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Fedora Project Board Meeting :: Tuesday 2009-02-03

Board Questions & Answers

  • See the log for detailed answers
  • What is Fedora?
    • More discussion on this topic at the Board's next meeting
  • What is the news on the 'incident' last year, and when can we hear more?
  • Is Red Hat ever going to do main stream ads for Fedora (like on TV or Radio)?
  • Why will there be no FUDCon associated with the Red Hat Summit in Chicago in September 2009?
  • Why don't we replace the offical GA release with an updated one from Fedora Unity and archive the GA release when they have released an updated GA release ?
  • Is cowsay code or content? ... the question really is how can I look at a package and classify it as code or content?
  • Now with the ability to create a "live" cd shouldn't Fedora stop officially site with a specific DE ( Now it's Gnome ) and allow all DE to compete on a fair ground and all reference to "Desktop" would strictly be a generic one ( containing a just a list of all the DE's that Fedora offers ) ?
  • What key strategic initiatives is the board pursuing for 2009?
    • glezos would like to see this question discussed in more detail on a Board phone meeting and come up with more specific and consistent answers
  • Have we identified target groups to seek out as contributors? Or are we content with a walk-in only approach to recruitment?
  • Could the board collect some questions in advance of these meetings so more thought could be given to them before the board discusses them?
  • Is the Desktop SIG a Gnome Desktop SIG or is that SIG made up of members from other *DE SIG's

#fedora-board-meeting

stickster We are agenda-free today, 100% Q & A. 11:00
stickster We may be awaiting one or two other Board members 11:00
quaid ok, shall we ... wait a minute? 11:00
quaid heh, there we go 11:00
f13 Q: Does Fedora like burning trees, or saving kittens? 11:00
quaid A: Yes 11:01
f13 A: Burn them both! 11:01
stickster I think we're still awaiting spot and h\h 11:01
stickster I pinged them both 11:01
* mdomsch hears the cries of PETA 11:01
caillon and dmitris 11:02
quaid stickster: you have the back channel pingwtfru? 11:02
stickster quaidYes 11:02
stickster Let's get started at 1905 UTC. 11:03
* quaid sets his stopwatch 11:04
glezos hiya all 11:04
stickster Hi Dimitris! 11:04
stickster OK, let's get started 11:05
stickster quaid: Whenever you're ready. 11:05
quaid ok! 11:05
quaid good day everyone, I'm your friendly moderator 11:05
quaid I'll grab questions from the #-public- channel and paste them here 11:06
quaid in rought order. 11:06
quaid since we have some queued, shall we roll? or stickster do you want to say anything? 11:06
* quaid reaches to grab the mic back from stickster 11:06
stickster We're ready to proceed with Q & A -- we kept the agenda clear so we'd have plenty of time for them. 11:06
stickster quaid: Shoot. 11:06
stickster And hi to all Board members :-) 11:07
quaid ok, the first question led to the second, so I'll post them both: 11:07
quaid viking_ice> How to compete with google and becoming world dominators 11:07
quaid ke4qqq raises the question "What is Fedora's purpose?' and hands it to 11:07
quaid </> 11:07
quaid i.e., the second question goes to the first. 11:07
f13 First, world domination shouldn't be the goal of Fedora 11:08
notting compete with google? in what context? (we're obviously not writing a search engine, nor are we planning on deploying massive amounts of worldwide infrastructure anytime soon) 11:08
stickster We're not trying to index all the world's information, which is Google's raison d'etre IIRC. 11:08
f13 this is a question the board struggled with last meeting 11:08
f13 what we have agreed upon is that one goal of Fedora should be furthering the adoption of free and opensource software in the world. 11:09
f13 but thats nice and hand wavy 11:09
glezos Fedora's goal is to foster a healthy community of contributors with the goal of producing a complete and solid open source operating system. I don't think this comes in competition with Google. 11:09
quaid notting, stickster -- it was a joke that pointed to the fact that people don't know the answer to what Fedora's purpose is 11:09
notting quaid: well, in that case... "working on it" 11:10
stickster The answer is slightly different if we're talking about the Fedora Project as opposed to Fedora the Linux distribution. 11:10
mdomsch a) community; b) distribution... 11:10
mdomsch the community goal is to provide a welcoming and vibrant workspace in which to develop open source software that people find useful (yeah, handwavy...) 11:11
stickster "Purpose," "Goal," "Mission" are necessarily hand-wavy. 11:12
mdomsch from that we are able to produce a distribution which people find useful in a variety of ways 11:12
mdomsch and if we don't provide one they find useful, we certainly provide the tools to let them make one themselves which they find useful 11:12
stickster I think what people want to know when they ask the question "What is Fedora," is more often, "How do we know what Fedora is not, so we don't end up spreading resources too thinly?" 11:13
mdomsch fedora is not a brewery, though you may find it's members at one on occasion 11:13
stickster I believe the purpose of the project is to pioneer the methods by which a community works together to advance FOSS. One of the ways we demonstrate those methods is through production of Fedora the distribution. I believe the purpose of the distribution should be to serve in a balanced way as a platform or development by its contributor constituents. 11:14
notting well, the idea is to have a healthy and vibrant community, such that that community is capable of working on the various long tail uses, packages, etc. if they are interested 11:14
