much.  One of the things I like the most about Fedora is that
you don't have to be in a committee or on the Board to really make an impact
on the project.  We strive to keep that true and I continue to be impressed at
the amount of work that gets done without any sort of Board/FESCo interaction.
 
That being said, I do want to participate in some of the higher level project
discussions that the Board tackles.  Things like trademark guidelines, 'What
is Fedora', etc.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'm hoping to focus more on visionary goals for Fedora on the board.  In my current position I work a great deal on implementation of those goals but not so much in forming them as that's the board's job.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I personally would love to help drive consideration of a Fedora
foundation-like entity.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Make sure that those smaller groups inside fedora get heard. Provide a strong
voice for secondary arches.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'm not sure that it does really. Anyone can contribute and step up
without being in fesco. Being in fesco allows one to help guide things
as a whole and help others come up with the best way forward. I look
forward to helping others with their ideas in fesco and bringing my
ideas and plans there.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Make sure that those smaller groups inside fedora get heard. Provide a strong voice for secondary arches.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|As I am someone who wants to bring change into FESCo, getting actually elected
into FESCo (hopefully together with others on a similar mission) is the best way
to get there.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I can't answer this question because I'm not walking into FESCo
with an agenda to push like some politician being shoved in by
lobbyists, but instead as someone who is passionate about the success
of the project. This question in my opinion is loaded because nobody
really knows what they are going to do until a situation occurs and
the discussion is had, information and ideas are exchanged and
educated decisions are made and this is exactly what I would do my
best to accomplish if I were elected.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I want to ensure that Fedora remains the best, highest quality,
forward-looking Linux distribution out there; one that I find compelling
to use and interesting to focus work on. By serving on FESCo, I'm able
to try and ensure those goals, in the approving of Features, packaging
policies, and other development giudelines.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think it would be good to have someone on FESCo outside the US and Europe.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|The planned QA support and my interest in Fedora as a non-desktop
system do not need a position in FESCO. The aim of easing the maintainers
work however does, as we've seen in the past.
 
But to directly influence the policies governing the work of our
maintainers and other contributors as well as and the direction Fedora
takes in the future a place on Fesco is needed.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Vote on policy changes.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Voting. I have the feeling that a growing number of decisions in FESCo
do no reflect the view of the community and this is something that can
only be changed inside of FESCo. Before FESCo votes on something, it
needs to ask people for feedback. Of course this can slow things down,
but nevertheless I think it's absolutely necessary. FESCo needs to keep
in touch with the community and must represent it's views.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|As a member of FESCo, I can contribute to decisions in a more concrete
way and can propose acceptable compromises where necessary.
 
And vote for what I think is right, of course :)
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|What do you consider to be Fedora's raison d'etre? In the past the focus of Fedora has shifted from release to release. Do you see a long-term goal or a "target audience" Fedora should strive for? How do you define your role in helping the project reaching that goal?
|I wish we had a Fedora Foundation though the details of that are fuzzy to me.  It would be convenient to have a separate legal entity to Red Hat.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|This is a difficult question to answer. I think that the long term goal
of encouraging Free Software is key to Fedora, and I do believe that we
should define a primary target for Fedora to ensure that our efforts are
not spread too thin or confused. I also don't think that we should take
any steps that would limit the effort of motivated community members to
shape Fedora for their own needs or wants. To put it bluntly, if our
primary target is the Desktop PowerUser, we should still try to make
every effort to not make life difficult for a SIG working on making a
Fedora Server spin. Its a difficult balance to walk, but I think we have
to try.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think this is something we as a community are struggling with right now.
For a long time, just getting a quality release out the door on time was enough
to satisfy people.  And that may still be valid for many.  I know that is
usually enough for me, as I tend to enjoy the whole rel-eng aspect of things.
 
However, others are looking for this long-term goal as a way to guide their
contributions.  The Board has recently started tackling this issue with the
'What is Fedora' discussions, and I do hope to participate in those.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora is the Linux technology leader.  I also want to help Fedora become more of a tool for the larger OSS and technology players.  When Dell, IBM, or whoever says "I want to put $NEW_PRODUCT together and give it a try."  I want Fedora to be the first in that list for deployment and partnership.  I'd also like Fedora to be a way for the big players to get in touch with the tons of little players for feedback, testing, input, etc.  Fedora is a perfect platform for this.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think focus that shifts from release to release is a good thing. One
it's driven by the people doing the work, and as this is a
meritocracy, the people doing the work should continue driving the
direction of Fedora. I can't help but think that by pigeonholing
ourselves as a 'desktop focused' distro or 'server focused' distro
that we end up losing valuable contributors, and that it would
unnecessarily constrain innovation. I honestly think that the four
foundations really encapsulates a lot of Fedora's mission and fear too
much being set in stone. I don't envision the Board as being the
oracle on high who tells us which direction to go, but rather the
guard rail on the edge of the precipice that keeps the project within
bounds and out of danger.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think fedora is more of a techie, developer distro. it is a place where you
can prove that your new shiny thing works and is valuable to all. it is
useable by everyone  but not neccesarily always the best choice.  Fedora is
not for those wanting long term support, that is where CentOS and RHEL fit in.   
I personally run servers with fedora on them.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think it's impossible to come up with one 'target audience'.
Fedora is what  we contributors make it. If you want to have a distro
that works well on desktops for end users, then work on that. Of course
some use cases are out of scope or incompatible. In those cases I think
we need to choose where best to spend out resources.
 
We should strive to allow various use cases where there are contributors
working on those areas, and if its possible to.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think fedora is more of a techie, developer distro. it is a place where you  can prove that your new shiny thing works and is valuable to all. it is  useable by everyone  but not neccesarily always the best choice.  Fedora is  not for those wanting long term support, that is where CentOS and RHEL fit in.    I personally run servers with fedora on them.   
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora's raison d'être is to be 1. 100% Free Software and 2. always current, but
not unstable ("leading, but not bleeding"). We should not compromise on these
goals. So our target audience needs to be prepared to get updates, including
version upgrades, regularly, and in particular to have sufficient bandwidth to
download them (at least as DRPMs). They also need to be prepared to upgrade to
a new release at least once a year. And finally, they need to accept that they
will not find proprietary or patent-encumbered software within Fedora, but only
in third-party repositories. But within those constraints, I don't think we
should exclude anyone. However, not excluding anyone also means not designing
exclusively for new users (as GNOME is arguably doing), and this one of the
reasons why supporting KDE well is important, and this is where the KDE SIG, in
which I participate, enters the picture. You can also count on me to stand up
for what I see as our raison d'être (i.e. "Free and current") and against any
attempts to encroach these principles.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't think we have a "target audience", I think fedora should
be for everyone. That's one of the things I love about Fedora is that
in the event a group of Fedora community members want to cater
specially to a specific group of users they are free to launch a SIG
and/or a Spin in order to accomplish this, which is a wonderful thing
because those community members continue to contribute to the project
as a whole instead of branching and creating child distributions. I
also don't think a long-term goal is very feasible in such an evolving
environment where we work with next generation technologies every day,
I can't know what's to come and therefore can't make a long-term
destination.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora should probably focus more than we do now on a particular audience;
by not targeting any audience (or designing for 'all' audiences, you ensure
that you're not optimal for any audience. It's why the Fedora DVD spin
is traditionally the weakest offering; it's a jack of all trades and master
of none. With a target in mind, you can actually make meaningful decisions
about what you're doing.
 
That being said, the target audience is more a board question than a
FESCo question; FESCo would just be the implementer.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think it has to come from the grass roots from contributors.
Fedora is both a testing ground for new technology, good devel
environment and desktop(s) and a great base for spins and
rebranding.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I would like Fedora to be the universal operating system. Fit for the
server, versatile enough for the desktop, small enough for the netbook,
modular enough for building an appliance, modern enough for the developer.
 
This needs more work on the packaging side however, which I'm willing to
support FPC for.
 
About shifting focuses: I think we should sit down and clearly define our
focus. Keep it wide enough to encompass our important use cases and users
but narrow enough not to be faced with illusive demands. Based on this
focus, we then define our goals and are free to keep them for a number of
releases.
 
How I'm helping the project? During the Berlin FUDCon Barcamp in June I'll
be leading a discussion session about exactly that topic. The aim is to
gather input from contributors what we should be aiming for.
As a member of FESCO, I'd be in the unique position to actually execute
the necessary work.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|The need for a 'target audience' for fedora is just so we can set goals
and say definitively "we will not be implementing feature-Y b/c we aren't
targetting them". Target audience goals are about saying "no", not about
saying yes. Part of the reason we need a target audience is that a lot of
software development is about intelligently saying no.
 
Fedora needs to say no more often. Being everything to everyone is chaos.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Actually I don't think that focus has shifted that much. It only did in
subareas, but there always was a central theme: Innovation and technical
excellence. I think ware are doing an good job in this area, but of
course we still can do better.
Our target audience are mainly early adopters and developers, but that
doesn't mean that we should limit our focus to those users, because I
have seen many people with different knowledge and skills using Fedora
without problems.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't really want to restrict the target audience. I think we can
provide a general-purpose distribution which is applicable to all kind
of targets through servers, desktops, netbooks and handheld devices.
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|What are your unique strengths and what are your weaknesses?
|I do think it is. The real benefit is the efficient handling of money. A number of initiatives within Fedora hinge on our being able to deal with money, and those initiatives (such as the Fedora store) are routinely blocked as legally Fedora is effectively a non-entity, or at best the spawn of Red Hat. I don't think, unless things changed dramatically, that there is a possibility for a US-based non-profit entity, but there are a number of different strategies that might be available. Fedora EMEA e.V. makes tremendous use of it's organization. There are a number of thorny issues, from financial, to trademark, to even the relationship with Red Hat that need to be resolved and researched. That said I think that continued exploration of this matter is important, and could be a boon for Fedora in many ways.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Strengths:
I haven't come across a piece of code that I couldn't get into an RPM
package, and I understand FOSS licensing better than most hackers.
 
Weaknesses:
I'm not as good of a software coder as I would like to be. I
(occasionally) have great ideas, but lack the skillset to implement them.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I have no amazing super-powers. I generally consider myself fairly competent
on the engineering side of things, with a focus more on code than packaging.
I also try to be open minded, but I'm not afraid to take a position on something
if I feel strongly about it.
 
As for weaknesses, I have those too.  I'd like to be more educated in how the
non-engineering communities of Fedora function.  I can be overly negative at
times.  I also have a decreasing tolerance for trolls and flame-fest email
threads, though I do still try to read them.  I dislike kittens and ponies.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'm a fast learner who knows when it's time to work, and when it's time to have fun.  I'm a results oriented person though the path from point A to point B is also important.  I also value simplicity which I see as a strength.  My weaknesses include the occasional short temper and horrible spelling.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|As a relative n00b I think I understand the challenges faced by some
of the more recent contributors, and the people who have yet to begin
contributing. At the same time, I don't have the experience leading
the Fedora Project that most of the other candidates do.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I have a good understanding of how the different parts of fedora work how they
all fit in together from buildsys to releng and everything in between.  I may
not always know how a regular user may use something. helping my mum use
fedora has shown me that.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|well, I have been involved with fedora for a long time, and know a lot
about how things are put together. I think thats both. New perspectives
may come up with a better ideas, but knowing the history and reasons
for things is important as well.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I have a good understanding of how the different parts of fedora work how they  all fit in together from buildsys to releng and everything in between. I may  not always know how a regular user may use something. helping my mum use fedora has shown me that.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|- Strengths: I have experience with both Free Software development and
  packaging, I also have a formal university education in Mathematics and
  Computer Science, I speak 4 languages fluently (English, French, Italian,
  German), I'm used to IRC meetings from my involvement in KDE SIG. People at
  my university consider me a brilliant student, in KDE SIG I'm known as a
  "Qt/KDE ninja" for my successes at fixing critical bugs or tracking down their
  causes.
- Weaknesses: I tend to overreact when something angers me (and need to try
  really hard to stay polite) and can't always avoid to "feed the trolls".
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I would prefer not answer this one.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|For strengths, see question #2 above.
 
My biggest weaknesses are that I'm really bad at delegating, and I
don't find nearly enough time to do actual development and bugfixing
work. In combination, that can be a bit of a problem for software
maintenance.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Attention to detail, and saying yes more than no.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Strengths: I have vast experience getting diverse groups of people to
agree on a compromise as long as people are interested in finding a
solution. If this is not the case, the end result is usually
still acceptable but not universally liked. Tough luck but it's still
necessary to come to a decision.
 
Weakness: I don't have an army of ninjas to promote an attitude of
violence. This could have been useful in speeding up some processes.
 
