F16 elections questionnaire

Candidates should add their responses directly on this wiki page.
Please note that not all questions need to be answered, e.g. a FAmSCo candidate should not need to answer very technical questions.

• What will you be able to accomplish by being elected, that you would not otherwise be able to do as a contributor?

Sgallagh Having a voice in making FESCo policy decisions will allow me to act on my stated goal of making Fedora into a powerful platform for the development of open-source software.

• What will you do to ensure that Fedora remains at the forefront of innovation in the GNU/Linux space?

Sgallagh I will push strongly for the inclusion of tools to make development on Fedora easier. The simplest way to continue to make Fedora the leader in innovation is to make ours the platform that new developers WANT to work with.

• What do you view Fedora's purpose and place being in the F/LOSS microcosm.

Sgallagh I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but I think that Fedora's place is to be the petri dish for F/LOSS projects. Fedora is where innovation should incubate while being provided with powerful tools to speed delivery to the public.

• What are your top three priorities as a board member?

Sgallagh 1) Aid and encourage Fedora QA in the creation of general-purpose testing and integration tools. 2) Push for better integration of development frameworks with the tools that Fedora ships. 3) Work to create documentation, guides and mentorship programs to bring new developers into the fold.

• What do you think about Fedora's vision and goals?

Sgallagh Lofty targets, but worth striving for.

• Who do you think Fedora is for today? Who should it be for?

Sgallagh Today, I think Fedora doesn't really know who it's for. Fedora as a distribution is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. I think Fedora's strength in the past had always been that it used to be targeted mostly at developers (maybe not officially, but that was who were most inclined to use it). I think Fedora's strength was always in its ability to encourage more developers into its community, which in turn resulted in more, better and faster development.

• If proprietary is black (100% gray) and uncompromising completely free right down to the hardware is white (0% gray), what % of gray are you and why?

Sgallagh My view is "realistic". I think the goal should be that we ultimately demonstrate by our actions (and successes!) that end-to-end freedom is the best and fastest way for technology to advance. However, we live in the real world, where at the end of the day hardware manufacturers are always going to make decisions that benefit themselves in the short-term, rather than the world at large in the long-term. So I think that Fedora's job is to do the best that we can to provide what freedoms we can, wherever possible.

• Where do you see Fedora in five years? How do you think we'll get there?

Sgallagh This is going to sound pessimistic, but if Fedora continues as it is right now, in five years I see Fedora withering. Too many developers are moving to Other Distros where there is a perception that it's easier to develop for, or that they will get into more users' hands. I want to see Fedora five years from now carrying the majority of F/LOSS development, having made it clear that Fedora is the best distribution for developers and users alike.