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Minutes and full logs available at http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-board-meeting/2010-10-01/

IRC Log

jsmith #startmeeting Fedora Board IRC Meeting 18:01
zodbot Meeting started Fri Oct 1 18:01:19 2010 UTC. The chair is jsmith. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 18:01
zodbot Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 18:01
jsmith #meetingname Fedora Board 18:01
zodbot The meeting name has been set to 'fedora_board' 18:01
jsmith #topic Roll Call (for Board members) 18:01
* jsmith is here 18:01
* mdomsch 18:02
* jds2001 18:02
* ctyler here 18:02
* mizmo here 18:02
rdieter here 18:02
jsmith Looks like we have most of the board here :-) 18:03
jsmith Great! 18:03
jsmith #topic Introduction 18:03
jsmith I'd like to take just a minute to introduce the topic and take care of a few particulars 18:03
jsmith First of all, let me express my thanks for everyone who has helped us to work on the vision statement 18:03
jsmith It hasn't been a particularly easy thing to do 18:03
jsmith but I very much feel it's a worthwhile endeavor 18:04
jsmith So, to make a long story short, this meeting is setup as a Q&A session around the vision statement 18:04
jsmith (if we have extra time, we'll open things up for more general Q&A) 18:04
jsmith We'll use our typical protocol for asking questions, which is detailed here: Board_public_IRC_meetings 18:05
jsmith #info Meeting is for Q&A re: vision statement 18:05
jsmith Any questions or comments before we get started with Q&A? 18:05
jsmith #info Final draft of the Vision Statement is ""The Fedora Project creates a world in which free and open culture is both welcoming and pervasive, collaboration and outreach are the norm, and people are empowered to control their own content and devices." 18:06
jsmith #topic Questions and Answers regarding the Vision Statement 18:07
jds2001 jaroslav raised a comment on the mailing list that's worth considering - pervasive would be a word not known to the average non-native english speaker 18:07
jsmith The time is now yours for questions and answers... we'll try to limit each individual question to ~8 minutes, to be able to cover as many questions as possible 18:08
mizmo #info thread on the vision statement on advisory-board list http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/2010-September/009308.html 18:08
jsmith jds2001: Good question... 18:08
jds2001 but im not sure of a suggestion to fix it :( 18:08
mizmo common, general, inescapable, omnipresent, permeating, pervading, prevalent, rife, ubiquitous, universal, wall-to-wall, widespread 18:08
rdieter thesarus-fu 18:08
mizmo far-reaching, sweeping 18:08
jsmith jds2001: I too hesitated to use that word, but it's a word that very well describes how we want Fedora to fit into the bigger world. Yes, it's a difficult word to translate, but it's also a very specific word 18:08
mizmo wide-ranging, widespread 18:09
jsmith It's a combination of far-reaching and widespread 18:09
jsmith In other words, it's not a mile wide and an inch deep 18:09
jsmith Nor is it a mile deep and an inch wide 18:09
mdomsch for the germans: in, with, and under ? :-) 18:09
rdieter I had asked jreznik for suggested alternatives, but seems he didn't come up with any. :( 18:09
jsmith permeating is as close to pervasive as any of the others, but is difficult to translate itself :-/ 18:10
mdomsch sorry - protestant/lutheran humor attempt there... 18:10
jsmith mdomsch: No worries... even if nobody else laughed, I got a kick out of it. 18:11
mizmo what is the meaning meant in the statement 18:11
jds2001 heh 18:11
mizmo my interpretation was ubiquitous / widespread 18:11
mizmo "pervasive: to become spread throughout all parts of: Spring pervaded the air. " 18:11
mizmo widespread seems to be simpler language with similar meaning 18:12
mizmo "widespread: spread over or open, or occupying a wide space; distributed over a wide region, or occurring in many places or among many persons or individuals" 18:12
mdomsch and provides alliteration 18:12