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I have an Adamantium-laced skeleton and there's a mutant healing factor
in there somewhere, too.
 
My biggest weakness is that I'm slow to accept changes I don't drive. I
will push back against change that I don't see as necessary. I do not
believe all change is progress. Nor do I believe all progress is change.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'm used to cope with criticism, in fact I need it as a vital feedback.
I think this is something that every FESCo member should have, because
in the steering committee you are in an exposed position.
On the other hand my criticism sometimes is a little harsh. I can be
demanding and dogmatic. Other weaknesses include poor English and bad
typing (still handicapped from an accident two years ago).
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I am relatively good at seeing technical solutions and implementing
them. I'm not always the most diplomatic person you'll meet.
 
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|How will you make the work for in Fedora easier and more fun?
|I think it would need to be evaluated if we were going to get resources donated on the same level as Red Hat does from other companies.  Until we have that level of investment then its extra overhead for little gain
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Less paperwork, less manual steps, more areas of opportunity. :)
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fun is a relative term.  For example, if you don't find packaging fun to begin
with, I doubt I can do anything to really make it more fun.  And 'easier' isn't
always a goal either.  To be honest, some of the items and issues we face _are_
hard and trying to make them easier usually doesn't get any progress.  There
are times we need people to simply dig in and work such items, even if they
aren't fun or easy.
 
That being said, there are things we can do to make sure we aren't making
things harder than they really are.  I answered a previous question with the
example of too many policies and procedures.  Things like that can and should
be avoided and should hopefully make Fedora a more enjoyable project to
contribute to.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think Fedora is in an interesting transition period right now in an industry that's currently in transition.  Getting a better focus in place so that all of our thousands of contributors are working towards the same goal will keep expectations in line more.  Additionally, in the more practical sense, I'll continue my work in Fedora Infrastructure to keep things fast as well as continue to help make more tools feature rich and useful.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I would hope that staying out of the way would help work progress in a
fun and easy manner. Perhaps I could tell a few jokes, though my wife
claims I have no talent when it comes to humor.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I will try to make it simpler and more consistent.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I would like to see more engagement and community amoung contributors.
Perhaps some non tech gatherings on irc, or more use of #fedora-social
or the like.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I will try to make it simpler and more consistent. 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|By opposing policies which require changing upstream projects' software for no
good reason and thus place a pointless workload on the maintainer(s). Again, the
restrictions on flags are a good example of such an annoying and useless policy.
I also hope to be part of a more diverse FESCo which will lead to fewer
decisions diametrally opposed to the majority's views and thus reduce
frustration.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't understand the question.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Ice cream and ponies for everyone!
 
More seriously, I'm not sure that that's the proper goal.  We shouldn't
make things unnecessarily hard or irritating, of course. When it
comes down to it, fixing a bunch of blocker bugs isn't necessarily
going to be 'easy'. Filling out an update request isn't necessarily
going to be 'fun'.
 
But if we can automate QA of releases and updates, we can catch issues
earlier, making less pain for our users and developers. If we can have
clear policies on when to, and when not to, update library versions, we
can prevent developer aggravation if they feel they have to do
unncessary rebuilds. If we get changes into RPM to make packaging
guidelines obsolete, we make life easier for packagers when they can
simplifiy their spec files. But most of these things don't actually
require FESCo or Board privleges to do.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I hope we can get a better web interface in place that will
make contributors' lives easier.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Sane policies, no micromanagement, letting people do what they do best
without unnecessary meddling from third parties.
That should make the work easier.
 
More fun? Organising events such as FUDcon in order to allow our
contributors to gather, to catch up with each other in real life is a very
important part. It helps people get to know each other, form a better
understanding or clear up any issues remaining from discussions online and
get back home revitalized having gained some new friends. All this is what
I consider fun.
 
Logically, this means, we need more events, as this equals more fun. \o/
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|How do you make work easier and more fun? Umm. If it was easier and more
fun it wouldn't be work, would it?
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Easier: Improve communication. In an project with many many people
involved communication is the key to success. I'm sure better
communication will
More Fun: Try to establish local events where people meet face to face,
like the "Fedora Round Table" which was a lot of fun.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Mostly by striving to avoid gratuitous bureaucracy.
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|More
|No. I think it would not help any, and might loose us support from our biggest supporter.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
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|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|0
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|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|-
|-
 
|colspan="2"|[[#Questions|Return to top]]
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Who is Fedora for?
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|That's the big question, isn't it! I truly believe that Fedora is
flexible, in that you can make it work for your needs, but in the same
breath, that there needs to be a well defined primary use target. This
may be controversial, but I don't think that primary target is "Aunt
Tillie, Desktop User, afraid of the Command Line". I think Fedora is
more for a power-user, someone who is comfortable with using a computer,
but also wants good tools (GUI and CLI) to help them be productive with
their day to day tasks (Email, Web, Games, Development, Communication,
Multimedia). I think Fedora is for folks who like to know how things
work, even if they will never make a single code change.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...
 
More seriously, this is a really hard question to answer.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Fedora should be for enthusiasts, hobbyists and people that are actually doing the work that ultimately becomes a free software product.  Every Fedora user could be a contributor.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|What I think you are really asking is 'What is Fedora's target
demographic?' The people that Fedora should be targeting is
contributors. This isn't to say the Fedora is a 'developer's
distribution' necessarily, nor is it to say the contrary. What it does
say is that it takes a ton of work, a huge portion of that volunteer,
to make Fedora successful. That means, at least in my mind, we should
stop trying to nail down where we are in the sea of free software and
let the waves of contributors direct us by their actions. If we seek
out and grow Fedora contributors we make Fedora more successful.
Dennis Gilmore wrote 'I work really hard on those things I believe
in.' in his nomination for the board, and I think that sentiment is
true in large part all across Fedora. When people care about
something, they work passionately at it. Fedora is for those
passionate contributors. We're happy that others, like OLPC, Moblin,
RHEL, and the millions of Fedora users across the globe like recognize
the excellence that those passionate contributors make, but those are
largely serendipitous.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|everyone
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Many folks. Early adopters. Folks who like new tech. Desktop users.
Development server users. Many others.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|everyone
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Everyone (independently of experience level) who wants/needs a Free Software
operating system which is as up to date as possible without being unreliable.
People who are happy with running old software (be it the non-technical user
scared of a menu item moving in their application due to an upgrade or the
conservative, "each change needs approval" corporate deployment) are better
served by more conservative distributions. It is obvious to me that no single
distribution can please both those target audiences at the same time.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Everyone.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Hm, sort of a repeat of question #7 above.
 
Fedora should be for everyone to use as they see fit, or anyone willing to
contribute in its framework. However, I do feel that it should at least
have a primary focus, even as other uses, spins, and ideas are allowed.
But again, that's probably more a Board issue than a FESCo one.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Every hacker and their grandmother.  On the one hand we
can't expect everyone will be using fedora tomorrow on
the other hand we seen initiatives like Moblin and OLPC
that bring the potential of fedora to large new audiences.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Contrary to the question above, for whom in my opinion Fedora should be, I
honestly do not know the right answer for whom Fedora _currently_ is. 
We're constantly shifting focus. Once it was claimed that Fedora is giving
a preview of what will be available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, then it
was said that we'd be _the_ distribution for the Desktop. At other times
Fedora had been promoted as the building block for remixes, spins and
other distributions or that it would be the software developers
distribution of choice.
 
While all these and other claims were true at the time and are still
valid, I am wondering if it is a good idea to try to support such a wide
range of users. I have the feeling that the base of dissatisfied users
complaining about regressions and other problems is growing.
Alternatively, they are at least getting more vocal.
 
The question who Fedora is for, for whom we want Fedora to be and what we
have to do to achieve that should be discussed by more contributors
though. This is why I'm planning to lead a discussion during the upcoming
FUDCon Barcamp in Berlin about exactly that question. You're all cordially
invited to attend.
The outcome should influence future Board and FESCO decisions.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Me.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Human beings. I know there is another distribution that claims to be for
human beings, but nevertheless: Fedora is for everybody. Seriously. A
lot of my customers are using Fedora even if they have not used Linux
before. And they are doing pretty well, I have less problems supporting
them than many other customers.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Isn't this a duplicate of the question about Fedora's raison d'etre?
 
 
|-
|-
 
|}
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Should any steps be taken to make sure releases don't get as much last minute delays as in the past? If yes: which?
{|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think that Release Engineering makes every effort to try to minimize
|colspan="2" style="font-style:italic; background: #ddd; font-weight: bold;"| <span id="question_19">19. Should kernel module packages be allowed in Fedora?</span>
last minute delays, but some are simply unavoidable. With the exception
of Fedora 10, which was delayed due to the security intrusion during the
release cycle, I think we've had a better handle on what needs to be
done to minimize "slips" in our release cycle. Improving the QA and bug
triage earlier in the release process is key to minimizing last minute
delays, and we're making positive progress in those areas.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Possibly, yes.  There is a Fedora Activity Day June 8-10 that will try and
address some of this.  I am participating in that and look forward to what
we can come up with to help here.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|More QA in earlier steps, earlier feature freeze.  The former of which requires more people.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|This is FESCo's domain, and not a Board issue.
From a personal perspective, I'd love to see no delays, and I think
some of the current discussions on fedora-devel about length of
composes, time spent running updates, etc are beginning to show some
of the growing pains that we are experiencing as a project. I look
forward to seeing some of the novel approaches to dealing with this.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|As much as we can we should try to always improve how we do releases/ handle
blocker bugs.  but i fear we will always find last minute blockers.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'm not sure what could be done, aside from trying to slow fedora down.
Delays happen. Perhaps we could place more resources on those areas
that have caused delays in the past.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|As much as we can we should try to always improve how we do releases/ handle  blocker bugs.  but i fear we will always find last minute blockers.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I do not see a concrete need there, the slips have happened for valid reasons,
it's better to release a fixed version a bit late than to rush out a brown
paper bag release. The delays have all been of a tolerable magnitude.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"| Yes and no, it would be nice to have efforts to attempt to have
less last minute delays, but the reality of the development world is
that many things are unpredictable and we'd rather push back a release
date than ship a broken product.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Automated QA. This is probably the most important project that can be
done in this regard. Jesse Keating, James Laska, Will Woods and others
are working on a framework for this, they'd love the help.
 
Outside of that, we need to be better about more strictly applying
the feature freeze dates and not letting features in that land later
than those dates. Most of the recent last minute delays are due to
features that landed late, but by the time we're looking at these
last mintue issues, we're at the point of last return.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think if we want to keep our deadlines then we need to really
following the devel freezes consistently for /all/ packages,
particularly base core packages and the installer.
Maybe even some core parts should be frozen earlier than the rest
of the distro - of course that involves some price in development
and innovation but it would lead to more stability.
At least IMHO it would be good to have more consistency on this
across the distro and less exceptions.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|While delaying a release is not pleasant it is not neccessarily as bad as
people make it out to be. We have a very tight release schedule with a lot
of churn between releases and it speaks of our QA that we do catch and are
able to fix bugs surfacing that late.
 
There is currently a discussion about this topic happening on fedora-devel
with some viable suggestions. While I'd love to see our releases being
always on time, I think it is up to the specific teams e.g. release
management to decide what can be improved. My understanding is, that the
upcoming Fedora Activity Day will be used to better analyze this issue
then it can be done during a FESCO election by the candidates.
 
Personally however, I think the Fedora Test Days during this release cycle
have been a huge help increasing the stability of our newly developed
features and I do hope that we'll increase further testing of rawhide to
discover problems early on in a release cycle.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Not really. We will slip releases. It happens all the time. We should be
aware of this and not try to push the deadlines too quickly. The f12-devel
cycle is going to be SHOOOOOOOOOOORT.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|To be honest I think all things considered we are doing pretty well. If
there are release critical bugs, they need to be fixed even if the
release gets delayed. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying we need to do
like Debian, but we had releases with severe bugs (e. g. the
extrascdinstall bug in FC6) where we should have delayed the release to
fix this.
We need to make sure that changes in the core parts like anaconda are
not done last minute, so they can get wide testing. The test days we had
are a good approach, but they need to be earlier in the development
cycle.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Ideally, perhaps -- but on the whole I'd prefer to have a _good_ release
than a _timely_ release. Perhaps not taking it to the extent that some
other distributions are notorious for, but the slips we've had aren't
something that deeply concern me, per se.
 
What it _does_ show is that we perhaps need a few more people actively
testing rawhide -- but we know that, we've always known that, and we're
always looking for ideas on how to make it more 'attractive' to
potential testers.
 
