Ok, we're going to get started shortly --- skvidal gives voice to rnorwood First let's take a moment and just let all the Board members who are here say a quick hello Max Spevack Seth Vidal --> caillon (n=caillon@mithril.returnzero.com) has joined #fudcon-moderated Matt Domsch <|DrJef|> Jef Spaleta --- skvidal gives voice to caillon --> jdieter (n=jonathan@194.126.26.154) has joined #fudcon-moderated Christopher Blizzard --- skvidal gives channel operator status to caillon Are there any other Board members here? Christopher Aillon So...what is Fedora's target market? Good question, Jon. apparently you've been reading Fedora Advisory Board --> kanarip (n=kanarip@fedora/kanarip) has joined #fudcon-moderated We have multiple targets -- obviously a question like that deserves a longer answer than IRC can fully answer. But I'll start. We have several goals/targets: (1) Build a very innovative Linux distribution. Tools that allow people to do more new stuff with Fedora, and to do new things faster. --> EvilBob (n=bob@fedora/pdpc.sustaining.BobJensen) has joined #fudcon-moderated So if you are an OSS Developer, you are in our target market My personal opinion is that our target market is also anyone who is a potential contributor Whether that person is technical or documentation or testing, etc. I want to continue to focus on making Fedora a better experience for them. Because I think that if we can continue to draw high quality mindshare into Fedora, then two things will happen The first is that Fedora's commitment to upstream work will mean that all of the upstreams that Fedora is a part of will get to share in any Fedora innovations. The second is that some of those contributors will focus specifically on end-user goals I'll pause for a moment -- other folks want to say something? --> drago01 (n=linux@chello062178124130.3.13.univie.teleweb.at) has joined #fudcon-moderated --> poelcat (i=slick@fedora/poelcat) has joined #fudcon-moderated So what end users are we talking about? Making Fedora easier for people who are Linux newbies is one possibility. Making a Fedora that is easy for folks interested in music/video production using free tools, etc. --> glezos (n=glezos@fedora/glezos) has joined #fudcon-moderated This would eventually turn into a discussino of things like Revisor and Pungi and LiveCD creator and how custom Fedora versions are useful, but I don't want to get too off topic related question from mizmo: is grandma specifically not our target? max's earlier response about end-user goals is where the really interesting quesiton is mspevack: And, more generally, do we have any 'anti-targets' because it asks the question (which mizmo just echoed) - which users? right now we're not ready to do "fedora for grandmas" I think that right now we're ready for sysadmins, people who want to try linux, and some set of supported corporate users as well anyone who has an itch to try and use linux <|DrJef|> i think we have to focus initially on user groups that have the potential to be strong contributors in some way --> dgilmore (n=dgilmore@fedora/dgilmore) has joined #fudcon-moderated 'nother question from mizmo: i also wonder if we have plans to create closer ties with universities. sort of in the vein of the summer of code, have some kind of even year-long outreach program with contacts at various interested universities so if say an engineering student wants to contribute his senior project to and base it off of fedora, or if students are looking for ideas for projects and we've openings, theres one place they can look and g et involved i think this especially fits in with our goal of innovation apologies for the formatting there. no problem. That's a good question. It hints at a Fedora Recruitement program, which we've never really looked at with too much rigor. Usually people find their way into Fedora because they are users, or they are hopeful that involvement with Fedora might allow them to prove themselves and turn into a job offer. And often it does. We had an excellent experience this summer with a group of interns --> fatherted (n=john@cpe-76-186-70-45.tx.res.rr.com) has joined #fudcon-moderated They did significant work on smolt, with Fedora infrastructure, with Revisor, with an alpha of a web-based Revisor, etc. mspevack: next question: I'd like to see us be able to devote a small pool of money such that we can have a continually rotating Army of Interns -- a way for us to identify talented kids who are still in college, etc. and give them a bit of financial incentive to work on Fedora So then would it be best to say that Fedora is trying to be an ideal "protomorphic" distro, with more specialized versions able to be created easily enough? <|DrJef|> mspevack, on the line off mizmo's q. im already planning on doing as much edu ourreach as i can. I'm hoping to get tine talking to people at WPI when im in Mass