jsmith It's not as exact, but might be close enough 18:12
* mizmo missing the exactness involved 18:12
* mdomsch can't spell today either 18:12
rdieter widespread works for me 18:12
jsmith mdomsch: If we're going for that, I'm sure we could replace "outreach" with something that started with the letter 'c' 18:13
mizmo wuh-wuh instead of wup-puh 18:13
mdomsch well, we have 2 options: 18:13
mdomsch we can keep pervasive, and when we translate to other languages, attempt to find the closest match in each 18:13
mdomsch or we can use a different word, that might be more easily translated; but I suspect we'll run into the same problem with anything we choose 18:14
rdieter I'd like to hear from >1 non-native speaker too 18:14
mizmo rdieter, i think the guy upset about the commas had the same point 18:14
mizmo even though it only has two commas 18:14
mizmo his point was that it takes a while to dig into the meaning 18:15
rdieter ok, then, >2 ? :) 18:15
jds2001 the commas are correct :) 18:15
jsmith Yes, I placed the commas with care :-) 18:15
rdieter grammar rocks 18:15
mizmo yeh the commas are clearly correct, but this dude used them as the reason (albeit likely wrong) he couldn't grok the sentence easily 18:16
mizmo but i think that can be solved too by listing the series out in bullet points when wiki-fying the statement 18:16
mizmo that would definitely improve the readability imho 18:16
* jds2001 didnt find anything saying he couldnt grok it 18:16
jds2001 just asking if it was needed 18:16
mizmo jds2001, i had a discussion with him off-list 18:16
jds2001 ahhhh 18:16
jsmith mizmo: I like the idea of bullets 18:16
rdieter and possibly the background, intent behind each of those points, as well ? (or not?) 18:17
ctyler in an expansion or explanation, sure 18:17
jds2001 we should keep spot's feedback in mind - this should fit in a tweet :) 18:17
jds2001 but i think we're over that 18:18
rdieter cool, cause I had to explain that on several occasions to folks who ended up with different/interesting interpretations, than what was the intention 18:18
mizmo extra explanation is probably cool but just somewhere else, kind of how individual points in the mission statement is explained on the overview page further down 18:18
mizmo not embedded 18:18
jsmith Right... I don't have a problem explaining the meaning and intention on a wiki page, but the vision statement itself should be concise 18:18
rdieter nod, agreed. 18:18
jsmith In the absence of any other feedback on the word "pervasive", I'm gonna put my vote in the "leave it in there" column 18:19
mdomsch jds2001: we're a bit over a tweet, yes 18:19
mizmo i think pervasive is the most 'SAT vocabularly' word in the statement, i dont really see any of the others being potentially problematic 18:19
mizmo i think widespread is a better word 18:19
ctyler jsmith: +1 to leaving pervasive in there 18:19
mdomsch pervasive++ 18:20
mizmo 1 18:20
ctyler mizmo: pervasive is perhaps broader than widespread -- pervasive means soaking through everything, not just 'common' 18:20
jsmith mizmo: The best way I can explain it is with a peanut-butter sandwich... I see peanut butter widespread on the bread, but not pervasive throughout the sandwich 18:20
* jds2001 is on the fence :) 18:20
mizmo sounds like split ends to me 18:21
mizmo its a vision statement, not a literary opus 18:21
jsmith Point well taken 18:21
rdieter I think I'm with mizmo here, the clarity has to take precedence 18:21
rdieter 1 18:21
mizmo if people have to pull out a dictionary, they wont, then the clarified meaning is completely lost not just partially 18:21
stickster FWIW, I like 'widespread.' The vision statement should be simple *and* concise. 18:22
stickster I think it's easy for those of us who love language and writing to sometimes love a word for its connotation and distinction, but it may not help Joe Average (or even Joe Above-average) understand us better :-) 18:22
mdomsch stickster: are we past your 'concise' limit too? 18:22
mizmo jane like peanut butter. ugh ugh. 18:23
rdieter stickster: +1 (well said, better than what I was drumming up) 18:23