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Tom Callaway (spot)  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|How or to what extent would you say are Fedora's governance bodies responsible for protecting volunteers and volunteer based efforts against interference from within Red Hat by either person or policy?
|Nope. I think that there are many reasons for this, but the primary one is that it encourages people to not get that code merged into the upstream Linux kernel, where it truly belongs.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|[Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat, but they do not tell me what to say.]
In general, I think that in almost every possible situation, Red Hat is
content to let Fedora do whatever it needs to do to be successful. The
only places where Red Hat steps in are areas where Fedora's actions
would construe a legal, financial or security risk to Red Hat as a
company, and these are few and far between. I think that outside of
those conditions, the Fedora Board (and FESCo) should feel entirely
unencumbered by Red Hat's interference, keeping in mind that Red Hat
(and its employees) are major contributors.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't understand this question. It seems to be predicated on the theory that
Red Hat has some nefarious notions in store for Fedora, and I simply don't
think that is the case.  Fedora has existed for a number of years now, and
during that time it has continually become more open and less Red Hat governed.
I'd be happy to discuss it further if there were more concrete examples or
concerns.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think it's the FPL's position to fight for Fedora freedom wrt our primary provider.  In particular I think our agreement with our contributors should protect each party equally. 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|As I said earlier I see the Board (and FESCo and every other
governance body) as a guard rail. Ideally they never get in the way
and are largely unnoticed by the vast majority. However, they serve an
excellent purpose as a safety measure to keep things from going awry.
As I mentioned earlier the bond with Red Hat is great for Fedora and
at times bad for Fedora, even if it's only in perception. I see the
various governance bodies as there to make it easy to contribute and
get things done. To the extent that RH (or even groups within Fedora)
makes that difficult, I definitely think that it's within their
purview to try and fix the situation. I'll note that previous Boards
dropped the onerous CLA process from something that often took weeks
to complete to something that is click-through now. Another example is
FESCo's relatively recent move to make getting sponsored as a packager
easier, by limiting the rights that packagers have and creating a new
class called provenpackager.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think we need to ensure that all people are free to do the work that
interests them regardless of who there employer is.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'm not sure I understand the question. What sort of 'interference' ?
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think we need to ensure that all people are free to do the work that  interests them regardless of who there employer is.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|FESCo needs to intervene in case of blatant abuse of power by one person or
company, whether the offender happens to be Red Hat or anybody else. And no, the
offender is not always Red Hat. But we need to be careful not to try to
micromanage: FESCo dictating every single contentious decision isn't going to
scale either and it might turn out to cause more problems than it solves.
Sometimes a decision needs to be left to the maintainer(s), a balance needs to
be struck. But singling out Red Hat "interference" as the source of all
conflicts is not going to help, either. Red Hat even gets blamed for decisions
which weren't even theirs, e.g. the decision to ship Fedora 9 with KDE 4.0.3
(which I still think was the right thing to do, but that's off topic here).
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't like the question, every contributor to Fedora is a member
of the Fedora community and singling out those who are fortunate
enough to do it for a living, either funded by RedHat, Dell, Intel, or
other company should not be singled out. If a community member causes
interference then this should be taken up with the Board or FESCo
depending on the situation.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|If other contributors (inside or outside Red Hat) aren't acting in
accordance with the policies or procedures, then the Board (or similar)
entities should probably be contacted for mediation when other methods
fail.
 
That being said, this question seems like it's leading to a followup,
or an example of a specific greivance, which isn't listed here. Without
that, it's hard to go into more detail.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think that it's the job of the Fedora governance bodies to protect our
contributors from unnecessary interference from any possible source and
let them concentrate on their chosen tasks.
 
On the other hand, I do consider it extremely bad style to go against the
interests of our sponsoring company Red Hat and their own product
development. The MP3 codec policy would be a good example for this.
But this does not mean, that we have to implement each and every Red Hat
engineering policy. There's no product management to review feature
requests, there's no 7+ years support policy and we're not planning on
being certified for china. No need therefore to implement policies for
engineering departments with these aims.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Hahah.  Seriously do we really think there is a Red Hat Cabal that is
manipulating things from behind the scenes? There is no Cabal.
I started in fedora when I was working at Duke University. I came over to
Red Hat almost 2 years ago and I can safely say that there is no cabal.
 
I think the goal of fedora's governance bodies is to keep things from
being a non-stop screaming match between the  various sects within fedora.
 
The governance bodies provide a deciding factor which helps make decisions
semi-final.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|One of Fedora's four foundations is freedom and we must never give this
up. The recent debate about flags in Fedora showed that we really need a
policy that assures the work of volunteers is not influenced by the big
business. Fedora is not RHEL and not for sale, so we need not and should
not follow every advice from Red Hat Legal dpt. But to tell the truth,
I'm not too optimistic that we can lay this down in a policy when
looking at the current FESCo.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't understand the term 'interference'. There is a deep symbiosis
between Fedora and RHEL. That is the justification for the _huge_ amount
of support that Red Hat Inc provides to the Fedora community.
 
Fedora probably wouldn't survive in anything like its current form
without a sponsor like Red Hat, and building RHEL would be a much harder
job without Fedora.
 
So we 'interfere' with RHEL, and RHEL requirements 'interfere' with
Fedora, all the time. It's a productive and happy relationship.
 
I think the governance bodies might be able to step in and object if the
RHEL considerations are ever _detrimental_ to Fedora. But I don't really
see that happening -- were we _harmed_ because we got an influx of paid
developers making Fedora's virtualisation support rock, for example?
 
The most objectionable part of the relationship, in my opinion, is that
we're tied to US law; stupid patents and all. But I don't see a
realistic solution to that.
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Josh Boyer (jwb)  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|The Fedora Project suffers from a lack of communication. In 2009 for 8 out of 21 FESCo meetings no meeting minutes were sent to the lists. What would you do to improve communication between the different groups in Fedora and especially between FESCo, Board and the community?
|No.  The code belongs in the upstream kernel, where it would get into Fedora by default.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I can't really talk to the FESCo management. I know that documentation
is not fun to do, but it seems to me like there is room for improvement
in that space.
 
On the Board, we've worked hard to take good meeting notes with gobby,
and then publish those notes on a timely basis for the entire community
to see. We also have regular public meetings, and I think they have been
extremely productive.
 
In my role as Fedora Packaging Committee Chair, I've worked hard to
ensure that as new guidelines are added (or old ones amended), an
explanatory email is sent out to the development community, so that no
one is surprised later on at an unexpected change.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|FYI there is a FESCo ticket opened to fix this very item.  As a member of FESCo,
I agree we screwed up earlier in the year in regards to meeting minutes and
hopefully we'll come up with a good mechanism to get them written and published
in a timely manner soon.
 
In terms of the Board communications, I am not entirely sure what, if anything,
more could be communicated.  The Board discusses confidential material often,
and I think John has done a good job with the meeting minutes so far.  If I am
elected to the Board, I will keep an eye on this issue and make sure that as
much information as can be disclosed is.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think too many people have their eyes in too many projects.  If the FESCo meetings were important to someone, they are free to go to the meetings or log them.  Meeting minutes don't force people to pay attention and if a contributor doesn't have time to read the meeting log, it's possible they shouldn't be involved with the FESCo workings anyway.  I think more of our contributors should focus on fewer things and focus on the quality of those things, not the number of things they're involved in.
 
Group to group communication can be a problem.  There are technical fixes to this but also policy changes.  I think there's room for better communication between groups, but I feel more accountability towards the group leaders for communication.  Poelstra has done wonders in this respect and the release readiness meetings.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Having been responsible for meeting logs I can empathize with those
doing the work that it's not easy to get done particularly with
everything else going on in a meeting. That said such communication is
vital, but for openness and just general communication. I've noticed
that other organizations and even one of our SIGs uses a meeting bot,
to record and publish meetings. That would help alleviate the
situation you refer to specifically, but doesn't deal with all of it.
I've noticed that the Board has engaged a non-member to handle
publishing minutes from meetings, and that strikes me as a good idea,
but perhaps not foolproof.
 
As a contributor, I started in early 2006 and kept up with mailing
list traffic and was on IRC for certain meetings. Until 2008 I never
realized how much really went on in IRC. In some ways I think that's
very efficient, in others I think it's unfortunate as it essentially
hides a lot of the inner workings from people. Perhaps logging and
posting minutes of key channels is the answer, but that's also a  LOT
of content, and I think it would largely go unread. At a minimum I
think groups should be publishing at least informal agendas for
meetings to the mailing list.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Look into having a meeting logging irc bot.  that will post minutes for us 
making them consistent between the different groups within fedora.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Sadly, this was a failed attempt at spreading the log taking out.
We need to be much more clear who is responsible for the logs and
minutes, and I think we should require they be posted the same day as
the meeting, if not right after. It's usually much easier to just do
them as the meeting happens than try and go back and do them later
anyhow. I would be happy to just do them moving foward if that's
needed.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Look into having a meeting logging irc bot.  that will post minutes for us  making them consistent between the different groups within fedora.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Well, for one we need to ensure that minutes actually get sent out, that's kinda
obvious. ;-) See the KDE SIG for an example of how it can work. It just needs
one or two people volunteering to do the minutes (it's good to have at least two
in case one of them is absent), and another person proofreading them (in KDE
SIG, that's usually me). But the communication should not be one-way. Community
members often bring up valid concerns with some of the planned decisions, which
then get at best dismissed, often ignored entirely. This is very frustrating.
Concerns brought up on the mailing list need to be taken seriously.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|FESCo adopted a policy of rotating the meeting minutes and posting of
logs. It appears with the occasional absence from the meeting, or forgetting
to do the task, it quickly became completely unclear who was doing the
meeting summary, and if it wasn't brought up in the meeting itself, it
didn't get done.
 
Obviously, that sucks - it's why I took the time a couple of weeks ago
to go back through all the old meetings this year and make sure they all
had proper summaries on the wiki. I've also created a ticket for the
next meeting to fix this going forwards - if need be, I'll do the
summaries.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I guess we need a (rotating) Secretary for the meetings to take
minutes or summarise the logs within a day.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|A simple way of having meeting minutes published is to mandate that each
unpublished meeting log means having to offer one round of drinks at the
next FUDcon social event.
 
I'm sure that this would either result in no missed meeting minutes ever
again or a bunch happy fedora contributors. Either way, it's a win-win
situation.
 
On a more serious note: Minute notes should be published regularly. I
assume that this not being done is an oversight which could be prevented
by having more than one person take over responsibility. Maybe alternating
from month to month. But I really like the drinks idea.
 
About the communication between FESCO and the community but also between
groups: I think it is important to try to include the contributors in the
decision making process of FESCO by inviting comments on tickets to a
greater extend than before.
 
Controversial topics such as the flag debate on fedora-devel-list created
several hundred mails after the policy was announced but went basically
unnoticed during the decision phase itself with only a few people chiming
in.
 
Publicizing upcoming decisions and other new tickets better and explicitly
asking for input from affected contributors might mitigate the resulting
flow of messages on fedora-devel-list and make the list useful again.
 
If this is not enough, it might be necessary to revisit the great
mailinglist reorganisation of 2007 and see if we could split up -devel
into smaller lists, each with a better signal to noise ratio. Maybe trying
to restore the maintainers-list could be a solution.
 
In the end, it's a long process. Many things have to be tried and many
will be wrong, but I'm hopeful that in the end we'll find something.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|First I'd question your assumptions about the project suffering from a
lack of communication.
 
For fesco meetings I'd just say log the irc sessions with a bot - then
there's no  need for someone to remember to do it. Tada - problem solved -
and using new-fangled 'irc bot' technology that was only perfected about
a decade ago.
 
For the board the minutes are much much better than they used to be.
Unfortunately the board cannot always disclose everything. It is
unfortunate but true.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|The noise level on some list such as the devel-list or the
ambassadors-list is very high and not all contributors have enough time
to follow them closely. In order to make sure all important mails reach
the contributors we need to make use of fedora-(devel-)announce more
often.
For the FESCo meeting minutes I suggest to stick with the current model
of rotation of minutes takers. But we need to make sure they get
written. If someone forgets to send out the minutes he has to pay a big
round at FUDCon. This will also help us with question 9 (more fun).
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|We should definitely make sure we publish minutes more reliably. We've
been talking about using Gobby to share the burden of doing that; we'll
see what comes of it. The IRC logs are always available, and people can
even come and join in the meetings (within reason) -- but that's no
substitute for proper minutes.
 