in October. They have a sophmore/junior project whch focuses on society/tech interactions <|DrJef|> mspevack, i was planning on hitting them up for rhh outreach Yes, I think that is fair. The biggest thing that we've been focused on in the past year is the work that culminated in the Core/Extras merge, Koji, and Pungi. |DrJef|: AAE! Please explain 'rhh'. That's because more than anything else we wanted to get all Fedora packages on the same level, have them built on the same build system, and have a single compose tool that can pull everything together. Fedora 7 was the initial culmination of that goal. And the uptake has been good. Last week at LinuxWorld the Creative Commons themed distro was released, and it was built off of Fedora and using all of the aforementioned build tools. <|DrJef|> rnorwood, oh.. right.... rhh... red hat high.... getting open tools into the hands of middle school aged kids so they can create with them So that's one example of a large-name group that is doing new work as a result of Fedora 7 --- skvidal gives voice to dgilmore --> tw2113 (n=tw2113@siouxfallsDHCP-101.216-16-104.iw.net) has joined #fudcon-moderated --- skvidal gives channel operator status to dgilmore But at the same time, things like Red Hat High used our custom build tools to do stuff, the KDE spin uses them, etc. <|DrJef|> initially its been sexy content like 3d and audio production..but there's room to grow it into more areas and adapt it into science and technology curriculum --> davej (n=davej@testure.choralone.org) has joined #fudcon-moderated --> stickster_work (n=stickste@fedora/stickster) has joined #fudcon-moderated One of the things we want to do is fix some of the issues another example is the marvell guys who are doing the -arm project who want to have a fedora-based distro for their arm products --> quaid (n=quaid@fedora/quaid) has joined #fudcon-moderated around packaging of the trademarks and fedora logos, so that someone who is using Fedora as the basis for a derived distro can pull our marks out very easily, if they need to that's an example of a company that isn't red hat doing work on top of our open distribution --- skvidal gives voice to poelcat quaid <-- stickster_work (n=stickste@fedora/stickster) has left #fudcon-moderated next question? --> stickster (n=stickste@fedora/stickster) has joined #fudcon-moderated rnorwood: next question? --> syp| (n=syp@lasigpc9.epfl.ch) has joined #fudcon-moderated mspevack: We've got a quiet bunch here tonigh. t What can be done to prevent the old guard from holding back some of this innovation we keep hearing about? What's the 'old guard' and what innovation is it that's been held back? I saw a question about other spins like CC; I do know work has begun on the 2.0 version of the CC Live Content spin skvidal: Old Guard being the Red Hat employees who developed and maintained all the core packages in the past rnorwood: and the second part? what innovation is being held back? skvidal: still waiting. we'll come back to that one. any other spins like the cc spin in the works? and: can you tell us more about the live content spin? No other big work like the cc-spins in the works that i know about http://wiki.creativecommons.org/LiveContent for full details of course, that doesn't mean people aren't doing it. Obviously it's set up such that folks can make custom Fedora spins without telling us. skvidal: ok, back to the EvilBob question: skvidal: his response: We keep beeing told to innovate, shake things up, but some seem to keep hitting road blocks At least one of the companies that is part of Fedora Sponsored media used Revisor to build a 12-CD version of Fedora (with updates) that they are selling. My personal opinion is that road blocks will always crop up from time to time. And it's a valid concern But I have the luxury, I suppose, of being able to take a big picture view I would like to take the time to answer some of evilbob's quesitons as well blizzard: Go for it. and that is to say that we've got some innovative new stuff that has come from the community-led parts of Fedora in F7. Revisor, KDE spin, etc. In a way, this is somewhat different for Red Hat because Fedora does require a bit of a culture change Has that stuff always been super-easy to get moving? no, of coursse not. But it HAS happened. I think that the Board has a strong desire to make things like this better, but I guess it's a bit of a slow process at times. * mspevack waits to see what blizzard says in the past Red Hat always had full editorial control over Fedora and now they have to be willing to allow other people to make suggestions and offer advice and there has to be mutual respect and a wider decision making circle We're not where we want to be in the end, but we're much further along than we were a year ago.... and some people find this frustrating blizzard: and do the work :) and do