stickster s/or devel/for devel/ 11:14
h\h notting, well said 11:15
* f13 notes that we could probably wind up spending the entire hour talking about this 11:15
notting the question is then to define what constitutes the long tail and what doesn't. for example, we've stated that secondary arches such as ia64 or s390 are part of that long tail, and not necessarily part of the core fedora mission 11:15
mdomsch I like the "4 Fs" that the marketing team have been promoting 11:15
stickster Yes, let's try and limit this question to stop about 1925 so we don't disregard others 11:15
* skvidal notes we have wasted other hours on it 11:15
caillon stickster, hopefully "quality" is part of that definition of purpose. 11:15
mdomsch are we often asked to provide something, a service or a product, to which there simply aren't resources available? 11:16
stickster caillon: I think that should be part of our objectives, yes. 11:16
quaid I can put a time limit on the question, if you wish 11:16
quaid s/question/answer/ really 11:16
mdomsch (unless one considers exhaustive QA and/or the package review backlog that lack of resources) 11:16
stickster mdomsch: There's the constantly recurring question of a long-term support branch of Fedora. 11:16
skvidal quaid: good call 11:16
mdomsch or long-term support 11:16
mdomsch stickster, yeah... 11:17
quaid stickster: ok, I got the watch 11:17
skvidal stickster: I like to call that the 'magical pony' branch 11:17
f13 mdomsch: the question can come up when we're discussing the FEL question this week, about whether or not to ship the content that chitlesh wants to ship 11:17
mdomsch skvidal isn't content with a pony in his choice of color and size, he wants it to be magical too? :-) 11:17
mdomsch f13, pointer to discussion? 11:18
skvidal mdomsch: well - considering a pony is POSSIBLE given the constraints of the universe 11:18
skvidal mdomsch: a magical pony is not 11:18
skvidal mdomsch: hence this is the magical pony branch 11:18
skvidal b/c it is NOT possible 11:18
ctyler I'm increasingly viewing Fedora (the product) as a constellation of open source packages, "the best of open source that works today" as skvidal said at FUDCon F8, which are useful to people in many different combinations: desktop, server, both, netbook, multiseat, whatever. 11:18
f13 mdomsch: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-January/msg02364.html 11:18
mdomsch I am perfectly fine w/ Fedora not having a long-term support strategy, FWIW 11:19
* skvidal doesn't recall saying something so optimistic as that 11:19
f13 skvidal: shocking 11:19
* ctyler points skvidal to the FUDCon video 11:19
skvidal I must have followed it up with "we're all going to die soon, anyway" 11:19
stickster mdomsch: As am I. I find it's a distraction from forward momentum, especially when in the community space that void is filled by CentOS, or RHEL if you want paid support. 11:19
h\h right 11:20
* ctyler nods 11:20
stickster skvidal: Always Mary Sunshine. 11:20
quaid the "best of open source that works today" is something Max has repeated; it came from Tiemann originaly iirc 11:21
skvidal stickster: I have a middle name, too - but I won't use it in a public forum :) 11:21
stickster skvidal: ;-) 11:21
f13 MRFS 11:21
ctyler mmcgrath points out that there are many kinds of (possibly conflicting) 'best' 11:21
f13 or MRoFS. That's it, skvidal is forever hence known as mrofs. 11:21
f13 mmcgrath has a good point 11:22
stickster The point of having the entire project under a free license allows people to do outside the project with equivalent tools that which we may not be able to accommodate in-house. 11:22
quaid <mmcgrath> ctyler: Its tricky to say "best" because its subjective. Saying "newest" or "most stable" is more objective. 11:22
stickster So we can serve as an effective booster for even objectives in which we don't have a direct interest. 11:22
f13 when we envoke the term best, we have to also determine who gets to decide what 'best' is. 11:22
caillon well, best is ambiguous because we don't have a project goal. defining that goal is a first step to defining best. 11:23
* quaid mumbles about the Royal We 11:23
ctyler When Fedora is a package constellation, there can be more than one 'best' present. 11:23
* stickster notes < 2 min warning. 11:23
skvidal ctyler: up to a limit 11:24
skvidal ctyler: at some point 'bests' conflict 11:24
* caillon runs out of bounds to stop the clock 11:24
* glezos notes that although the lack of a definition/mantra won't kill a project, the existence of one will definitely help guide the project and its people to the right direction at difficult times. 11:24
notting right. it could be useful in light of the architecture discussions, or desktop vs. server, or... 11:25
glezos I think it's by definition difficult to come up with an answer to this, but that doesn't mean we should give up trying to find the essence of what we are doing and represent. 11:25
ctyler skvidal: right, but as long as there's energy to maintian both, spin X can utilize 'best X' and spin Y can use 'best Y' 11:25
* quaid notes time is up, do we want to suspend here ... 11:25
stickster glezos: Yes, no one doubts the importance of the question. 11:25
notting quaid ^Z 11:25
stickster It's hard to answer and the Board is set to take up the discussion again next week. 11:25
caillon quaid, it's probably fairest to the masses if we suspend, yes. 11:25
quaid ok then 11:25
* mdomsch recalls Admiral Stockdale. 11:26
quaid back to f-a-b with that discussion ... 11:26
quaid nirik> I'll bring up the question I always do: "What is the news on 11:26
quaid the 'incident' last year, and when can we hear more? I was hoping 11:26
quaid there was going to be some news, but I haven't seen anything" 11:26
quaid </q> 11:26
skvidal nirik: out of curiosity 11:26