stickster mdomsch: No, I really like it. 18:23
stickster mizmo: :-D 18:23
* jsmith changes his vote to a definitive +0 18:23
mdomsch i'm fine with widespread 18:23
jsmith Alright... what other parts of the vision statement do we want to discuss 18:24
* jds2001 -1 to pervasive now :) 18:24
jsmith (I mean -- if this is the most contentious piece, then we've done something right, correct?) 18:24
jds2001 rdieter: do keep in mind that stickster is....verbose :D 18:24
stickster loquacious 18:24
stickster bombastic 18:24
* jsmith would almost add "full of hot air" if he weren't sitting right next to stickster at this moment 18:24
rdieter stickster is on a roll, go go 18:24
mdomsch /both/d ? 18:25
* stickster punches jsmith 18:25
jsmith Ouch! 18:25
jsmith stickster: I said "almost" 18:25
stickster Did I mention pugnacious? 18:25
stickster <eof> 18:25
mizmo vainglorious? 18:25
mdomsch I think it flows fine w/o the word 'both' in there 18:25
mizmo vociferous 18:25
rdieter mizmo for the win 18:26
mizmo supercajifragilisticexpialladocious 18:26
jds2001 does anyone have anything else???? 18:26
jsmith OK, s/pervasive/widespread/ and s/ both// 18:26
rdieter mdomsch: good catch, I agree 18:26
jsmith (Are we under 140 chars yet?) 18:27
rdieter one more step towards tweetability 18:27
mizmo "The Fedora Project creates a world in which free and open culture is welcoming and widespread, collaboration and outreach are the norm, and people are empowered to control their own content and devices." 18:27
mizmo 62 characters over 18:27
mdomsch can we tighten up the second clause? 18:28
rdieter still way over 18:28
stickster #idea strike "and outreach are" and replace with "is" 18:28
jsmith mdomsch: We accept patches :-) How would you suggest we tighten it up? 18:28
mizmo this is only 33 over "The Fedora Project creates a world where free culture is welcoming and widespread, collaboration and outreach are the norm, and people control their own content and devices." 18:28
jds2001 s/are empowered to// 18:28
stickster #idea strike "are empowered to" 18:28
walters what was the rationale for "and outreach"? 18:28
ctyler Concise is one thing, terse is another; not sure twitter is the right ruler to measure by. 18:28
stickster jds2001: +1 18:28
jsmith mdomsch: That was the original idea, until we talked about it on Monday" 18:28
rdieter outread => attract new users 18:28
mdomsch outreach being an active verb 18:28
rdieter outreach... 18:29
mizmo is outreach redundant with welcoming 18:29
stickster mizmo: +1 18:29
mizmo this is 19 over "The Fedora Project creates a world where free culture is welcoming and widespread, collaboration is the norm, and people control their own content and devices." 18:29
walters i like that one better 18:29
mizmo hehe this is 17 over "The Fedora Project creates a world where free culture is welcoming & widespread, collaboration is the norm, and people control their own content and devices." 18:29
mizmo & <= ftw! 18:29
walters heh, that's cheating 18:30
stickster haha 18:30
ctyler s/own// ? 18:30
mizmo 13 over "The Fedora Project creates a world where free culture is welcoming & widespread, collaboration is the norm, and people control their content and devices." 18:30
rdieter I personally would prefer including outreach and drop welcoming, but that doesn't help us much size-wise, and I won't push it if I'm the only one that feels that way 18:30
mizmo but! twin w's! 18:30
mizmo ww 18:30
jsmith I'd rather have something that's better worded and slightly over the limit, rather than 140 characters and too vague. 18:30
ctyler rdieter: +1 18:30
mdomsch jsmith: +1 18:30
mizmo i think welcoming is more people-centric though 18:31
mizmo you can outreach to things that aren't people 18:31
ctyler jsmith: Agreed, clarity over twitter 18:31
jds2001 jsmith: +1, but we should come up with a "twitter version" 18:31
mdomsch rdieter: +1 18:31
mizmo and outreach's meaning is sometimes for 'beating others' 18:31
mizmo 13 over is close enough no 18:31
rdieter seems odd to have to say the open/free culture is welcoming ... to me that's almost 'by definition' 18:31