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Mike McGrath (mmcgrath)  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|What would you do to cleanup and organize the Fedora project packaging guidelines, rules and other wiki pages to make it more consistent and easier for new contributors?
|I have no opinion on this except that if the module is good enough for Fedora, it should ultimately be sent upstream.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Can I have 6 extra hours each day? :)
This is definitely something that could use some work, and I would
encourage anyone who has a suggestion for cleanup or reorganization
(without making changes to the actual guidelines) of the Packaging
Guidelines to talk to me.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Encourage the people that take interest in that.  I'll be honest and say that
at a personal level, I can't see me having the time to focus on cleaning it
up myself.  However I would certainly want to make sure that those willing to
do that work aren't hindered in any way.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't think that's the boards job, so running for the board I don't feel that I'd get involved unless there were a major issue, like packages no longer getting accepted into Fedora.
 
As far as new contributors I feel more documentation is required on the part of the major groups.  Podcasts, video casts to welcome people are one idea I've been kicking around.  In particular Fedora is so large that people get overwhelmed and have no idea what to expect.  I'd like to see the groups spend more time on new people expectations.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|This is a FESCo issue, though watching some of the involvement with
FPC and the Docs Project to accomplish the consistency and ease of use
has been interesting. Personally I think this is an issue everyone
agrees on, and there are already efforts underway (although surely
slowed due to the impending release) to get this accomplished and I
think it should run its course.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Move them out of the wiki into a CMS perhaps, or perhaps look at making them
into something that can be printed as a book/pdf.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Part of the problem with a wiki approach is that things get slowly
modified over time and overall organization gets lost. I think in order
to do better in this area we need to step back and come up with a plan
for reorganizing things.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Move them out of the wiki into a CMS perhaps, or perhaps look at making them  into something that can be printed as a book/pdf. 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think that should be best left to the wiki team, which is doing an excellent
job, together with FPC, which is responsible and holds the access rights for the
packaging guidelines. I see no need for FESCo to micromanage this.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think the packaging guidelines and rules are in a solid place
and anything that would be modified would be just that, modifications.
The wiki has made a lot of progress since I started with Fedora but I
would like to push for making it a more used means of collaborative
knowledge transfer and to make sure to keep it up to date as much as
is possible.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|What would you do?  There's nothing in being a FESCo member that somehow
makes them the only ones able to do this. Anyone is free to bring
clarifications or edits to the Packaging Committee.
 
It's not to say the pages aren't a bit long, especially considering
there are multiple long pages that need to be read. Ideally, we'd make
changes to RPM that make many of the guidelines irrelevant or automatically
applied. That's the long path, but it's the one that's going to
have the most quantifiable effects.
 
Outside of that, it may be worthwhile to have the design time look
over them from a more 'new contributor' standpoint to see how
they can be improved.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think that is something for the Packaging Committee to oversee
but some consolidation, reviewing and revisions would be good.
I would like to make reviewers' and submitters' lives easier
with packages having to pass basic review-o-matic first before
human reviewers need to look at them.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Ask the teams or persons responsible for these pages to see if they should
or can be cleaned up?
 
I do consider FESCO more of a managing body. The FESCO members certainly
are doing technical work as well and are in a position to drive this work
better forward due to their FESCO involvement. But they are not experts at
every task and do not have to have a personal involvement in e.g. wiki
cleanup.
 
Taking the packaging guidelines, I can certainly see some points which
could be written more concise or cleared up a bit but I'm not sure if this
is really going to make packaging easier for new contributors. Just
removing rules from the guidelines is not the right way as these rules are
there for a reason. Each rule either requires the packager to do things a
certain way, either to allow a clear understanding of the spec by
mandating coding style etc. or to prevent errors and mistakes.
 
Being a good packager means having experience. People gain experience by
packaging software and having these reviewed by an experienced and patient
reviewer and sponsor. In my opinion the time spent on coaching new
packagers is used more wisely than looking for possible inconsistencies
in the packaging guidelines. This will help new contributors more
effectively.
 
In general, common sense can be very useful when interpreting guidelines.
If there are discrepancies, the responsible team, e.g. the Fedora
Packaging Committee is certainly able and willing to correct these without
FESCO involvement.
 
If they should be unwilling however, an escalation to FESCO is the right
step and they will take care of the issue, one way or another.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'd make them shorter and, ideally, make the index read less like a
laundry list. finally, it would be nice to have them easier to do searches
on.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I am not willing to make compromise about packaging quality, so I don't
see much space to clean up the packaging guidelines. But of course the
presentation of the guidelines in the wiki could be better. We need
everything important in one place.
The feature and the spins process should be simplified. Drafts and
official policies must be marked as such.
Cleaning up the wiki might be possible, but I don't really think it's
FESCo's job.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|In general, I want to keep the bureacracy down -- as I already said. I
don't have specific changes in mind at the moment; I think we're doing a
reasonable job.
 
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|David Nalley (ke4qqq)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|There is a proposal out there to moderate fedora-devel.  What should be disallowed?  Racist or sexist speech?  Profanity?  At what point does a complaint against a small project become a personal attack? ie "Your idea is utterly stupid."  Should we disallow trolls or posts likely to start flamewars?  Who will decide the difference between intelligent debate and flaming?
|This is a FESCo issue and not a Board issue. I personally wouldn't want to see kernel modules in Fedora's repos.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think that some people on the Fedora mailing list have gone beyond
respectful and reasonable discussion/disagreement in their comments, and
unfortunately, were creating a negative environment for people to work in.
 
I proposed that our moderation policies be based around the idea that we
should all "be excellent to each other", even when we disagree. I think
when people start to make personal attacks against individuals or
projects, that goes over the line. You can get the same message across with:
 
"I feel strongly that the idea that you have proposed is not good for
Fedora, because foo and bar and baz."
 
as opposed to:
 
"Your idea is F*%$&^% stupid, and only a *&(^%& would think it was good."
 
We'll have to wing it as we go along, but I'm hopeful that this new
moderation policy will help people to think twice before they decide to
say something that they may later regret.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|There is a balance to be struck.  Criticism of the project is often one of the
best ways to help us grow, but there are times where it can go too far.  And
I'm not sure you can really quantify and codify what the boundaries are.
 
Frankly, I think even the specter of moderation is likely to help.  It can be
surprising how often a gentle reminder to be polite can work.  I also think
that as a community we should trust our elected leadership to do the right
thing.  If they aren't, and there are egregious examples of abuse by the
leadership, I'm fairly confident that they can't be censored from the internet
completely and they'll be pointed out.  I am not worried in the slightest about
this.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'm against censorship in any form.  If trolls want to be trolls, people can ban them on their own via mail filters, etc.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Wow that's a lot of questions -
I'll be honest and say I really dislike the idea of moderation, and do
so for several reasons. Censoring some or all 'bad speech' is a zero
sum game. And it's always going to infuriate someone. The worst
offense that censorship brings is waste. Some of the most talented,
hardest working people in Fedora are the same people who are likely to
have to moderate, what a waste of precious cycles. At initial blush,
I'd almost guess that something akin to greylisting might be employed
once a thread reaches some arbitrary number (100 is the number
sticking in my head). So essentially once a thread hits that arbitrary
number, messages for that thread are rejected for 36-48 hours. This
doesn't directly solve the problem of people not 'being excellent to
each other' but does make the medicine a bit less painful, and
hopefully automated. Every instance of 'bad behavior in recent memory
seems to have occurred in massive threads that can't seem to die.
Perhaps that's a stupid suggestion, after all it's 1am, and I'm still
up working on these questions.
Realistically there is no good solution to people behaving badly in a
volunteer community, you are essentially left choosing the difference
between multiple evils.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think there is no right or wrong answer here.  people being rude or
argumentitive need to know that its not there right to be that way with
others.  I think sometimes we need to think if what we are about to send is
something that would be considered appropriate if that person was in front of
us. a little more thought about our actions is a good thing.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I am thinking we should not do moderation on that level. Instead we
should make fedora-devel  a better place by becoming more technical and
usefull. When someone makes a post thats an attack or other, we should
stop responding to them. I think we can lead by example here, as well
as stopping feeding the trolls and non productive folks.
 
I note that since this proposal, the list has been a good deal more
tame. Is it the threat of moderation? People realizing they were not
adding to the discussion? Or just more techincal on-topic posts?
 
I'm not sure, but I think moderating is a pretty slippery slope.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think there is no right or wrong answer here.  people being rude or  argumentitive need to know that its not there right to be that way with  others.  I think sometimes we need to think if what we are about to send is  something that would be considered appropriate if that person was in front of  us. a little more thought about our actions is a good thing.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|It's kinda hard to moderate a mailing list because a mail can't be deleted or
edited once posted (unlike on a web forum). (I don't think running all mail
through manual moderation before it gets posted is an option.) I'm not sure it's
worth it, as the real problem the fedora-devel-list has is not the tone of
discussion (there have been a few abusive posts, but those were far from the
majority), but the volume. And reducing the volume without blocking legitimate
discussion is kinda hard because it's not always obvious whether a given post is
on topic or not. And I don't see why things like "Your idea is utterly stupid."
or posts which merely contain the "f-word" without insulting anybody should get
moderated, I think those are perfectly harmless. Racism, sexism or direct
insults towards a person (not their software) are clearly not acceptable and can
be moderated, I just don't think this alone will reduce the list's volume in a
significant way.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think something like this should be handled similar to how most
irc chat rooms are handled. The community should elect or appoint
(depending on how the structure is pefered or setup) moderators and
those moderators' judgement should be trusted. If in the event an user
feels they were not in the wrong after being banned, they can go
infront of the Board (or alternatively a Mailing List Committee)
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|The Board's provided policy actually spells out the answer to most of your
questions here (what's disallowed, who is the arbitrator, etc.). Honestly, I
think that policy is a good start, and doesn't need any tweaks yet.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|The temporary moderation of people is not only a proposal, it was passed
by the current FESCO. I'm uncertain if it is really going to improve
fedora-devel-list. I'd suggest to let some time pass and then review the
decision. See if the tone on -devel-list got friendlier, see how many
messages/people got moderated, see if the enacted moderation seemed
reasonable in hindsight.
If the answer is not positive, then it's time to abolish the rule and look
for something better.
 
In general, I'm very wary when it comes to moderating a mailinglist and
I'd like to see any such policies withdrawn sooner than later.
Regardless where you draw the line to moderating a message, it is
censorship. And censoring other opinions is a really bad idea. It's not
only wrong on a moral level, it also cultivates groupthink. Challenging
the way we are doing things or thinking about issues is very important.
If the tone is not what you'd expect, mention that. It usually helps. And
if it doesn't there's always the ability to filter your mail locally.
 
Any filtering should ever be done at the client as it's your own blacklist
and it's not imposed by a third party.
 
 
To come to the second part of the question, where to draw the line:
 
Again, I'm a strong proponent of using the skill called common sense. I
understand that it is becoming increasingly rare (compare
<http://filepile.dicp.de/common_sense.jpg>) but it is a much better way of
dealing with the issue of where to draw any line than trying to define it
in rules. The problem with fixed rules is that someone will find a way
around them. This would mean implementing another rule to fix the earlier
omission or create an exception and as can be seen by governments all over
the world: layering rules on top of other rules doesn't really do much
good.
 
So much for the general idea, applying this to mailinglist moderation in
case it is absolutely necessary (I wouldn't know why this should be the
case though):
I do believe that the decision on what to block and what to let through
should be left to the moderators. It is my hope that they will act using
their common sense. As this cannot be guaranteed, I would implement a
defined process of appealing such a moderation. If there are too many
valid complaints, we clearly need a better moderator. Checks and balances
it is commonly called.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think the board has already decided this. There will be one and we will
have a group of folks working to moderate behavior that is way beyond the
pale. Moderation will temporary provided the person settles down.
Profanity is not at issue. It's personal attacks and truly aggressive
behavior that is the problem.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|When I first read of this proposal on the board's list I thought it was
a joke, but obliviously it is not. Mike said it straight to the point:
"Oppression sucks. Censorship sucks. Board members spending their time
on jerk patrol sucks."
On the other hand I do see the problem very well, but I think we all
need to apply common sense here. If we started moderating people or even
unsubscribing them, we will run into bigger problems, because there is
nobody to define when a factual discussion ends and personal attacks
begin. We are trying to solve a social problem with a technical
solution, which is doomed to fail.
We are lucky to have a large community and IMO it is perfectly legal to
have different point of views. I'm sure we all love Jef 'best quotes
ever' Spaleta statements, they are the icing on the cake.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I dislike moderation, and I don't see the point. If you don't want to
read the flamewar, don't. Doesn't your mailer have a 'delete thread'
button?
 