thework indeed but in the end what we have here is a contributor-based system and the people who work at Red Hat are contributors just like everyone else so there will be contention and there will be times at which it will appear to be a "red hat" vs. "not red hat" but we have to learn to get past that and understand that we're all individuals who want to make something good I will also say that I know there's a lot of pent up energy inside of red hat to also do wildly innovating and different things so I think you will find that Fedora can be an outlet for those energies as well Next question: do we want to host random spins in fedora (as long as there are no legal issues etc.) or only the "official ones" ? do we have the infrastructur and space/bandwith for this on the mirrors? hi, I'm the self-appointed Fedora Mirror Wrangler space is a huge concern, we're definitely looking for sponsors to donate disk space and data center space to put hardware; bandwidth, etc. there's a second concern, which is branding, which we continue to work through what does it mean to have the Fedora brand, or to be derived from Fedora <|DrJef|> blizzard, i will say i think we a doing a better job of having discussion in external channels is it correct to say, at the most we'd want to put up the torrent file for any "approved" spins? quaid: i think that is fair to say as long as the "approved" spins contain only F/OSS software, yes next question: that's our implicit agreement with our mirror partners has there been any consideration to get Fedora preinstalled on a computer company product line ala Ubuntu and Dell? mdomsch: good point, since approved may not even mean "carries Fedora mark" tw2113: i'll take that <|DrJef|> quaid, we need to find a common way to co-brand derived works that doesnt use the fedora brand One of the biggest issues that comes up, for example with Dell, was that the distro that goes on those machines had to be fully supported. As you know, Fedora is not a supported product. Red Hat, of course, has supported products. And you can buy Dell machines with them. But that's not your question |DrJef|: yes, the proverbial ball-of-worms-in-a-can keep in mind that dell is not support ubuntu on dell machines. Canonical is supporting ubuntu on dell machines your question is why Fedora wasn't on those machines -- and the reason is that from a business perspective, Fedora's mission and support structure made it an unattractive choice for Dell to make. dell's just redirecting the phone calls about issues to canonical So the next logical question to ask is: Will Red Hat ever consider offering official (paid) support for Fedora? And if someone can produce a business plan for that which works, you'll end up with a job. Probably mine. :) next question, rnorwood K - this one sounds like a troll, but mspevack is good with trolls: what are we going to see in fedora 8 that is going to ever warrant a release? heh releases are not comprised of features they are time based releases don't ... ever ... forget ... the kitten and Fedora 8 is a specifically time-based release. Because we want the thing out the door in early November, so that F8 isn't blocking on Thanksgiving and Christmas. ding! Next question: Fedora 7 was a more feature-based release. But that was a special case im curious about the board's thoughts on 'competing' with other distros We are specifically trying to make ourselves time-based with F8 mizmo: I think 'competing' is the right usage - in quotes it's a weird usage - in many ways a lot of what fedora ends up doing makes it possible for other distros to happen <|DrJef|> and i'll add that the feature drafting process that we've started... will make it easier to target features release timeframes.. i'd like to see feature drafts go up targetting f10 when f9 testing starts so let's look at the other distros: rhel - obviously it's not a competition there, centos - ditto - it's just not the same market ubuntu - there's competition for mindshare as much as users debian - this is the interesting part to me - I see fedora more like a debian for rpm-based distros much more than an ubuntu Next question: on the branding, can we get together and work something out like a policy? it's like a major feature but what does anyone have to know/do to legitimetaly remix or rebrand Fedora? ubuntu appears to be trying to be Red Hat Linux of debian systems - and maybe soon they'll have a rhel/centos world, too. --> TechJournalist_ (n=tk421@d141-129-92.home.cgocable.net) has joined #fudcon-moderated kanarip: sure. The #1 task that needs to be done in that regard is someone (or someones) need to figure out how we can trivialize the process of replacing all the Fedora marks in the distro with something else. So that when someone fires up your Revisor --> abadger1999 (n=abadger1@65.78.187.68) has joined #fudcon-moderated and wants to make a distro