mizmo rdieter, one would think! did you see the blog post i made today heh 18:31
mdomsch well, there's the active verb outreach, and there's the (IMHO more) passive verb welcoming 18:31
ctyler rdieter: should be but isn't necessarily 18:31
stickster mizmo: why welcome wordiness? words wound when wielded... uh, wecklessly 18:31
jsmith !Fedora hearts !FIAF, collaboration, and peeps in control 18:31
rdieter mizmo: yeah (awesome by the way), ok, that's a different line of thinking than what I had in mind... but if that's what it takes to cover the bases, I'm fine with it 18:32
mizmo http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/blog/drawings/cookies/um-how.png 18:32
* ctyler still reads !Fedora as "not Fedora" 18:32
mdomsch I'd say we've been welcoming, but haven't done as much outreach - and part of the goal is to get more active on outreach 18:32
mizmo that diagram 18:32
mizmo includes "outreach" but does not include "welcoming" http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/blog/drawings/cookies/um-how.png 18:32
mizmo stickster, whoah, way! 18:33
stickster mizmo: You win the cookie 18:33
mdomsch doh 18:33
mizmo mdomsch, i kinda think the opposite 18:33
stickster rdieter: You make a good point. free/open culture == "collaboration". 18:33
mizmo http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/blog/drawings/cookies/istuff.png <= welcoming 18:33
ctyler stickster: but it's worth reiterating, imho 18:33
stickster What's currently the accepted version again? 18:34
jsmith There's more to open/free culture than just collaboration 18:34
jsmith (we're more than just crowdsourcing) 18:34
mizmo pre-twitterification 18:34
mizmo " "The Fedora Project creates a world in which free and open culture is welcoming and widespread, collaboration and outreach are the norm, and people are empowered to control their own content and devices."" 18:34
mizmo that's 60+ chars over 18:34
ctyler Enough with the 'wc -c' already :-) 18:35
stickster jsmith: Yeah, I should have said "contains" not "==" 18:35
stickster In any case... 18:35
mizmo i think the length is a good indicator of its simplicity or lack thereof *shrug* 18:35
ctyler Actually, I think there's a lot of open that is not welcoming or collaborative. It may be broken open, but it's still out there. I think we want to fix that. 18:36
stickster The pre-twitter version seems pretty good to me. 18:36
mizmo a swap on the shortest-form: "The Fedora Project creates a world where free culture is welcoming & widespread, outreach is the norm, and people control their content and devices." 18:36
mdomsch I concede mizmo's point on outreach, would be open to s/ and outreach are/ is/ 18:36
jsmith "outreach is the norm" doesn't work for me 18:37
mizmo a swap on the shortest-form: "The Fedora Project creates a world where free culture is welcoming & widespread, collaboration is the norm, and people control their content and devices." 18:37
mizmo (swap back) 18:37
jsmith I want both collaboration and outreach 18:37
mdomsch jsmith: you don't like "is the norm" ? 18:38
mdomsch I'm having a hard time with that phrase 18:38
mizmo yeh is the norm of what 18:38
jsmith that collaboration and outreach are the norm, rather than being an odd way of doing things 18:39
mizmo a swap on the shortest-form: "The Fedora Project creates a world where free culture is welcoming & widespread, collaboration is commonplace, and people control their content and devices." 18:39
mizmo ww! cc! wee 18:39
mdomsch to me, outreach becomes the natural result of enthusiasm 18:39
jsmith Right now, people still look at me funny when I try to explain that we get lots of people to collaborate on building free software 18:39
mdomsch exciting even 18:40
mdomsch how can we add excitement? 18:40
stickster mizmo: I like that 18:40
jds2001 mizmo: +1 18:40
mizmo mdomsch, add excitement to the statement? 18:40
stickster mizmo: 'an exciting world'? 18:41
jsmith "The Fedora project creates a world where free culture is welcoming, widespread, collaborative, enthusiastic." 18:41