glezos The Board hasn't received any updates on this issue. 11:27
skvidal if you could pick any answer you could get 11:27
skvidal what would be a home-run answer? 11:27
stickster There is nothing new to report at this moment, but I want to say that desepite naysaying to the contrary, no one has forgotten the fact that we owe the community a final disclosure report, nor trying to sweep that under the rug. 11:27
notting skvidal: the offender has been found. his head is on a pike <here> 11:27
caillon stickster, or at the least, you owe us some of those blue mind erasing sticks so we stop asking.  ;-) 11:27
notting that would be my wishcasting answer ;) 11:27
stickster caillon: I like the asking, it keeps people honest. 11:28
skvidal quaid: can you paste his response in here? 11:28
* quaid <nirik> skvidal: it would be: "we plan to release details in a press conference at 2009-xx-xx and will take questions then" 11:28
f13 I'm sure skvidal could whip up some milk-of-amnesia 11:28
skvidal nirik: can you be any more specific about the details you'd like that have not already been released? 11:29
skvidal what, to you, is lacking in the currently released information 11:29
skvidal I know what I want from it 11:29
skvidal but I want to make sure I'm not an odd case 11:29
skvidal (no one make any jokes about that last comment) 11:30
skvidal :) 11:30
glezos Once we have more information, I'd like to see the Board produce a full disclosure report and a plan of action for a similar event in the future. 11:31
quaid nirik> skvidal: I think I would like to hear "it was a failure of: people or packages or process" and I would love to hear that the people or packages or process were fixed both for fedora and anyone using the fedora distro. 11:31
glezos If under the same circumstances the same approach will take place, we should discuss if we can change something so that we can act differently in the future. 11:31
skvidal nirik: okay, thanks. 11:31
notting the people were fixed? ouch. that can hurt. 11:31
f13 notting: hey, you brought up heads on pikes. 11:31
* quaid buzzes five minute timer on this answer 11:31
* skvidal is done 11:32
mdomsch mmcgrath has been working on a plan for "if something similar happens again" (crosses fingers it won't) 11:32
* caillon first read that as if the plan was to cross fingers... 11:32
glezos mdomsch: good to know, thanks 11:33
quaid ok, next question ... 11:33
quaid JKnife> quaid_moderator: Ok, serious question, Is RedHat ever going to 11:33
quaid do main stream ads for Fedora(like on TV or Radio)? 11:33
stickster mdomsch: Yes, mmcgrath and I met at FUDCon and talked about that as a matter of fact. 11:33
stickster JKnife: I don't believe so. Mainstream ads on TV and radio are extremely expensive and don't necessarily attract an audience of contributors for Fedora. 11:33
f13 To what end? What would be the end result benefit for Red Hat or the Fedora project? 11:34
mdomsch a) ever is a long time; b) I haven't seen a Red Hat commercial ad for their own products 11:34
h\h in which country? :) 11:34
stickster mdomsch: good poing on (B). 11:34
stickster *point, even. 11:34
caillon mdomsch, closest we've had is a full page in NYT, iirc. 11:34
skvidal and what would the ad be like 11:34
notting i think we'd have to define the purpose and audience of Fedora before we have ads 11:34
stickster Our Ambassador crew is our main grassroots effort to spread Fedora to the masses and they do a spectacular job. 11:34
skvidal "Heard of linux? No? Then this is going to be confusing!" 11:34
stickster notting: heh. 11:35
mdomsch "we're in your pocket, owning your iPhone..." 11:35
notting i mean, we could hire Alec Baldwin to tell people that Fedora's an evil plot to destroy the world, but it's probably not practical 11:35
mdomsch or we could hire BillG and Seinfeld 11:36
f13 would be fun though 11:36
glezos Thinking about the full-page Firefox newspaper ad, I'd like stress out here the power of the community itself. 11:36
stickster But I'd like to see him re-enact the Glengarry Glen Ross scene, only with Fedora before the steak knives. 11:36
* glezos would *love* to see something like spreadfedora.com :) 11:36
f13 It might be useful to take out adds for Fedora events in local media outlets around the event 11:36
notting stickster: that should be your next state-of-fedora speech at fudcon 11:36
mdomsch mozilla got quite a lot of (free) attention by announcing they were going to try setting a world record for downloads 11:36
stickster notting: Don't tempt me. 11:37
f13 either events purely Fedora, or bigger events that Fedora happens to be participating in. 11:37
mdomsch f13, Fedora ran an ad several days in the MIT student paper before FUDCon 11:37
stickster Mozilla also has a broader-based product appeal. Remember that it runs on Windows. 11:37
f13 mdomsch: yeah, stuff like that. 11:37
f13 stickster: well, we run in PCs, Macs, etc... (: 11:38
stickster You know what I meant. 11:38
stickster :-) 11:38
caillon and a very high percentage of their userbase overlaps with windows users 11:38
f13 yes 11:38
f13 and overlaps with TV watchers 11:38
h\h marketing by writing nice blogs and howtos how to get s.th. done with free software and fedora helps more than any tv or radio add, I think 11:39
f13 whereas I bet we have a high percentage of our target audience skipping commercials due to PVR devices 11:39
stickster h\h: That's way more effective with the kind of audience that we want to encourage to actually *get involved* in Fedora. 11:39
mdomsch we need a Fedora logo on the side of Starbuck's shiny viper 11:39
f13 To sum up, I doubt we'll see Red Hat advertise on TV for Fedora any time soon, however we would like to see better advertisement targets used. 11:40
stickster This is something that bears mention again -- that given a limited resource budget (not just money, but also people, time, energy, etc.), we concentrate on bringing in contributors to Fedora, not consumers. 11:40