that includes livna or something like that, the Fedora marks can be pulled out and replaced with some random generic icon set, or an icon set that the person building the custom distro has made. Next question: Q: anyone on the board like to comment on codecbuddy and/or in general pointing users to patent encumbered stuff? We do want to make things easier for our users, but does that push the spirit of us being a totally free distro? Once that is working, I think the rest of it is pretty trivial I'll comment a bit on that... Freedom is a feature. <|DrJef|> kanarip, which means.. cleaning up the marks we have in the distro now... and we will need to have a submission-time review item looking for fedora logo usage to keep logos out of contributed packages Freedom is a feature. And different distros think that feature is more or less important than others. Fedora thinks that the Freedom feature is a very important one. I spoke to the Raleigh/Durham Linux User group last week and we talked about this for a while And it's a fine line that we walk here, and it touches on some of the earlier questions. What is our target market? If it were "grandmas" and less-technical users, then something like CodecBuddy would be very important, and the Freedom cost/benefit analysis would come into play. How many users can you gain by giving up a little bit of Freedom? But I'm not convinced that it's correct to give up any freedom in order to potentially get more users Once you give those freedoms up, it's hard to get them back. I think this philosophical debate is one of the reasons why CodecBuddy has been in Feature Limbo for a while. mspevack: are we not doing codec buddy? It's on the list of stuff that we want to see done, but I don't think that much significant progress has been made on it recently. Mostly that's because the developers who would be available to work on it haven't been given the feedback and QA that they need. CodecBuddy is a feature that needs a ton of usability work and a ton of QA. If it doesn't JUST WORK it's a total waste of time. ok. Next tr^h^hquestion: follow up on the 'competition' question: any ideas on what we can do to improve our mindshare? do we see our mindshare waning? is it a real problem or are we ok? Codec buddy is a bit resource bound. I'd like to do it, but until we can do it RIGHT, I don't want to waste people's time mizmo: you've got all the good questions lined up, don't you? mizmo: at the risk of being a useless answer - excitement --> jeremybb (n=Katzj@m2b5e36d0.tmodns.net) has joined #fudcon-moderated more coming ... mizmo: my pespective on it is that we are lacking in some areas. mostly documentation and howtos. Gentoo and Ubuntu do a much better job of it than we do. dgilmore: +! dgilmore: +1 mspevack: related to the codec buddy thing: can we do codec buddy based on free codecs? for Free codecs, why don't we just include them? We don't need codec buddy then, right? kanarip: we should just include them in that case <|DrJef|> mizmo, give me a second while |DrJef| adds a bit to mizmo's question about mindshare, are there any other questions in the queue? <|DrJef|> mizmo, mindshare.... Any chance Fedora will be doing an online build service (for revisor/pungi) sort of like what rPath does with rBuilder Online? Yes. <|DrJef|> mizmo, mindshare is directly related to how we attract and retain contributors who want to use existing fedora technology for a new focus direct and to the point! We had an intern working on that a little bit this summer. He used Revisor as the basis of building a web-app that does a similar sort of thing. It's called "wevisor" right now. There's a public url that is available for people to play with it. It's alpha code right now, but it definitely shows you the potential of the project. Ultimately a lot of the customization work that we are doing boils back down to two technologies kickstart and yum <|DrJef|> mizmo, we don't necessarily have to target what we collectively think is a big one userbase.. what we need to do is target contributor bases who can own the focus for smaller userbases if tooks can easily produce kickstart files, and you can hand those to yum, then it's pretty easy to build up custom spins. And there's a lot of work still happening on that stuff. So yes, a 100% FOSS web-based distro builder is IMHO one of the coolest things Fedora could do <|DrJef|> mizmo, i want fedora to OWN 3d creation.... so i'm going to kiss as much blender contributor arse as i can https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/wevisor/ <|DrJef|> mizmo, we get mindshare by enabling active contributors who already know how to focus on one area <|DrJef|> mizmo, because at the end of the day.... its the active contributors who build brand value or build a product that builds brand value Next question: Q: We seem to have attracted a number of package manintainers