The only thing I'd ban is posts lacking a correct In-Reply-To: or
References: header associating them with the thread to which they're
replying :)
 
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Please give three examples of other boards or communities you have participated in and the positive differences you made there.
|no they should not,  we should get them into fedora's kernel package and upstream.  If there is little to no chance that a module will be acceptable upstream  i dont see why it should be allowed in fedora as an out of kernel rpm module.  keeping a module in sync with fedora kernels is alot of work and leads to many broken deps and frustrated users.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I'm currently a seated member of the Fedora Board, and I have previously
served on FESCo. In addition, I'm leading the Fedora Legal effort, and
helped to build the Licensing guidelines that help ensure that Fedora
remains committed to Free Software. I'm also the chair of the Fedora
Packaging Committee, and have helped create the Fedora Packaging Guidelines.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|1) Rel-eng: I have generally tried to help rel-eng overall, focusing lately on
updates pushing and powerpc.
 
2) FESCo: I've been on FESCo for quite some time now, and I can't think of a
singular instance of making a huge impact.  I'm OK with that, as FESCo is
really about the long term impacts.
 
3) Fedora user: I've been a Fedora user since FC1 and have tested and helped
with a number of bugs along the way.  And yes, this counts. The Fedora user
community is one of the most important communities we have :).
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I've never been involved in another board and my first community experience was with Fedora.  I've committed my time to it.  I've communicated with many other projects, like SuSE for example and smolt.  The key is to find common goals and work towards them.  Be polite, empathetic, and understand there are multiple ways to do something.  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|• NA Ambassadors - Along with Clint Savage, John Rose, Brian Powell
and many others helped drive a resurgence in the NA Ambassador
Community. We went from leaning (some might say leeching) on Red Hat
to produce our swag, send RHT speakers, etc to truly driving the
schedule, doubling and in some cases tripling our appearances at LUGs,
BarCamps, and conferences, filling speaking slots with community
members rather than contributors from RH who are paid to speak. We
also greatly improved our swag efficiency and handle making all of it.
 
UCLUG - Steering committee member. Along with others pushed a
revitalization that in some cases increased our attendance by an order
of a magnitude. Creating content that appealed both to new users and
graybeards alike. Pushed multiple community outreach programs.
 
Southeast Linuxfest Foundation - Secretary of the Foundation -
organized (well still in the process really) and help build a regional
Linux conference in the Southeast that appears will successfully
happen on June 13th.
 
Blue Ridge Amateur Radio Society - multiple term vice president - led
community outreach with non-technical groups as well as government and
other radio groups. Grew organization to the largest of its kind in
the state, and putting on the largest amateur radio fest in the state.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|OLPC,
Spacewalk
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Well, I am quite active in #fedora trying to help users there. I have
also taken to trying to help out people on fedoraforum. I am also
active in some of my local LUG groups (nclug.org and
lug.boulder.co.us).
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|OLPC, Spacewalk
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I haven't been in a steering committee yet, unless you count KDE SIG as one.
 
The largest non-Fedora community I have been (and still am) involved with as a
developer is KDE: I saved Kompare from bitrot and removal in KDE 4.0.0 by
completing its KDE 4 port at the very last moment. (It only took me one night to
do the port, I would have done it sooner if I had realized that nobody else was
working on it.) I am now Kompare's official maintainer. I also use my commit
access from time to time to upstream fixes for issues discovered during Fedora
KDE packaging. Other team projects I participate in include TIGCC
[http://tigcc.ticalc.org/] (of which I've written a sizable portion of the code)
and TiEmu [http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tiemu/] (where my main achievement was
integrating GDB and the Insight GDB frontend into TiEmu to allow debugging C
programs from within TiEmu).
 
As you can see, I'm coming from the development side. However, I don't see this
as disadvantaging or disqualifying me: I believe a clear understanding of the
subject matter is more important than experience with sitting on some unrelated
committee.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I've been involved in Fedora since before the beginning, including serving
on the Fedora board itself. I'd hope that I've made a positive difference.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I started contributing to XEmacs and Emacs (I created find-func.el).
I started the "Haskell Fedora" packaging project which was merged to
fedora-haskell sig.  At Red Hat I have been contributing to input-method
development (reworked gimlet for iiimf, scim lang menu, etc).
I have contributed patches to quite a number of upstream projects.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"| * Management board/CEO of a not for profit Internet Service Provider.
  Implemented new processes to improve technical service quality,
  increase service/product offerings and increase the efficiency of the
  technical staff. Result: The ISP is still in business while nearly all
  comparable non-profit ISPs in the German market have failed. Added
  benefit: I did this all having lots of fun and even learning a few new
  things. \o/
 
* Teamlead during a project to wrestle control of the communication
  infrastructure for a residential accomodation (~500 appartments) away
  from the non-performing communications provider. This
  comprised a multi-year drive to rescind two multi-decades contracts,
  coming up with contingency plans as well as a long term alternative and
  convincing stakeholders of supporting this alternative. Result: Out
  with the old, in with the new, self-hosted communication
  infrastructure which is cheaper than before and performing way better.
 
* Delegate to various European gatherings about defining better
  Drug/Tobacco policies and lobbying governments into adopting them.
  Result: Lots of new friends all over Europe. The laws in question are
  unfortunately still not fixed. Added benefit: I learned how to lead
  people, and to better stay away from too much politics. It's better for
  one's mental health.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I have joined the LXDE community and foundation recently and it seems
like I'm the most active distro package maintainer. This is a success
for both Fedora and LXDE as the large interest at Chemnitzer Linuxtage
showed. Two important community members from LXDE have joined Fedora
afterward and even the lead developer switched to Fedora.
As a packager and ambassador I have managed to recruit other
contributors for Fedora and some of them have become quite important for
us, e. g. Sebastian Vahl, who is doing an amazing job in the KDE SIG.
I'm interested in politics and member of several NGOs. Please forgive my
for not going into details, I don't want people to judge me by things
that don't belong here.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|-
|-
 
|width="150"|Kevin Fenzi (nirik)  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Simple question: Among the two, do you prefer Gnome or KDE?
|No. If they are not good enough for the upstream kernel, why should they be good enough for our users ? I think kmods have their place in rpmfusion and other 3rd party repos, but I hope someday they will all be gone and no longer needed.  
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|For most things, I prefer GNOME, although, I do keep both installed on
my primary workstation.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't prefer either really.  I find likes and dislikes with both.  This is
not a political answer either.
 
On my machines, I typically run the default Gnome install, but use some KDE
applications such as k3b and amarok.  I find that I reinstall machines (for
testing!) too often to really bother changing defaults or being tied to a
particular environment.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|KDE.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|vi - ohhh wait that's the next question.
At the moment I am using Gnome, though I have been one of the
KDE-faithful for most of my Linux desktop 'career'.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|KDE
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Xfce. ;)
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|KDE
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|KDE, of course! :-) 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|In the current state of Gnome and KDE, to answer the exact question: KDE
    But having said that, I prefer Xfce over either of them.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I use GNOME. Why do you ask? (As litmus issues go, it seems somewhat
silly.)
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I use GNOME, but I am not a heavy desktop user - I mostly live in Emacs,
browser, virt-manager, and xchat-gnome.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Simple question, simple answer: I don't.
 
Longer answer: I'm not the typical desktop user. I'm only using
x-terminals, a graphical webbrowser and an IM client.
If there'd be a good browser for the framebuffer, I'd probably be
most of the time perfectly happy without X11.
 
As such I do not really care about the installed desktop as long as it's
not getting in the way of my work too often. Currently I'm using Gnome as
it's the default on Fedora but I have quite a lot of KDE developers among
my friends and have been mentioned in their credit file as well. Maybe
I'll give another window manager a try some time, a friend and fellow
Fedora contributor has been all the rave about a tool called awesome.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I don't really care. I need about 4 applications to get my job done. If
both Gnome and KDE died in a horrible code disaster I'd just open my
terminals and a firefox window and move along. I use gnome for the most
part b/c I have a set of keyboard shortcuts already defined for it and
I'm used to how the window popups behave. I'm certain that I could make
kde behave the same way in about a day if I had to. I'm positive I could
do the same with xfce or lxde or whatever-de is out there.
 
I think both gnome and kde are great. I just don't care that much anymore.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|None. I use Xfce and LXDE. (Smart answer, isn't it?)
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I am unqualified to answer this question, because I haven't used KDE for
about ten years. I _used_ to use KDE, but switched to GNOME about that
long ago.
 
I'm increasingly frustrated with what I referred to above as the 'GNOME
disease', and Evolution makes me want to bash my head against the wall
almost daily. I'm almost tempted to switch back to KDE to see if I hate
it any less.
 
 
|-
|-
 
|colspan="2"|[[#Questions|Return to top]]
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Do you think a Fedora Foundation is still worth pursuing? Why or Why not?
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I do not think it is worth pursuing at this time. The problems that
originally caused us to stop pursuing that option still exist:
 
* For patents, OIN does that job for us, and Red Hat is already a member
so Fedora gets those benefits.
* For legal coverage, Red Hat Legal are experts in the fields that
Fedora needs coverage in. A independent foundation makes it far more
difficult for us to directly leverage their expertise.
* For financial reasons, a US non-profit cannot take the majority of
their funding from one source, and it is very unlikely that Fedora could
be self-sustaining in the near future. Our hosting and bandwidth costs
alone are very significant.
 
I also do not feel that Red Hat has interfered with Fedora in any
significant way, and that the Fedora Board remains the primary decision
maker and governance body for Fedora.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I have no insight to the original pursuits so I'm not very familiar with the
problems that were encountered.  It would be a bit silly of me to state an
opinion without having some amount of knowledge on the issue.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I wish we had a Fedora Foundation though the details of that are fuzzy to me.  It would be convenient to have a separate legal entity to Red Hat.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I do think it is.
The real benefit is the efficient handling of money. A number of
initiatives within Fedora hinge on our being able to deal with money,
and those initiatives (such as the Fedora store) are routinely blocked
as legally Fedora is effectively a non-entity, or at best the spawn of
Red Hat.
I don't think, unless things changed dramatically, that there is a
possibility for a US-based non-profit entity, but there are a number
of different strategies that might be available.
Fedora EMEA e.V. makes tremendous use of it's organization.
There are a number of thorny issues, from financial, to trademark, to
even the relationship with Red Hat that need to be resolved and
researched. That said I think that continued exploration of this
matter is important, and could be a boon for Fedora in many ways.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think it would need to be evaluated if we were going to get resources
donated on the same level as Red Hat does from other companies.  Until we have
that level of investment then its extra overhead for little gain
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|No. I think it would not help any, and might loose us support from our
biggest supporter.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I think it would need to be evaluated if we were going to get resources  donated on the same level as Red Hat does from other companies.  Until we have  that level of investment then its extra overhead for little gain 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|It might be worth pursuing a Fedora Foundation outside of the US if that allows
us to avoid patent restrictions. But assuming it wouldn't (which is likely
because Red Hat might still be liable for contributory infringement), I don't
think a foundation would change much, so in that case the answer is "no".
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|In the US? Almost certainly not; the funding requirements alone make it
pretty much a non-starter. Having a Foundation elsewhere depends on the
cost/benefit ratio; does the ability to accept cash donations really
enable that many more things that couldn't be done now that would justify
the legal expense, the trademark agreements, and other costs? I'm not
convinced yet. (Then again, this is sort of an odd question for FESCo.)
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Maybe sometime but currently it does not look a priority to me.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|The word from Red Hat was, that the Foundation will not be further pursued
as it would actually be detrimental to the current involvement of Red Hat
in Fedora.
As far as I know, circumstances haven't changed, so I do not see any
reason to further pursue this idea.
 
If an organisation is needed to help organizing events or act as a legal
body for contracts etc. I had the impression that non-profit associations
such as Fedora EMEA e.V. are doing a fine job as is and mostly alleviated
the need for a Foundation.
 
Anyway, I do believe that this question would be better posed to a board
candidate then a FESCO candidate.
 