* quaid notes that by focusing on contributors, we leverage 1:1,000,000 where focusing on consumers leverages a dismal 10:1 ... in terms of affecting community growth. 11:40
mdomsch product placement is where it's at 11:40
stickster Heh, I think we all just summarized the same way. Kismet! 11:40
quaid mdomsch: if only the animation studios would put Fedora t-shirts on characters 11:40
quaid stickster: and on that ... next q? 11:40
stickster quaid: You're moderating, pipe down :-) 11:40
* quaid is trying! 11:41
stickster +1 11:41
* ctyler wonders if a stunt similar to the WSJ firefox think might have value, though 11:41
f13 quaid: they use our software, surely we can insert a watermark somewhere (: 11:41
notting mdomsch: so, we're competing with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzebPb60ffQ ? 11:41
quaid <EvilBob> I have a question, I recently heard about the Red Hat Summit 11:41
quaid in Chicago. It is my understanding that there will not be a FUDcon 11:41
quaid tied to this event that is in the middle of the coasts allowing 11:41
quaid contributors from the plains and midwest more of a chance to get to a 11:41
quaid FUDcon. Why was this decision made. 11:41
quaid <EvilBob> quaid_moderator: add to my FUDcon query, WHat funding is 11:41
quaid available if the community got something arranged in the area. 11:41
* quaid notes the answer to the second was discussed wrt NA Ambassadors 11:41
quaid </q> 11:41
f13 THe board talked about this 11:41
f13 We felt that the FUDCon attached to the RH Summit in BOS was a poor example of FUDCon compared to when we weren't attached to any event 11:42
stickster It actually has nothing to do with geography and everything to do with the success (or lack thereof)) at the last Summit-colocated FUDCon. 11:42
f13 and instead we'd like to perhaps see a Fedora Activity Day happen there, as opposed to a general FUDCon 11:42
mdomsch s/colocated/concurrent/ 11:42
stickster f13: +2. 11:42
stickster mdomsch: That too! 11:42
stickster Having a whole FUDCon at the Summit is distracting, expensive, and a logistical nightmare. 11:43
glezos I think history has shown that our most successful FUDCons were ones that were not hosted together with another event. 11:43
stickster I would note that mmcgrath is trying to get a FAD together in Chicago to work on infrastructure, but the event could be expanded through collaboration with him and whoever else is currently planning such an event. 11:44
stickster glezos: Exactly 11:44
f13 It also calls into question what it is we want to aaccomplish with FUDCons 11:44
caillon how many have we had with another event? i think there's a fairly small sample size here... 11:44
stickster By "expanded" I mean, could include one or two other targeted areas ((as opposed to morphing into a FUDCon, which would defeat the point). 11:44
f13 having a large number of developers in the same area/time has generated some good results. 11:44
f13 the same can be said for a large number of non-"developer" type folks 11:44
stickster caillon: It also happened with the FUDCon EMEA @LinuxTag 2008. 11:45
f13 and those two things don't have to happen at the same time/place 11:45
stickster The pattern was hard to ignore at that point. 11:45
mdomsch I like the idea of using FUDCon as a planning tool for upcoming releases 11:45
mdomsch which we haven't really done explicitly 11:45
stickster I think FADs give us an opportunity to do higher-touch, more user-centric events too. 11:45
f13 I do too, as well as a twice annual brain dump 11:45
glezos Seeing the success of FUDCon Brno, our aim right now is to try and distribute FUDCons around the world, expanding their impact to a much larger community than before. 11:45
stickster glezos: s/FUDCons/Fedora events/ 11:45
glezos stickster: right. 11:45
f13 there are two challenges. 11:46
f13 1) getting Red Hat people sent around that work on Fedora. 2) getting non-Red Hat people sent around that work on Fedora 11:46
glezos stickster: FADs might also address much lower-touch, highly developer-centric events, like hackfests, coding sprints, etc. 11:46
f13 1 gets easy by doing things on the East Coast of the US. Huge number of people already there, relatively smaller numbers to fly in 11:46
f13 doesn't help with 2 at all 11:46
stickster glezos: Absolutely, they can do either -- or both, with two rooms. 11:46
f13 to help with 2, we need to find more activities we can do in other places, that don't necessarily require/benefit from having a high number of Red Hat Fedora contributors. 11:47
stickster f13: Right, that's where FADs come in. 11:47
f13 yep, trying to set the table for those 11:47
ctyler More events will be fantastic. Getting as many people as possible in one place is great, too. I hope we can do both. 11:47
* quaid notes we have several questions in the queue still 11:48
f13 like anything, we have to be responsible about how we spend our resources. 11:48
skvidal I think this horse is dead 11:48
f13 not just the $$ in Fedora's coffers, but also the resources of our contributors 11:48
stickster The idea is that FADs can be set up by community members and a smaller funding amount goes much further with it being more of a local/regional event.j 11:48
* mdomsch notes his blog post yesterday too. http://domsch.com/blog/?p=30 FUDCons aren't the only places to discuss Fedora projects. 11:48
stickster Maybe we should move on further in the q-queue. 11:48
f13 stickster: +1 11:48
* glezos will also bring the example of online development sprints, which were very successful in the Django project. A few people get together in various locations in the world and the others from home hacking together on IRC. This is something that should probably be discussed on -advisory-board though and will need someone to prove it works by actually trying it. 11:49