mdomsch mizmo: yeah, somehow; the sense, at least, that what we're creating is an exciting world, rather than simply a world of drudgery that we have to advertise to get people interested in 18:41
jds2001 who's to say the world is exciting? 18:41
mizmo well i mean 18:41
mizmo i think making it exciting is all in the treatment 18:41
ctyler pervasive and norm mean that it's *the* way things are done; widespread doesn't seem to convey that. Is there a simple, stronger alternative to widespread? 18:41
mizmo you take that statement, lay it out nice and cleanly, have photos and illustrations showing what it can do, will generate a lot more excitement than any turn of phrase imho 18:41
stickster ctyler: "free culture welcomes people everywhere" 18:41
mizmo but then again im a designer :) 18:41
* jsmith still likes pervasive, but it's too highbrow it seems 18:42
mdomsch indeed 18:42
stickster jsmith: Put away your monocle, thanks 18:42
stickster Mr. Peanut 18:42
ctyler s/people everywhere/everyone/ ? 18:42
mizmo we be simple folk 18:42
mizmo yessum 18:42
* stickster and jsmith are laughing here but you can't hear us. All in good fun! 18:42
ctyler simple folk eating peanut butter :-) 18:43
mizmo ungh ungh 18:43
ctyler collaboratively making sandwiches 18:43
jsmith OK folks... we're about 45 minutes in... are we making progress, or just going 'round in circles? 18:43
mizmo "The Fedora Project creates a world where free culture is welcoming & widespread, collaboration is commonplace, and people control their content and devices."  ? 18:43
jsmith "The Fedora Board creates a world where people work collaboratively, but finally agree on a vision statement." 18:43
jds2001 : 18:43
stickster touche! 18:43
jds2001 :) 18:44
mdomsch doh 18:44
stickster mizmo: fwiw, I think that vision statement is fairly concise and also kind of elegant. 18:44
stickster Might be a case of perfect being the enemy of the good :-) 18:44
rdieter mizmo: I like that, a good improvement 18:45
mdomsch worksforme 18:45
jsmith Aye... I don't think we're anywhere close to "good vs. bad" here... simply "good, better, best" 18:45
* stickster does think strike the '&' for 'and' thought 18:45
stickster *though 18:45
* jsmith agrees w/ stickster on that one 18:45
mizmo its only 15 over 18:45
ctyler stickster++ 18:45
* jds2001 too 18:45
mizmo what! no &amp; 18:45
mizmo hehe 18:45
mizmo jk 18:46
stickster mizmo: I think we should use ♥ to test all utf16 delivery mechanisms 18:46
rdieter I suppose we could nix the "The Fedora Project creates a world where ..." part at times to make it tweetable 18:46
rdieter the stuff after that is the juicy part 18:46
stickster rdieter: Precisely. "Our vision: ____" 18:46
mdomsch rdieter: Fedora: where free culture... 18:46
rdieter mdomsch: ooh. neat. 18:47
mizmo "The Fedora Project creates a world where: 18:47
mizmo * free culture is welcoming and widespread 18:47
mizmo * collaboration is commonplace 18:47
mizmo * people control their content and devices 18:47
mizmo (just to see how it looks bulleted) 18:47
* jsmith likes it 18:47
mdomsch FedoraWorld: where... 18:47
stickster mdomsch: nice ;-) 18:48
mizmo #fedora: where... weeheehee 18:48
ctyler Looks good. 18:48
* jds2001 likes 18:48
stickster See, we can all be Gustave Flaubert for a day ;-) 18:48
jsmith I say we get the vision statement nailed down, then work on the identi.ca version 18:48
rdieter jsmith: good call, yes 18:49
mdomsch we need a 'c' word for devices 18:49
jsmith It's ten minutes before the hour. 18:49
mdomsch carryons, ... 18:49
jsmith or "data" instead of "content" 18:49
mdomsch ah yes 18:49
jsmith (althought content > data) 18:49
mizmo content and computing devices 18:50
mizmo hehe 18:50
rdieter haven't had much non-board feedback or comment (outside of stickster, but he doesn't count). people's, we need to hear what you think. 18:50
stickster rdieter: Hey, that's darn rude ;-) 18:50
rdieter stickster: you're pratically still a board member... feel better/ 18:51
rdieter ? 18:51
jsmith #info Now's your chance to have your say! 18:51
* stickster totally wants to hear from other peeps and is just here to serve the pretzels and pour the beverages 18:51