and lots of other great folks, but is there any thought or plans for outreach to try and get more folks contibuting to things like QA, testing, usability feedback, docs, etc? <|DrJef|> mizmo, ubuntu has buzz because it was mentioned on Veronica Mars in the show's first season <|DrJef|> mizmo, we just need to get Fedora mentioned in next season's hit CW drama nirik: the leaders of each of those sub-sections of Fedora should be actively trying to recruit. Mike McGrath for example has done a great job of getting some new folks into Infrastructure. Translation also attracts a lot of new contributors. So we're at the 1 hour mark. Any other questions rnorwood ? <|DrJef|> mspevack, at some point we may want to experiment with recruitment events mspevack: just three more in the queue ok so why is the perception that ubuntu has so much mindshare when their community, in my probably awfully biased opinion, kind of pales in comparison to ours? ok, we'll take those and then call it a day (already answered by |DrJef| I think, but... Just to add to what Jef said (1) Ubuntu puts out a good product. (2) Ubuntu spends WAY MORE MONEY on marketing than we spend marketing Fedora. (3) Veronica Mars * quaid doesn't know what a Veronica Mars is quaid: A candy bar, right? noooooooo rnorwood: next? quaid: a tv show what can we do to increase the involvement and participation of the user side of our community? why is that so unimportant? <|DrJef|> fatherted, i would love to find ways to get users more involved... involved users are by definition..contributors It is *not* unimportant. User participation is VERY important. We have asked end-users to get involved with smolt. I know that there was once some momentum around a simple desktop app that used the bugzilla XMLRPC stuff to make filing bugs a trivial experience, but I don't know what happened there. It's pretty easy for folks to get involved with translations, and that is something that end-users can do pretty easily For non-technical folks, the Fedora Ambassadors community does good work. That can always use some more help, especially people who like organizing stuff we need to leverage users to help with documentation, howtos, user support, etc Every single Fedora User should participate in the Free Media project which is a trivial thing to be a part of and Thomas Chung does a great job with it we've also been pretty good about taking user feedback with laptop quirks to find out what works, what doesn't, and finding and fixing those bugs and/or documenting them maybe we can push the Join stuff in the new Firefox splash page :) Imagine how many more DVDs we could get out if every Fedora user burned 1 disk a week and mailed it to someone who needed it. quaid: good idea not as many as if they burned Live CDs :D Last question: * mspevack uses "DVD" as a generic term so what do we plan to do to promote fedora? we need more ideas drago01: what do YOU do to plan fedora? this is everyone here, all can help and we want more ideas caillon: +1 and we can use ideas like skvidal just mentioned we need to take on open marketing as a real formal activity <|DrJef|> ive dreamed of parchuting cds from bush planes all across alaska here's the thing if you know anyone with skills in that area (broad area, too) encourage them to try out something very innovative beats the pants off a "blog strategy" --> dbewley (n=dlbewley@tofu.lib.ucdavis.edu) has joined #fudcon-moderated talk about it, mention it to your friends, family, if you hear about someone who wants to try linux, give them a cd, etc there's so many linux shows all over the place. People often expect me (meaning my Fedora Budget, meaning Red Hat's money) to make sure there is a Fedora presence at all of those events. It's totally impossible to do that. That is why Ambassadors needs more help, and more local people to every event who are willing to assist. um, seriously, though we really do need a formal project or SIG around marketing v. same ol', same ol' distro style remember -- what works for code works for content and other areas What I'd really like to see is a group of people we have an army of untapped marketeers out there, who can out marketeer a small paid army in fedora-marketing-list or Ambassadors or whatever present a really solid plan of a new idea, and then allow the Board to help make it happen for example the Ambassadors in Europe really have their stuff together. It makes it really easy for me to make sure they get the resources they need. kanarip, GeroldKa, etc have done great great stuff there anyone else want to add something? alright... Well thanks to everyone for participating in this Virtual FUDCon session. We'll do it again. We can make the Board Q&A a more frequent thing, sort of like the Prime Minister's Questions in England :) ...but without the wigs... or the Whigs ----------------- end of session -------------------