* glezos eof 11:49
quaid * viking_ice raises hands and asks a serious question: Why don't we replace the offical GA release with an updated one from Fedora Unity and archive the GA release when they have released an updated GA release ? 11:49
quaid eoq 11:49
skvidal b/c it would mean 1. reving the world 2. mirrors would hate us. 3. recertifying for export, I believe 11:50
skvidal it's a lot of work for questionably much benefit, imo 11:50
caillon also, why would i download the "final release" if it's buggy and going to have a bugfix update in a few weeks? 11:50
ctyler minimal win since the release cycle is so short 11:51
f13 "nobody runs a .0 release" 11:51
h\h there is no dot in fedora :) 11:51
f13 I have a hard time believing that we'll continue to have enough bandwidth to concentrate on the next fedora, if we try to add even more releases into our plate. 11:51
mdomsch Unity provides a useful bit of work, and I'm glad they do. Keep it up. I see that as additive, but it need not replace what is hosted on the mirrors. 11:52
skvidal and he means both network and mental bandwidth 11:52
f13 its not like we're doing such a great job in the first place. 11:52
quaid * viking_ice answers skvidal: Just alone the whole i586 should be enough for justifying the their being or an updated GA existance 11:52
stickster I understand that the Ambassadors already hand out Unity respins at shows, which I think is a fine thing. 11:52
skvidal what i586 incident? 11:52
quaid s/i586/i586 incident/ 11:52
f13 I'd rather see us work to improve the process for the official release so that we won't have as great a calling for respins. 11:52
skvidal sigh - what other bugs should we respin for? 11:53
stickster Delta rpms might help? 11:53
skvidal stickster: somewhat - it'll diminish the size of things 11:53
stickster Yeah, that's all I was saying. :-) 11:53
mdomsch but not the number of updates being pushed... 11:53
skvidal and the way we have in mind delta from original -> NOW should be nice 11:53
f13 it'll diminish the size of things users download, not mirrors 11:53
f13 it'll /increase/ the size of our mirror footprint and bandwidth costs 11:53
* stickster wants us not to wander too far into the weeds here. 11:53
skvidal but they're so pretty 11:54
quaid herlo> stickster: (in f-board), we did hand out Unity discs, but I'd like them to become more official and thus want to press them if it can be blessed by the board. 11:54
quaid ok 11:54
skvidal look at this one with the shiny leaves of three 11:54
skvidal let me lick it 11:54
mdomsch I care somewhat less about mirror space and bandwidth (we seem to manage), but in people concentration bandwidth 11:54
quaid next q? 11:54
mdomsch both consumers (hmm, which one should I download), and developers/testers. 11:54
quaid <inode0> quaid_moderator: is cowsay code or content? ... the question really is how can I look at a package and classify it as code or content 11:55
stickster herlo: That's a distinct possibility. 11:55
stickster That sounds like more of a FESCo question to me. 11:55
f13 well, taking the question literally, you 'run' cowsay to produce something 11:55
stickster Sorry, I meant: 11:55
stickster inode0: That sounds like more of a FESCo question to me. 11:55
f13 you don't read cowsay contents in another application 11:55
f13 but the actual question, do you find our current wiki page not suitable to help you make that decision? If so, that really sounds like a FESCo/Packaging SIG issue 11:56
stickster quaid: Next q, I'd say. 11:57
h\h /exec cowsay Moo! 11:57
* stickster thinks of his favorite knock-knock joke. 11:57
h\h f13: you would read cowsay contents in xchat :) 11:57
f13 *cough* 11:58
stickster quaid: Next q please? 11:58
quaid ok 11:58
quaid * viking_ice raises hands and asks another one ( not sure if that's a micro one as well ) Now with the ability to create a "live" cd should'nt Fedora stop officially site with a specific DE ( Now it's Gnome ) and allow all DE to compete on a fair ground and all reference to "Desktop" would strictly be a generic one ( containing a just a list of all the DE's that Fedora offers ) ? 11:58
h\h "compete" .. is there a winner? 11:59
f13 I think that's a bit of a misnomer. We don't actually produce anything called a Fedora Desktop 11:59
f13 We have a Fedora Live image, which is loosely tied to the Fedora installer sets 11:59
mdomsch they don't all fit on a single CD... 11:59
notting 'now with the ability to create a "live" cd'? this isn't a new thing, we've been this way for many releases 11:59
f13 We have specific spins geared toward specific desktop environments, such as the KDE, XFCE, LX?? spins 12:00
glezos I think we should have a Live CD which has passed through our QA process and everything. At the same time, we should encourage and support community SIGs to produce Live CDs of their own and even urge them to make them first-class ISOs as well (shipped on release date, etc) 12:00
ctyler f13: the Gnome live disc is called "Fedora 10 Desktop Edition" on fedoraproject.org 12:00
notting ctyler: and also says that's it's GNOME right there in the description 12:00
f13 However, our Fedora spin takes elements from not just gnome, but non DE specific things too 12:00
f13 hrm. 12:00
f13 I guess some marketing things have changed since we first decided to make the live images. 12:00
caillon well the SIG name hasn't changed... 12:00
caillon and AIUI, it's produced by the desktop SIG 12:01
* stickster notes there's a Desktop SIG and 12:01
stickster nm, caillon is there already. 12:01
ctyler current names on website are "Fedora 10 Desktop Edition" and "Fedora 10 KDE Desktop Edition" 12:01