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|only sometimes. It's a world of pain - but it could be good to unhinge
certain obligations. I'm not settled on it and I doubt seriously it will
ever happen.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|If possible yes, but I personally would not invest to much work here. I
like the model of regional leadership and we already have some local
entities that are doing very well. I think we should rather follow that
approach.
 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|-
|-
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Should kernel module packages be allowed in Fedora?
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Nope. I think that there are many reasons for this, but the primary one
is that it encourages people to not get that code merged into the
upstream Linux kernel, where it truly belongs.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|No.  The code belongs in the upstream kernel, where it would get into Fedora
by default.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|I have no opinion on this except that if the module is good enough for Fedora, it should ultimately be sent upstream.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|This is a FESCo issue and not a Board issue.
I personally wouldn't want to see kernel modules in Fedora's repos.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|no they should not,  we should get them into fedora's kernel package and
upstream.  If there is little to no chance that a module will be acceptable
upstream  i dont see why it should be allowed in fedora as an out of kernel
rpm module.  keeping a module in sync with fedora kernels is alot of work and
leads to many broken deps and frustrated users.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|No. If they are not good enough for the upstream kernel, why should
they be good enough for our users ? I think kmods have their place in
rpmfusion and other 3rd party repos, but I hope someday they will all
be gone and no longer needed.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|no they should not,  we should get them into fedora's kernel package and  upstream.  If there is little to no chance that a module will be acceptable  upstream  i dont see why it should be allowed in fedora as an out of kernel  rpm module.  keeping a module in sync with fedora kernels is alot of work and  leads to many broken deps and frustrated users. 
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Yes (assuming the license of the module is compatible with the kernel's GPLv2
license). There should be no restrictions other than this and the restrictions
applying to all Fedora packages. We allow plugin packages for any application
and I don't think anybody would seriously consider banning them (I certainly
won't!), so I don't see why the kernel has to be special. The counterargument
that coordinating the updates with kernel updates is hard is not a good one
because having the modules in Fedora would allow using grouped pushes in Bodhi,
whereas the current ban relegates the modules to third-party repositories where
coordination with kernel updates in Fedora will always be a problem.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|No. They are difficult to maintain and the Fedora kernel
contributors time is better spent on upstream kernel components.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|No. It adds to the kernel maintenance, doesn't push the proper message for
getting drivers upstream, and never stays up to date with the current kernel
(causing users to get 'stuck' on older kernels). Drivers actually headed
upstream should be added to the main kernel packages; drivers not actually
headed anywhere upstream are a bad idea to include.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|That would be topic which should be decided together with the Kernel
maintainers as it falls under their responsibility.
The last time I checked, they were pretty much set against the idea of
carrying out of tree modules.
Thus I think there is no need to revisit this issue, nothing has changed.
Furthermore, I do not think there's a need for Fedora to ship kernel
modules and compromise our follow-upstream policy:
RPMfusion does a pretty good job shipping kernel modules for a variety of
needs. This third-party repository explicitly does follow our own
packaging guidelines so any fedora packager can easily start creating
kmod-packages which will work fine on Fedora.
Problem solved.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|no.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Yes. IMO it was a mistake to remove them, but the final word i snot yet
spoken. A decision needs to involve FESCO, FPC and the kernel guys.
|style="vertical-align:top;min-width:400px;"|Absolutely not. If it's not good enough for upstream, it's not good
enough for Fedora.
|}
|}

Revision as of 19:56, 5 June 2009

Election Questionnaire

Please place questions you would like to see candidates for the various offices answer. If your question is specific to one office (such as the Board or FESCo), please indicate that.

Questions

These question have been sent to the candidates:

Main

  1. If you could single-handedly change one thing about Fedora, what would it be and why?
  2. Please name three things you plan to work on and realize while being on the Board or FESCo!
  3. If elected, how will Fedora as a project be better as a result of your leadership? Or IOW: What strengths will you bring to the Fedora board/FESCo that are currently missing?
  4. What do you see as Fedora's greatest strength and weakness, and what will you do to improve upon that? Or IOW: Which processes have worked best in Fedora, and which processes need to be improved?
  5. What is Fedora's place in the larger community with respect to other distributions?
  6. What are you going to be doing in the Fedora Board that you cannot do outside of it or how would being in board/FESCo help in what you want to accomplish?
  7. What do you consider to be Fedora's raison d'etre? In the past the focus of Fedora has shifted from release to release. Do you see a long-term goal or a "target audience" Fedora should strive for? How do you define your role in helping the project reaching that goal?
  8. What are your unique strengths and what are your weaknesses?
  9. How will you make the work for in Fedora easier and more fun?

More

  1. Who is Fedora for?
  2. Should any steps be taken to make sure releases don't get as much last minute delays as in the past? If yes: which?
  3. How or to what extent would you say are Fedora's governance bodies responsible for protecting volunteers and volunteer based efforts against interference from within Red Hat by either person or policy?
  4. The Fedora Project suffers from a lack of communication. In 2009 for 8 out of 21 FESCo meetings no meeting minutes were sent to the lists. What would you do to improve communication between the different groups in Fedora and especially between FESCo, Board and the community?
  5. What would you do to cleanup and organize the Fedora project packaging guidelines, rules and other wiki pages to make it more consistent and easier for new contributors?
  6. There is a proposal out there to moderate fedora-devel. What should be disallowed? Racist or sexist speech? Profanity? At what point does a complaint against a small project become a personal attack? ie "Your idea is utterly stupid." Should we disallow trolls or posts likely to start flamewars? Who will decide the difference between intelligent debate and flaming?
  7. Please give three examples of other boards or communities you have participated in and the positive differences you made there.
  8. Simple question: Among the two, do you prefer Gnome or KDE?
  9. Do you think a Fedora Foundation is still worth pursuing? Why or Why not?
  10. Should kernel module packages be allowed in Fedora?

Answers

For easier reviewing we provide two version of the answers: 

* text based (copy'n'pasted from the emails with the answers)
* in a openoffice table

