Meeting:Board meeting 2006-05-16

Board >   Meetings  >   2006-05-16

= Fedora Project Board Meeting (2006-05-16) =

Attendance
Present:
 * MaxSpevack
 * SethVidal
 * MattDomsch
 * JeremyKatz
 * BillNottingham
 * PaulWFrields
 * ChristopherBlizzard

Not Present:
 * ElliotLee
 * RahulSundaram
 * RexDieter

Notes/Summary
Matthew Szulik (Red Hat CEO) was our guest for most of the meeting.

Board member introductions.

Initial comments from Matthew (summarized):
 * There are lots of places (APAC as a specific example) where Fedora has more recognition than RHEL.
 * Has always been impressed with the community of use (first around Red Hat Linux, now around Fedora) developed around a genuine love for the technology, and the contributions that people make to see that community grow.
 * When Fedora initially started, there was a lot of skepticism on what would happen.
 * Want to ensure that Fedora isn't diluted, that Fedora isn't just a beta for RHEL.
 * As the community of people who come to open source grows, we need to make sure that those people become indoctrinated into what open source means. For us, that means a focus on Fedora.
 * Invite more and more developers. Fedora needs to become its own brand and level of recognition, and to decouple its ability to succeed from RHEL.
 * Goal: to increase worldwide community participation and leadership in Fedora. One of Max's goals is to educate the global workforce and management within Red Hat, and help make sure that both inside and outside of Red Hat, people understand the importance of Fedora.

Opened the discussion up to the entire group, and we had a conversation that touched on a variety of areas:


 * Core and Extras, emphasized the need for integration and simplicity.
 * Emphasized the fact that in the open source world in general, the number of developers outside of the US will outpace the number of developers inside the US, simply by the law of large numbers.
 * Who is Fedora designed for? Possibly everyone, since we have a very adjustable software base by design.
 * Budget: aiming for self-sustaining. How do we accomplish that?  And more importantly, what do we want to achieve globally?  The money is not as important as a better set of goals.  Goal-directed spending was encouraged. The budget we need will be there if we are doing worthwhile things.
 * How do we get more representation from India, South America, Middle East? Fedora had an excellent presence at the recent Brazilian show.  Chris Blizzard was there.  Why not think about a FUDCon in that area?  In comparison, we don't have a community in India at the same level yet.  Why not?  Matthew challenges us to improve in these areas.
 * Another challenge for the Board is figuring out how to balance day to day issues and medium-scale issues with the big picture strategy thinking that needs to happen.
 * Brought Matthew up to speed on how the Board is handling decision making and transparency. He encourages us to continue in this manner, and to always think about how we make decisions, how we communicate those decisions to the community, etc.

After Matthew's departure:

Meeting turned over to infrastructure issues and a general discussion that we don't have enough hands doing those jobs (reliance on Elliot for web site stuff, not enough people up to speed on Plone, et al.). How can we make bite-sized tasks out of larger projects, *and* give people an entry point to those nibbles?