f13 The current state that things are in, the fact is that advancements tend to happen in our Gnome desktop world first, and that's what the Fedora project puts out there as our "best foot forward" for lack of abetter term. 12:01
f13 NetworkManager and PackageKit being two recent examples of this 12:02
caillon (did we ever get knetworkmanager?) 12:02
notting caillon: we did, and it's being replaced with a plasmoid in kde4.2, iirc 12:02
stickster caillon: /me was just talking with a contributor about kpackagekit earlier. 12:02
caillon nod 12:03
* caillon has had a few of those talks lately too 12:03
stickster I think it suffices to say that Fedora will always have a place for DE SIGs to feature their work as official spins 12:03
stickster Subject to all the normal stuff to which Spins are subject. 12:03
f13 THere is even room for a GNOME spin, which specifically uses things from teh gnoem project instead of more generic things 12:04
stickster Right. 12:04
f13 like a different browser, maybe a different IM toolset, etc... 12:04
stickster skvidal: Please give your opinion on the horse, doctor. 12:04
notting the epiphany spin? seems like overkill, but I suppose if someone's that motivated... 12:04
skvidal stickster: DEAD 12:04
mdomsch e12 12:04
caillon notting, is that the epiphany webkit or the epiphany gecko spin? 12:05
skvidal stickster: stiff 12:05
skvidal stickster: rotting, actively 12:05
notting mdomsch: surely that's the e17 spin 12:05
f13 notting: is it really any more overkill than the BrOffice spin? 12:05
skvidal stickster: oh, look, maggots 12:05
* quaid ready with the next question 12:05
quaid <poelcat> quaid_moderator: Q: What key strategic initiatives is the 12:05
quaid board pursuing for 2009? 12:05
notting f13: ugh 12:05
quaid sorry, pasted early, but go ahead if you wish 12:05
stickster QA. 12:05
f13 hey look, poelcat just gave me BS Bingo! I WIN! 12:05
f13 Yes, QA 12:06
f13 I've taken on QA as my special interest as a board member. 12:06
notting 1) defining the fedora target as stated earlier in the meeting. we hope to have this done by the end of 2009 12:06
h\h leverage the shareholders income, I guess.. 12:06
stickster notting: cheeky monkey. 12:06
f13 What that means is that I keep an eye on whats happening there, reporting to the board, and well stepping in to get my hands dirty where I can 12:06
f13 and helping to drive board attention and resources to further the QA effort 12:06
* mdomsch wants to redefine the Fedora Project as a bank, so we can receive TARP funds to spend on TV advertising 12:06
stickster We look at Red Hat's hiring of Adam Williamson to be a key investment in Fedora QA for coming releases 12:07
f13 also we have a couple important distribution releases to get done in 2009 12:07
* mdomsch is excited by the Fedora Cloud work that mmcgrath talked about at FUDCon 12:07
notting f13: the next release is the most important release in the history of Fedora! 12:08
stickster mdomsch: I think the question was specifically about the Board's initiatives 12:08
h\h notting, for f13 it's F13 :) 12:08
stickster Keeping in mind that we don't have dedicated budget or people, but only (hopefully) the energy to help promote things we believe will provide good long-term results for the Fedora Project. 12:08
glezos One of my personal goals is to continue having Fedora be the leader in niche aspects of the open source development ecosystem. 12:09
stickster Such as L10n perhaps? 12:09
stickster :-) 12:09
glezos Our open build system, custom live spins were highly innovative solutions 12:09
glezos stickster: and that. :) 12:09
* skvidal has a goal 12:09
caillon poelcat, what specific initiatives would you like to see pursued? 12:09
h\h caillon, smart move :) 12:10
skvidal I'd like to see more upstream projects realize the benefit they get of working more closely with fedora 12:10
skvidal so that upstream devels are tied in to fedora bit more tightly, that, through peer-pressure, will drive more users towards us 12:10
glezos we should pursue in keeping and enforcing this leadership Fedora is showing. 12:10
skvidal to devels, we should be the "cool kids" 12:10
skvidal to users - the devels are the cool kids 12:10
skvidal the users will follow what the devels blog and tweet about 12:10
skvidal and I want that to be fedora 12:11
quaid <poelcat> quaid_moderator: to caillon: the fedora board is often compared to corporate boards at publicly traded companies so I was wondering what goals and objectives the fedora board is setting and how they plan to lead fedora forward 12:11
stickster I'd like to look at the state of Sugar/OLPC software in ~6 months to see what the impact of that work has been outside of OLPC 12:11
stickster I'd also like to see our Marketing team working on a more externally-focused set of objectives, i.e. consistent messaging to non-Fedora and non-FOSS audiences 12:12
* stickster backs off mic 12:13
stickster Anyone else? 12:13
ctyler I'd like to see Fedora become the distro of choice for teaching how to get involved in an Open Source community. 12:13
caillon poelcat, i'm not sure that comparison is 100% fair, but i think part of it depends on a decision for what fedora's goals as a project are defined as, and part depends on individuals on the board's pet projects, so isn't necessarily representative for the board as a whole. 12:14
ctyler I think we're in the strongest position of any of the main distros for that. 12:14
* glezos would like to see poelcat's question discussed in more detail on a Board phone meeting and come up with more specific and consistent answers. 12:14
* h\h 2 12:14
caillon so i'm rather keen on getting a definition which should help shape the rest of what we do. 12:15
stickster I think that having individual "pet projects" is more reflective of the fact that the resources the Board can marshal are limited beyond ourselves. 12:15
caillon that said, i've got a strong interest in furthering the desktop and improving our QA efforts, myself. 12:15