Answers Wiki Table

1. If you could single-handedly change one thing about Fedora, what would it be and why?
Tom Callaway (spot) If I could snap my fingers and have the world redraw itself around me, I would lift all the legal barriers preventing patent and DMCA encumbered FOSS code from being included in Fedora. RPMFusion does a very good job of keeping these packages maintained, but it would be much nicer to have these things properly integrated into Fedora. Of course, I realize this isn't likely to actually happen anytime soon. :)
Josh Boyer (jwb) This is an odd question to me, given that if I could single-handedly do it myself, then I'd just DO IT. Most of the issues we face take collaboration and in that spirit I'll answer with: The way we do communications at times. We have a myriad of lists of varying topics, the wiki, IRC, etc. And yet we still seem to have trouble getting the proper information to the people interested in it. I have no great solution for this, but it is the one thing I would like to see improve.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) Better market recognition of what fedora is and who should use it.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) I'd introduce time-shifting to allow us to accomplish everything without slips and yet for all appearance look like we hit schedule with no struggle. I'd also use this to schedule vacations for those contributors who constantly seem busy and overworked. Seriously though, I see continued growing pains in different areas of Fedora - I wish I had a way to single-handedly mitigate some of those growing pains.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) Enable people to find a place that they fit in fedora, more easily, sometimes it seems to be hard to find out how to scratch your itch.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) I would change the perception that Fedora is just a testbed for RHEL and not a very nice distribution in it's own right. I think we would gain more contributors if this was more widely known.
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2. Please name three things you plan to work on and realize while being on the Board or FESCo!
Tom Callaway (spot)
  1. Simplifying the Fedora CLA: The existing CLA is a mess, and it is a bit too broad for the needs of Fedora. I plan to work with Red Hat Legal and the Fedora Board to reword the CLA so that it is a minimal, easy to understand document with a smaller audience. Ambassadors and people who want to make wiki changes should not need to sign the CLA, for example.
  2. Defining the primary Fedora target: This is a tough one, because I do believe that it is a good thing that Fedora has a broad community of users and developers, but it is also important for the Board to define who the _primary_ target of Fedora is, so that we can make smart design and development decisions.
  3. Working on making it easier for people to participate in Fedora. I want to eliminate red tape and bureaucracy wherever possible and ensure that people are able to be involved and happy in the Fedora community.
Josh Boyer (jwb) These are in no specific order:
  1. Continuing the Secondary Architecture effort.
  2. Continue to try and encourage users to become contributors in a number of ways.
  3. Aid in defining "what is fedora". That seems like an entirely challenging topic to tackle, and I like a challenge.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) Stronger focus for the project. More freedoms for contributors. Growth of Fedora the project beyond Fedora the OS.
David Nalley (ke4qqq)
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) Secondary arches more widely accepted and worked on. EPEL moved to koji/bodhi requirements for new VCS
Kevin Fenzi (nirik)
  1. I would like to try and work on the backlog of merge reviews. I think if we can get that monkey off our back we could open up a lot of great possibilities, like re-reviews of existing packages, less frustration for contributors and increase quality.
  2. I would like to try and see about increasing communication between the various Fedora support channels: IRC, forums and mailing lists.
  3. I would like to try and increase communication also between FESCo and the community.
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3. If elected, how will Fedora as a project be better as a result of your leadership? Or IOW: What strengths will you bring to the Fedora board/FESCo that are currently missing?
Tom Callaway (spot) Keeping in mind that I am running for re-election to the Fedora Board, I think that I bring a significant amount of experience with Fedora to the Board, having been involved with the project since the Red Hat Linux days. I also feel that as an active packager, I have a high level of appreciation for the pain that Fedora packagers feel, and I am a good representative of that aspect of the community.
Josh Boyer (jwb) I think the Board is fairly well balanced today. We have a diverse set of members from a variety of backgrounds. So I don't think there is anything major that is currently missing. What I will try and contribute is a view on overall release quality and package robustness, as well as representing the community as best I can.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I think a better focus and more defined project goal will go a long way for Fedora. We really aren't SuSE, Debian or Ubuntu and shouldn't get compared to them.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) Compared to most of my running mates I am a n00b, having only joined the Fedora Project in early 2006. I hope to bring some of that vantage point to the Fedora Board.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) since i'm on FESCOo i don't offer anything new there. For the board I offer someone to represent the the smaller portions of the fedora community.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) This seems like more a question for someone not already in fesco, but I think I have a good deal of understanding of how things work in fedora and work in many different parts of it. I think this perspective is very usefull.
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4. What do you see as Fedora's greatest strength and weakness, and what will you do to improve upon that? Or IOW: Which processes have worked best in Fedora, and which processes need to be improved?
Tom Callaway (spot) I think our greatest strength is our community as a whole, we are passionate and hard-working. There are a few key weaknesses that we still need to improve upon:
  • QA: We're making good steps here, but we still need to build automated QA infrastructure.
  • Package Review: We need to streamline this process, and automate as much of it as we can.
Josh Boyer (jwb) Fedora's greatest strength is it's contributor base. We have a great set of contributors that continute to drive Fedora forward. I think one of our weaknesses (and we do have more than one), is that we as a community can get too hung up on tiny details and can easily lose some of the 'bigger picture'. For example, creating policies and processes for everything under the sun. It is my belief that a process should be a benefit and _help_ to the overall project, not a hurdle. So trying to processize every possible issue that comes up just adds more hoops to jump through and generally increases the amount of effort needed to participate.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) Fedora's greatest strength is it's large contributor base, it's weakness is letting that contributor base flounder a bit.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) One of the strengths Fedora possesses is the relationship with Red Hat. There is made available to the project, because of this relationship, incredible resources in people, time, money, and equipment that would likely not be available otherwise. This relationship has also been a hindrance at times, though largely it's gotten far better than most would have hoped.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) Fedoras greatest strength and weakness is the rapid pace of development. constantly pushing the boundaries and being first in market in many cases.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) I think our contributors are our greatest asset. We need more of them to share their passion for Fedora. Our weakness is growing that pool of contributors. I would love to see us engage our end user community and show them how great and fun it is to become an active contributor.
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5. What is Fedora's place in the larger community with respect to other distributions?
Tom Callaway (spot) Fedora is a leader. We are pushing the boundaries of Free Software every day, and we have a commitment to working with upstream to make significant improvements. We are also working with other distributions to collaborate on complicated efforts or to standardize our processes. For example, I'm meeting with members of the OpenSUSE community at LinuxTag to see where we can have a common set of packaging guidelines.
Josh Boyer (jwb) I view Fedora as the leading (sometimes bleeding) edge distribution overall. It is often the first to ship the latest versions of packages, and it strives to do so in a quality manner. More importantly, it is often the first to ship the combination of the latest packages, which helps shake out bugs in the package interactions and has a trickle down effect for other distros.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) Fedora works with upstream and gets new technologies first.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) Fedora is the place of innovation. This means that many people come here to deploy new technology and features first, and come with the idea that this is the proving ground, that deploying within Fedora will gain them a huge userbase and perfect their product. We've are also rapidly becoming the standard bearer for freedom and openness.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) Fedora is a leader and prover of new technologies. it is a place where everyone can scratch there personal itch and come together to make a great product for everyone to use.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) Well, Fedora is not an enterprise distro with support channels and such, but otherwise I think it fits a large number of use cases. I think it's ideal for todays desktop/laptop use. I think it's great for development servers for exploring new tech.
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6. What are you going to be doing in the Fedora Board that you cannot do outside of it or how would being in board/FESCo help in what you want to accomplish?
Tom Callaway (spot) I think that participating in the Fedora Board helps me ensure that Fedora makes intelligent and strategic long term decisions, and that the best interests of the Fedora community are well represented.
Josh Boyer (jwb) To be honest, not much. One of the things I like the most about Fedora is that you don't have to be in a committee or on the Board to really make an impact on the project. We strive to keep that true and I continue to be impressed at the amount of work that gets done without any sort of Board/FESCo interaction. That being said, I do want to participate in some of the higher level project discussions that the Board tackles. Things like trademark guidelines, 'What is Fedora', etc.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I'm hoping to focus more on visionary goals for Fedora on the board. In my current position I work a great deal on implementation of those goals but not so much in forming them as that's the board's job.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) I personally would love to help drive consideration of a Fedora foundation-like entity.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) Make sure that those smaller groups inside fedora get heard. Provide a strong voice for secondary arches.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) I'm not sure that it does really. Anyone can contribute and step up without being in fesco. Being in fesco allows one to help guide things as a whole and help others come up with the best way forward. I look forward to helping others with their ideas in fesco and bringing my ideas and plans there.
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7. What do you consider to be Fedora's raison d'etre? In the past the focus of Fedora has shifted from release to release. Do you see a long-term goal or a "target audience" Fedora should strive for? How do you define your role in helping the project reaching that goal?
Tom Callaway (spot) This is a difficult question to answer. I think that the long term goal of encouraging Free Software is key to Fedora, and I do believe that we should define a primary target for Fedora to ensure that our efforts are not spread too thin or confused. I also don't think that we should take any steps that would limit the effort of motivated community members to shape Fedora for their own needs or wants. To put it bluntly, if our primary target is the Desktop PowerUser, we should still try to make every effort to not make life difficult for a SIG working on making a Fedora Server spin. Its a difficult balance to walk, but I think we have to try.
Josh Boyer (jwb) I think this is something we as a community are struggling with right now. For a long time, just getting a quality release out the door on time was enough to satisfy people. And that may still be valid for many. I know that is usually enough for me, as I tend to enjoy the whole rel-eng aspect of things. However, others are looking for this long-term goal as a way to guide their contributions. The Board has recently started tackling this issue with the 'What is Fedora' discussions, and I do hope to participate in those.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) Fedora is the Linux technology leader. I also want to help Fedora become more of a tool for the larger OSS and technology players. When Dell, IBM, or whoever says "I want to put $NEW_PRODUCT together and give it a try." I want Fedora to be the first in that list for deployment and partnership. I'd also like Fedora to be a way for the big players to get in touch with the tons of little players for feedback, testing, input, etc. Fedora is a perfect platform for this.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) I think focus that shifts from release to release is a good thing. One it's driven by the people doing the work, and as this is a meritocracy, the people doing the work should continue driving the direction of Fedora. I can't help but think that by pigeonholing ourselves as a 'desktop focused' distro or 'server focused' distro that we end up losing valuable contributors, and that it would unnecessarily constrain innovation. I honestly think that the four foundations really encapsulates a lot of Fedora's mission and fear too much being set in stone. I don't envision the Board as being the oracle on high who tells us which direction to go, but rather the guard rail on the edge of the precipice that keeps the project within bounds and out of danger.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) I think fedora is more of a techie, developer distro. it is a place where you can prove that your new shiny thing works and is valuable to all. it is useable by everyone but not neccesarily always the best choice. Fedora is not for those wanting long term support, that is where CentOS and RHEL fit in. I personally run servers with fedora on them.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) I think it's impossible to come up with one 'target audience'. Fedora is what we contributors make it. If you want to have a distro that works well on desktops for end users, then work on that. Of course some use cases are out of scope or incompatible. In those cases I think we need to choose where best to spend out resources. We should strive to allow various use cases where there are contributors working on those areas, and if its possible to.
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8. What are your unique strengths and what are your weaknesses?
Tom Callaway (spot) Strengths: I haven't come across a piece of code that I couldn't get into an RPM package, and I understand FOSS licensing better than most hackers. Weaknesses: I'm not as good of a software coder as I would like to be. I (occasionally) have great ideas, but lack the skillset to implement them.
Josh Boyer (jwb) I have no amazing super-powers. I generally consider myself fairly competent on the engineering side of things, with a focus more on code than packaging. I also try to be open minded, but I'm not afraid to take a position on something if I feel strongly about it. As for weaknesses, I have those too. I'd like to be more educated in how the non-engineering communities of Fedora function. I can be overly negative at times. I also have a decreasing tolerance for trolls and flame-fest email threads, though I do still try to read them. I dislike kittens and ponies.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I'm a fast learner who knows when it's time to work, and when it's time to have fun. I'm a results oriented person though the path from point A to point B is also important. I also value simplicity which I see as a strength. My weaknesses include the occasional short temper and horrible spelling.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) As a relative n00b I think I understand the challenges faced by some of the more recent contributors, and the people who have yet to begin contributing. At the same time, I don't have the experience leading the Fedora Project that most of the other candidates do.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) I have a good understanding of how the different parts of fedora work how they all fit in together from buildsys to releng and everything in between. I may not always know how a regular user may use something. helping my mum use fedora has shown me that.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) well, I have been involved with fedora for a long time, and know a lot about how things are put together. I think thats both. New perspectives may come up with a better ideas, but knowing the history and reasons for things is important as well.
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9. How will you make the work for in Fedora easier and more fun?
Tom Callaway (spot) Less paperwork, less manual steps, more areas of opportunity. :)
Josh Boyer (jwb) Fun is a relative term. For example, if you don't find packaging fun to begin with, I doubt I can do anything to really make it more fun. And 'easier' isn't always a goal either. To be honest, some of the items and issues we face _are_ hard and trying to make them easier usually doesn't get any progress. There are times we need people to simply dig in and work such items, even if they aren't fun or easy. That being said, there are things we can do to make sure we aren't making things harder than they really are. I answered a previous question with the example of too many policies and procedures. Things like that can and should be avoided and should hopefully make Fedora a more enjoyable project to contribute to.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I think Fedora is in an interesting transition period right now in an industry that's currently in transition. Getting a better focus in place so that all of our thousands of contributors are working towards the same goal will keep expectations in line more. Additionally, in the more practical sense, I'll continue my work in Fedora Infrastructure to keep things fast as well as continue to help make more tools feature rich and useful.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) I would hope that staying out of the way would help work progress in a fun and easy manner. Perhaps I could tell a few jokes, though my wife claims I have no talent when it comes to humor.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) I will try to make it simpler and more consistent.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) I would like to see more engagement and community amoung contributors. Perhaps some non tech gatherings on irc, or more use of #fedora-social or the like.
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10. Who is Fedora for?
Tom Callaway (spot) That's the big question, isn't it! I truly believe that Fedora is flexible, in that you can make it work for your needs, but in the same breath, that there needs to be a well defined primary use target. This may be controversial, but I don't think that primary target is "Aunt Tillie, Desktop User, afraid of the Command Line". I think Fedora is more for a power-user, someone who is comfortable with using a computer, but also wants good tools (GUI and CLI) to help them be productive with their day to day tasks (Email, Web, Games, Development, Communication, Multimedia). I think Fedora is for folks who like to know how things work, even if they will never make a single code change.
Josh Boyer (jwb) Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... More seriously, this is a really hard question to answer.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) Fedora should be for enthusiasts, hobbyists and people that are actually doing the work that ultimately becomes a free software product. Every Fedora user could be a contributor.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) What I think you are really asking is 'What is Fedora's target demographic?' The people that Fedora should be targeting is contributors. This isn't to say the Fedora is a 'developer's distribution' necessarily, nor is it to say the contrary. What it does say is that it takes a ton of work, a huge portion of that volunteer, to make Fedora successful. That means, at least in my mind, we should stop trying to nail down where we are in the sea of free software and let the waves of contributors direct us by their actions. If we seek out and grow Fedora contributors we make Fedora more successful. Dennis Gilmore wrote 'I work really hard on those things I believe in.' in his nomination for the board, and I think that sentiment is true in large part all across Fedora. When people care about something, they work passionately at it. Fedora is for those passionate contributors. We're happy that others, like OLPC, Moblin, RHEL, and the millions of Fedora users across the globe like recognize the excellence that those passionate contributors make, but those are largely serendipitous.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) everyone
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) Many folks. Early adopters. Folks who like new tech. Desktop users. Development server users. Many others.
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11. Should any steps be taken to make sure releases don't get as much last minute delays as in the past? If yes: which?
Tom Callaway (spot) I think that Release Engineering makes every effort to try to minimize last minute delays, but some are simply unavoidable. With the exception of Fedora 10, which was delayed due to the security intrusion during the release cycle, I think we've had a better handle on what needs to be done to minimize "slips" in our release cycle. Improving the QA and bug triage earlier in the release process is key to minimizing last minute delays, and we're making positive progress in those areas.