* rdieter snags some munchies 18:51
ctyler U U U U 18:51
jsmith stickster: Do you have any of those jalepeño pretzels, with some cheese sauce, and a tall lemonade? 18:51
* jds2001 orders beer 18:52
jsmith OK, let's try to wrap up on time here 18:53
jsmith Are we all in agreement on the latest version? 18:54
rdieter yes 18:54
jds2001 yep 18:54
jds2001 watch the mailing list this weekend, quick vote on Monday :) 18:54
jsmith Works for me. 18:55
mdomsch yep 18:55
ctyler yes 18:56
jsmith Any objections? 18:57
mizmo none here 18:58
mizmo 1 18:58
mizmo yay 18:58
mizmo can we have a party after the vote 18:58
rdieter party++ 18:58
jsmith mizmo: You bring the donuts, and I'll bring the milk 18:58
mizmo woo 18:59
jsmith #agreed "The Fedora Project creates a world where free culture is welcoming and widespread, collaboration is commonplace, and people control their content and devices." 18:59
smooge oh wait 18:59
smooge crap 18:59
* jsmith waits 18:59
smooge the meeting is over isnt it 18:59
jsmith smooge: Nope... just "almost" over 19:00
jsmith smooge: We're still taking input... what's up? 19:00
smooge ok I am here. I have no input.. but as a board member I should be here for the vote correct 19:00
jds2001 jsmith: i was thinking something more than donuts and milk :D 19:00
jsmith (we can undo the #agreed if you're not in agreement) 19:00
jsmith smooge: The official vote is on Monday 19:00
smooge oh ok 19:01
smooge I have nothing I can say at the moment. 19:01
jsmith smooge: If you have something between now and Monday, bring it up on the mailing list, please. 19:01
stickster jsmith: So once this is in place, what happens then? 19:02
jsmith stickster: Well, it's part of my "master plan" 19:02
* rdieter thought party was next (sorry, couldn't help it) 19:02
jsmith Now that you brought it up, I'll have to share my secret plan! 19:02
* ctyler thought so too 19:02
jsmith First of all, make sure that the Board is doing things according to that vision. 19:03
jsmith Second, take the vision to the other groups (FAMSCo, FESCo, SIGs, etc.), and make sure they're on board 19:03
jsmith (Not that I think they won't be, but we owe them the courtesy) 19:03
ctyler Third, Profit! (oops, old Slashdot habit there) 19:04
jsmith From then, I'd like to take a step back and take a holistic look at Fedora (the distro) through the lens of this vision. 19:04
jsmith Start talking about things we can do to the bits and bytes to make sure they are in line with the vision. 19:04
jsmith Obviously, there are parts of the vision statement that pertain more to the community at large than to the bits and bytes 19:05
jsmith and we've got some work to do there 19:05
jsmith rdieter is working on a charter for a Community Working Group, for example, to explore how we can work better as a community 19:05
stickster So that example would address the "welcoming" portion of the vision. I get it. 19:06
jsmith Aye :-) 19:06
mizmo i think we should work with openhatch too in order to welcome new contributors 19:06
jds2001 OPENHATCH? 19:07
jds2001 oops 19:07
mizmo hehe 19:07
jsmith openhatch is one example of a group we can work with... there are probably dozens of others 19:07
mizmo http://openhatch.org/ 19:07
jsmith jds2001: CAPS LOCK FRIDAY! 19:07
ctyler http://openhatch.org/ 19:07
* stickster thinks that the question wasn't just for himself but for people who are watching this meeting but can't necessarily be here. Thanks for talking about the next steps! 19:07
mizmo asheesh and dpic are looking at implementing the fedora design team bounty system on there, for any project 19:08
jds2001 nice! 19:08
jsmith OK, anything else? 19:09
smooge I am ok with things.. 19:09
jsmith Shall we wrap things up for now? 19:09
jsmith #topic Any other business 19:09
jsmith Going once... 19:10
jsmith Going twice... 19:10
jsmith Sold to the bidder on the back row with the funny hat! 19:11
stickster hey now 19:11
jsmith Thanks again everyone for your feedback and hard work. I really appreciate it. 19:11
jsmith #endmeeting 19:11

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