skvidal caillon: can you get more of the desktop team blogging about what they're doing? 12:15
glezos skvidal: that would be great. 12:16
stickster Notwithstanding what notting half-joked about earlier, and caillon reiterates. Tightening the definition of Fedora is a worthy goal, I think. 12:16
skvidal caillon: esp blogging on places picked up by planet gnome - I see a lot of ubuntu posts on planet gnome - but not a lot of fedora-related ones 12:16
caillon skvidal, i'd love to. though that may come in the form of seeing lots more of my mug on planet doing reports 12:16
stickster caillon: Don't tease us. 12:17
skvidal caillon: I don't mind, you're reasonably cute :) 12:17
glezos skvidal: there's a lot of Ubuntu talk and less Fedora talk at GUADEC as well. 12:17
caillon skvidal, aw, you're making me blush 12:17
skvidal caillon: but getting those posts on the desktop-planets wouldn't hurt 12:17
caillon trust me, i know. it's a real goal for me. 12:18
stickster It's not even a matter of trying to be louder, it's simply letting people know about all the cool work going on. 12:18
skvidal caillon: cool. thanks 12:18
stickster yup, thanks caillon 12:18
stickster quaid: Next Q? 12:18
quaid do you want more qestions? 12:18
* quaid lost a 'u' 12:18
quaid <spoleeba> quaid_moderator, speaking of contributors...... here's my 12:18
quaid question... have we identified target groups to seek out as 12:18
stickster I'm game but respect that some Board members are overtasked today 12:18
quaid contributors? Or are we content with a walkin only approach to 12:18
* ctyler needs to step out shortly 12:18
quaid recruitment? 12:18
notting i think recruitment needs to happen more at the sig/task level, not as a board level 12:19
caillon or at the school level *cough*ctyler 12:19
stickster The people we'd want to recruit for Docs task probably have a different general profile from people who would make, say, good packagers 12:19
ctyler caillon: absolutely :-) 12:19
notting at the global level, we can probably at best do a 'interested in contributing? see <x y z>' (examples of ways to contribute, and who/where to see for more info) 12:20
glezos or at LUGs. 12:20
* skvidal gets out the razorblades 12:20
notting i.e., the join-fedora page 12:20
mdomsch I think we do do that; the K12LTSP integration that warren has been working on. The FEL work. The audio guys from Stanford that joined up a few years back... 12:20
f13 We want to recruit people that want to contribute. 12:21
stickster Some of the new infrastructure folks who have worked out very well. 12:21
f13 beyond that.... 12:21
mdomsch planet CCRMA that was... 12:21
stickster I would say that finding people who want to contribute is a harder task than finding people with the right skill sets to do so. 12:22
stickster Shall we take another question? 12:22
* ctyler regretfully steps out, will read scrollback later 12:22
stickster Thank you ctyler! 12:22
* skvidal has another meeting in 8 minutes, too 12:23
stickster quaid: What does the queue look like? 12:23
quaid three q 12:23
stickster Let's take one and call it a meeting. 12:23
f13 Yes, no, and orange. Seeya! 12:23
stickster f13: wrong, cerulean. 12:23
caillon ecru 12:23
stickster maize. 12:23
quaid ok, I'm going to pick 12:23
quaid inode0> Question: could the board collect some questions in advance of these meetings so more thought could be given to them before the board discusses them? 12:23
f13 I don't see that as a bad idea 12:24
* quaid thinks the others were derivative and covered ground already covered. 12:24
stickster inode0: I think that's the purpose of the fedora-advisory-board list, which is open to everyone. 12:24
notting ooh, good idea. 12:24
f13 right 12:24
stickster We watch that and discuss things there all the time. 12:24
f13 the only danger is that we'll wind up answering them on list and never getting to them on IRC (: 12:24
notting stickster: but i don't think we've specifically advertised that as a means for pre-seeding the public chat 12:24
stickster f13: But they're so much more googly there! 12:24
stickster Or is it "googlier"? 12:24
stickster I like the idea that the chats are done on our toes... are we sure that making this a scripted meeting is an improvement? 12:25
glezos I think this could be done in parallel to meetings. 12:25
caillon stickster, it would have the benefit that we can answer everyone's questions in a more timely fashion 12:26
caillon and thus make it less likely that we'll not answer two questions, as we are now. 12:26
glezos That is, once every month the Board can accept questions and provide answers to them collectively and asynchronously a few days later. 12:26
stickster Well, you do have a point. But it's not "not answering" if those questions are posted to FAB as follow-up. 12:26
f13 right 12:27
f13 IRC gives you real time, posting to the list is not likely to be any less unscripted non-cohesive response generating 12:28
f13 we don't meet in a shadowy room to make sure we're all reading from the same script when we reply to email 12:28
f13 we aren't a hive mind 12:28
stickster f13: True enough 12:28
skvidal f13: yes we are 12:28
skvidal f13: you've not yet joined 12:28
notting f13: then what are we meeting in the shadowy room for? 12:28
stickster skvidal: shh, we're quiet now precious. 12:28
f13 skvidal may speak for himself, but we all speak for skvidal 12:28
skvidal notting: and will someone please open a window to clear out all the smoke? 12:28
stickster quaid: Why don't you post the two remaining questions that way, and maybe I can get notting or someone to open a pre-seed thread later this month? 12:29
* quaid posts 12:29
notting more seriously, sending them ahead of time or after time to f-a-b makes sense. f-a-b discussions are less likely to come to actionable decision points, though 12:29