Josh Boyer (jwb) Possibly, yes. There is a Fedora Activity Day June 8-10 that will try and address some of this. I am participating in that and look forward to what we can come up with to help here.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) More QA in earlier steps, earlier feature freeze. The former of which requires more people.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) This is FESCo's domain, and not a Board issue. From a personal perspective, I'd love to see no delays, and I think some of the current discussions on fedora-devel about length of composes, time spent running updates, etc are beginning to show some of the growing pains that we are experiencing as a project. I look forward to seeing some of the novel approaches to dealing with this.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) As much as we can we should try to always improve how we do releases/ handle blocker bugs. but i fear we will always find last minute blockers.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) I'm not sure what could be done, aside from trying to slow fedora down. Delays happen. Perhaps we could place more resources on those areas that have caused delays in the past.
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12. How or to what extent would you say are Fedora's governance bodies responsible for protecting volunteers and volunteer based efforts against interference from within Red Hat by either person or policy?
Tom Callaway (spot) [Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat, but they do not tell me what to say.] In general, I think that in almost every possible situation, Red Hat is content to let Fedora do whatever it needs to do to be successful. The only places where Red Hat steps in are areas where Fedora's actions would construe a legal, financial or security risk to Red Hat as a company, and these are few and far between. I think that outside of those conditions, the Fedora Board (and FESCo) should feel entirely unencumbered by Red Hat's interference, keeping in mind that Red Hat (and its employees) are major contributors.
Josh Boyer (jwb) I don't understand this question. It seems to be predicated on the theory that Red Hat has some nefarious notions in store for Fedora, and I simply don't think that is the case. Fedora has existed for a number of years now, and during that time it has continually become more open and less Red Hat governed. I'd be happy to discuss it further if there were more concrete examples or concerns.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I think it's the FPL's position to fight for Fedora freedom wrt our primary provider. In particular I think our agreement with our contributors should protect each party equally.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) As I said earlier I see the Board (and FESCo and every other governance body) as a guard rail. Ideally they never get in the way and are largely unnoticed by the vast majority. However, they serve an excellent purpose as a safety measure to keep things from going awry. As I mentioned earlier the bond with Red Hat is great for Fedora and at times bad for Fedora, even if it's only in perception. I see the various governance bodies as there to make it easy to contribute and get things done. To the extent that RH (or even groups within Fedora) makes that difficult, I definitely think that it's within their purview to try and fix the situation. I'll note that previous Boards dropped the onerous CLA process from something that often took weeks to complete to something that is click-through now. Another example is FESCo's relatively recent move to make getting sponsored as a packager easier, by limiting the rights that packagers have and creating a new class called provenpackager.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) I think we need to ensure that all people are free to do the work that interests them regardless of who there employer is.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) I'm not sure I understand the question. What sort of 'interference' ?
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13. The Fedora Project suffers from a lack of communication. In 2009 for 8 out of 21 FESCo meetings no meeting minutes were sent to the lists. What would you do to improve communication between the different groups in Fedora and especially between FESCo, Board and the community?
Tom Callaway (spot) I can't really talk to the FESCo management. I know that documentation is not fun to do, but it seems to me like there is room for improvement in that space. On the Board, we've worked hard to take good meeting notes with gobby, and then publish those notes on a timely basis for the entire community to see. We also have regular public meetings, and I think they have been extremely productive. In my role as Fedora Packaging Committee Chair, I've worked hard to ensure that as new guidelines are added (or old ones amended), an explanatory email is sent out to the development community, so that no one is surprised later on at an unexpected change.
Josh Boyer (jwb) FYI there is a FESCo ticket opened to fix this very item. As a member of FESCo, I agree we screwed up earlier in the year in regards to meeting minutes and hopefully we'll come up with a good mechanism to get them written and published in a timely manner soon. In terms of the Board communications, I am not entirely sure what, if anything, more could be communicated. The Board discusses confidential material often, and I think John has done a good job with the meeting minutes so far. If I am elected to the Board, I will keep an eye on this issue and make sure that as much information as can be disclosed is.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I think too many people have their eyes in too many projects. If the FESCo meetings were important to someone, they are free to go to the meetings or log them. Meeting minutes don't force people to pay attention and if a contributor doesn't have time to read the meeting log, it's possible they shouldn't be involved with the FESCo workings anyway. I think more of our contributors should focus on fewer things and focus on the quality of those things, not the number of things they're involved in. Group to group communication can be a problem. There are technical fixes to this but also policy changes. I think there's room for better communication between groups, but I feel more accountability towards the group leaders for communication. Poelstra has done wonders in this respect and the release readiness meetings.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) Having been responsible for meeting logs I can empathize with those doing the work that it's not easy to get done particularly with everything else going on in a meeting. That said such communication is vital, but for openness and just general communication. I've noticed that other organizations and even one of our SIGs uses a meeting bot, to record and publish meetings. That would help alleviate the situation you refer to specifically, but doesn't deal with all of it. I've noticed that the Board has engaged a non-member to handle publishing minutes from meetings, and that strikes me as a good idea, but perhaps not foolproof. As a contributor, I started in early 2006 and kept up with mailing list traffic and was on IRC for certain meetings. Until 2008 I never realized how much really went on in IRC. In some ways I think that's very efficient, in others I think it's unfortunate as it essentially hides a lot of the inner workings from people. Perhaps logging and posting minutes of key channels is the answer, but that's also a LOT of content, and I think it would largely go unread. At a minimum I think groups should be publishing at least informal agendas for meetings to the mailing list.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) Look into having a meeting logging irc bot. that will post minutes for us making them consistent between the different groups within fedora.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) Sadly, this was a failed attempt at spreading the log taking out. We need to be much more clear who is responsible for the logs and minutes, and I think we should require they be posted the same day as the meeting, if not right after. It's usually much easier to just do them as the meeting happens than try and go back and do them later anyhow. I would be happy to just do them moving foward if that's needed.
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14. What would you do to cleanup and organize the Fedora project packaging guidelines, rules and other wiki pages to make it more consistent and easier for new contributors?
Tom Callaway (spot) Can I have 6 extra hours each day? :) This is definitely something that could use some work, and I would encourage anyone who has a suggestion for cleanup or reorganization (without making changes to the actual guidelines) of the Packaging Guidelines to talk to me.
Josh Boyer (jwb) Encourage the people that take interest in that. I'll be honest and say that at a personal level, I can't see me having the time to focus on cleaning it up myself. However I would certainly want to make sure that those willing to do that work aren't hindered in any way.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I don't think that's the boards job, so running for the board I don't feel that I'd get involved unless there were a major issue, like packages no longer getting accepted into Fedora. As far as new contributors I feel more documentation is required on the part of the major groups. Podcasts, video casts to welcome people are one idea I've been kicking around. In particular Fedora is so large that people get overwhelmed and have no idea what to expect. I'd like to see the groups spend more time on new people expectations.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) This is a FESCo issue, though watching some of the involvement with FPC and the Docs Project to accomplish the consistency and ease of use has been interesting. Personally I think this is an issue everyone agrees on, and there are already efforts underway (although surely slowed due to the impending release) to get this accomplished and I think it should run its course.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) Move them out of the wiki into a CMS perhaps, or perhaps look at making them into something that can be printed as a book/pdf.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) Part of the problem with a wiki approach is that things get slowly modified over time and overall organization gets lost. I think in order to do better in this area we need to step back and come up with a plan for reorganizing things.
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15. There is a proposal out there to moderate fedora-devel. What should be disallowed? Racist or sexist speech? Profanity? At what point does a complaint against a small project become a personal attack? ie "Your idea is utterly stupid." Should we disallow trolls or posts likely to start flamewars? Who will decide the difference between intelligent debate and flaming?
Tom Callaway (spot) I think that some people on the Fedora mailing list have gone beyond respectful and reasonable discussion/disagreement in their comments, and unfortunately, were creating a negative environment for people to work in. I proposed that our moderation policies be based around the idea that we should all "be excellent to each other", even when we disagree. I think when people start to make personal attacks against individuals or projects, that goes over the line. You can get the same message across with: "I feel strongly that the idea that you have proposed is not good for Fedora, because foo and bar and baz." as opposed to: "Your idea is F*%$&^% stupid, and only a *&(^%& would think it was good." We'll have to wing it as we go along, but I'm hopeful that this new moderation policy will help people to think twice before they decide to say something that they may later regret.
Josh Boyer (jwb) There is a balance to be struck. Criticism of the project is often one of the best ways to help us grow, but there are times where it can go too far. And I'm not sure you can really quantify and codify what the boundaries are. Frankly, I think even the specter of moderation is likely to help. It can be surprising how often a gentle reminder to be polite can work. I also think that as a community we should trust our elected leadership to do the right thing. If they aren't, and there are egregious examples of abuse by the leadership, I'm fairly confident that they can't be censored from the internet completely and they'll be pointed out. I am not worried in the slightest about this.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I'm against censorship in any form. If trolls want to be trolls, people can ban them on their own via mail filters, etc.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) Wow that's a lot of questions - I'll be honest and say I really dislike the idea of moderation, and do so for several reasons. Censoring some or all 'bad speech' is a zero sum game. And it's always going to infuriate someone. The worst offense that censorship brings is waste. Some of the most talented, hardest working people in Fedora are the same people who are likely to have to moderate, what a waste of precious cycles. At initial blush, I'd almost guess that something akin to greylisting might be employed once a thread reaches some arbitrary number (100 is the number sticking in my head). So essentially once a thread hits that arbitrary number, messages for that thread are rejected for 36-48 hours. This doesn't directly solve the problem of people not 'being excellent to each other' but does make the medicine a bit less painful, and hopefully automated. Every instance of 'bad behavior in recent memory seems to have occurred in massive threads that can't seem to die. Perhaps that's a stupid suggestion, after all it's 1am, and I'm still up working on these questions. Realistically there is no good solution to people behaving badly in a volunteer community, you are essentially left choosing the difference between multiple evils.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) I think there is no right or wrong answer here. people being rude or argumentitive need to know that its not there right to be that way with others. I think sometimes we need to think if what we are about to send is something that would be considered appropriate if that person was in front of us. a little more thought about our actions is a good thing.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) I am thinking we should not do moderation on that level. Instead we should make fedora-devel a better place by becoming more technical and usefull. When someone makes a post thats an attack or other, we should stop responding to them. I think we can lead by example here, as well as stopping feeding the trolls and non productive folks. I note that since this proposal, the list has been a good deal more tame. Is it the threat of moderation? People realizing they were not adding to the discussion? Or just more techincal on-topic posts? I'm not sure, but I think moderating is a pretty slippery slope.
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16. Please give three examples of other boards or communities you have participated in and the positive differences you made there.
Tom Callaway (spot) I'm currently a seated member of the Fedora Board, and I have previously served on FESCo. In addition, I'm leading the Fedora Legal effort, and helped to build the Licensing guidelines that help ensure that Fedora remains committed to Free Software. I'm also the chair of the Fedora Packaging Committee, and have helped create the Fedora Packaging Guidelines.
Josh Boyer (jwb)
  1. Rel-eng: I have generally tried to help rel-eng overall, focusing lately on updates pushing and powerpc.
  2. FESCo: I've been on FESCo for quite some time now, and I can't think of a singular instance of making a huge impact. I'm OK with that, as FESCo is really about the long term impacts.
  3. Fedora user: I've been a Fedora user since FC1 and have tested and helped with a number of bugs along the way. And yes, this counts. The Fedora user community is one of the most important communities we have :).
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I've never been involved in another board and my first community experience was with Fedora. I've committed my time to it. I've communicated with many other projects, like SuSE for example and smolt. The key is to find common goals and work towards them. Be polite, empathetic, and understand there are multiple ways to do something. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) • NA Ambassadors - Along with Clint Savage, John Rose, Brian Powell and many others helped drive a resurgence in the NA Ambassador Community. We went from leaning (some might say leeching) on Red Hat to produce our swag, send RHT speakers, etc to truly driving the schedule, doubling and in some cases tripling our appearances at LUGs, BarCamps, and conferences, filling speaking slots with community members rather than contributors from RH who are paid to speak. We also greatly improved our swag efficiency and handle making all of it. UCLUG - Steering committee member. Along with others pushed a revitalization that in some cases increased our attendance by an order of a magnitude. Creating content that appealed both to new users and graybeards alike. Pushed multiple community outreach programs. Southeast Linuxfest Foundation - Secretary of the Foundation - organized (well still in the process really) and help build a regional Linux conference in the Southeast that appears will successfully happen on June 13th. Blue Ridge Amateur Radio Society - multiple term vice president - led community outreach with non-technical groups as well as government and other radio groups. Grew organization to the largest of its kind in the state, and putting on the largest amateur radio fest in the state.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) OLPC, Spacewalk
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) Well, I am quite active in #fedora trying to help users there. I have also taken to trying to help out people on fedoraforum. I am also active in some of my local LUG groups (nclug.org and lug.boulder.co.us).
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17. Simple question: Among the two, do you prefer Gnome or KDE?
Tom Callaway (spot) For most things, I prefer GNOME, although, I do keep both installed on my primary workstation.
Josh Boyer (jwb) I don't prefer either really. I find likes and dislikes with both. This is not a political answer either. On my machines, I typically run the default Gnome install, but use some KDE applications such as k3b and amarok. I find that I reinstall machines (for testing!) too often to really bother changing defaults or being tied to a particular environment.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) KDE.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) vi - ohhh wait that's the next question. At the moment I am using Gnome, though I have been one of the KDE-faithful for most of my Linux desktop 'career'.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) KDE
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) Xfce. ;)
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18. Do you think a Fedora Foundation is still worth pursuing? Why or Why not?
Tom Callaway (spot) I do not think it is worth pursuing at this time. The problems that originally caused us to stop pursuing that option still exist:
  • For patents, OIN does that job for us, and Red Hat is already a member so Fedora gets those benefits.
  • For legal coverage, Red Hat Legal are experts in the fields that Fedora needs coverage in. A independent foundation makes it far more difficult for us to directly leverage their expertise.
  • For financial reasons, a US non-profit cannot take the majority of their funding from one source, and it is very unlikely that Fedora could be self-sustaining in the near future. Our hosting and bandwidth costs alone are very significant. I also do not feel that Red Hat has interfered with Fedora in any significant way, and that the Fedora Board remains the primary decision maker and governance body for Fedora.
Josh Boyer (jwb) I have no insight to the original pursuits so I'm not very familiar with the problems that were encountered. It would be a bit silly of me to state an opinion without having some amount of knowledge on the issue.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I wish we had a Fedora Foundation though the details of that are fuzzy to me. It would be convenient to have a separate legal entity to Red Hat.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) I do think it is. The real benefit is the efficient handling of money. A number of initiatives within Fedora hinge on our being able to deal with money, and those initiatives (such as the Fedora store) are routinely blocked as legally Fedora is effectively a non-entity, or at best the spawn of Red Hat. I don't think, unless things changed dramatically, that there is a possibility for a US-based non-profit entity, but there are a number of different strategies that might be available. Fedora EMEA e.V. makes tremendous use of it's organization. There are a number of thorny issues, from financial, to trademark, to even the relationship with Red Hat that need to be resolved and researched. That said I think that continued exploration of this matter is important, and could be a boon for Fedora in many ways.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) I think it would need to be evaluated if we were going to get resources donated on the same level as Red Hat does from other companies. Until we have that level of investment then its extra overhead for little gain
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) No. I think it would not help any, and might loose us support from our biggest supporter.
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19. Should kernel module packages be allowed in Fedora?
Tom Callaway (spot) Nope. I think that there are many reasons for this, but the primary one is that it encourages people to not get that code merged into the upstream Linux kernel, where it truly belongs.
Josh Boyer (jwb) No. The code belongs in the upstream kernel, where it would get into Fedora by default.
Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) I have no opinion on this except that if the module is good enough for Fedora, it should ultimately be sent upstream.
David Nalley (ke4qqq) This is a FESCo issue and not a Board issue. I personally wouldn't want to see kernel modules in Fedora's repos.
Dennis Gilmore (dgilmore) no they should not, we should get them into fedora's kernel package and upstream. If there is little to no chance that a module will be acceptable upstream i dont see why it should be allowed in fedora as an out of kernel rpm module. keeping a module in sync with fedora kernels is alot of work and leads to many broken deps and frustrated users.
Kevin Fenzi (nirik) No. If they are not good enough for the upstream kernel, why should they be good enough for our users ? I think kmods have their place in rpmfusion and other 3rd party repos, but I hope someday they will all be gone and no longer needed.
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