quaid JKnife> quaid_moderator: Why Linux for Fedora and not, lets say *BSD 12:29
quaid or minix3? 12:29
quaid <viking_ice> Is the Desktop SIG a Gnome Desktop SIG or is that SIG 12:29
quaid made up of members from other *DE SIG's 12:29
notting JKnife: it's our body of expertise. not worth switching. 12:29
stickster OK, cool, we'll look for them there. 12:29
stickster quaid: Thanks for moderating for us! 12:30
caillon viking_ice, members from e.g. the KDE SIG participate 12:30
f13 JKnife: Fedora doesn't say "Linux" anywhere in its offerings, come up with a Fedora BSD spin and we'll talk 12:30
stickster oops 12:30
stickster I guess, so much for winding up. 12:30
f13 well I take that back, I'm sure we say Linux many places 12:30
f13 but it's called Fedora, not Fedora Linux 12:30
quaid stickster: my pleasure, anytime 12:31
glezos f13: would bootstrapping such a team/technology be realistic for a Google SoC project? 12:31
f13 um. 12:31
notting glezos: i... don't see the point? 12:31
f13 yeah 12:31
f13 I don't either. 12:31
f13 what would it accomplish? 12:31
caillon viking_ice, but doing the same work multiple times is not fun, and the desktop SIG focuses primarily on on DE, namely GNOME. 12:31
glezos me neither, just taking the 'come up with a Fedora spin' a step further. :) 12:32
stickster caillon: But to be fair, much applicable work is done in freedesktop.org so as to enable other DEs fairly 12:32
notting caillon: viking_ice: i would say that the original people who were interested in pushing forward the desktop came from a GNOME base of knowledge and experience, and it sort of becomes self-sustaining from there 12:32
* stickster overuses the word "fair," sorry. 12:32
f13 stickster: fairy. 12:32
stickster f13: queen! 12:33
notting w.r.t. BSD, for example, i don't think it's fair to expect all packagers to suddenly have to maintain multiple builds and ports for different kernels. in fact, i can imagine the response from the X side of the house pretty well. 12:33
caillon stickster, yes. the work done is specifically to make it easy for other frontends to plug-in. see NetworkManager, PackageKit, PolicyKit, etc. 12:33
quaid <speaking out of turn> stickster: yes, that is probably the best point to make -- Fedora is a converged desktop more than a GNOME or KDE-preferring distro </speaking...> 12:33
f13 notting: releng would have a pretty nasty response as well, as I"m sure QA would too 12:33
stickster caillon: Exactly 12:34
mdomsch and again, what's the point? 12:34
* stickster can't imagine having to deal with builds of his relatively insignificant package maintainer load for OS's with which he's not familiar. 12:34
caillon it just so happens that the frontend that gets written first is (usually) the GNOME one 12:34
mdomsch just because we could write something a dozen times doesn't mean we should 12:34
stickster mdomsch: f13: Maybe the answer is, "Why not?" 12:34
f13 stickster: because it costs real resources to do 12:35
h\h time 12:35
caillon Fedora: The Aristocrats version 12:35
stickster f13: Sorry, I was unclear -- "Why not Linux?" 12:35
f13 and in order to spend the resource, I'd like a ... 12:35
f13 ah. 12:35
stickster caillon: lulz. 12:35
mdomsch if the people who want the work done pony up the resources, hey, who am I to stop them? 12:35
stickster *magically* pony. 12:35
mdomsch it's the secondary arch discussion all over again 12:35
f13 mdomsch: I'm the guy to stop them. (being the one responsible for the buildsystem) 12:36
f13 Fedora on BSD could be done, on its own, using the secondary mark 12:36
notting mdomsch: well, same for long life span, or .... 12:36
* mdomsch points to OBS 12:36
stickster True enough. 12:36
mdomsch exactly 12:36
notting mdomsch: i think it's the sort of thing where we'd want to see a reasonable commitment and demonstration of viability before we'd want to attach the Fedora name brand to it 12:37
mdomsch until someone steps up to do it though, it's moot 12:37
mdomsch notting, sure 12:37
* mdomsch deals with unrealistic requests daily 12:37
stickster Which is often the right answer to "Why don't 'we' do <X/>?". 12:37
f13 are we done here? my stomach is yelling loudly at me. 12:37
quaid btw, I'll post the IRC log, but to do so we eventually need to close the meeting :) 12:37
stickster OK, I think we've now beat two horses simultaneously to death. 12:38
stickster f13 will soon get low blood sugar and lash out violently :-) 12:38
spot OH GOD WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY HORSES?!?!? 12:38
f13 mmmmm 12:38
f13 glue 12:38
stickster quaid: Thank you again for moderating for us. 12:38
stickster Thank you to the community for the good questions and their kind attendance! 12:38
quaid </meeting> 12:38
stickster We'll return first Tuesday of March, which is.... 12:38
stickster Oh, March 3. At 1900 UTC. 12:39
f13 stickster: re fairy, I meant the winged flying small creature, not some other meaning. 12:39
* mdomsch loves non-leap-years 12:39

#feodora-board-public

stickster For anyone not familiar with the format, quaid_moderator will listen in here, and relay questions to the #fedora-board-meeting channel. 10:59
* inode0 is disoriented by this new moderator 10:59
stickster Board members are assembled in that channel, and you can join it to watch the discussion. 10:59
quaid_moderator good day everyone 10:59
viking_ice Evening 11:00
kc8hfi whats the agenda? 11:00
stickster We are agenda-free today, 100% Q & A. 11:00
quaid_moderator kc8hfi: right, this is driven by questions 11:00
viking_ice How to compete with google and becoming world dominators 11:00
quaid_moderator viking_ice: that will segue nicely in to "What is Fedora's purpose?" 11:01
* quaid_moderator has a feeling that might come up today 11:01
inode0 is cowsay code or content? 11:02
* ke4qqq raises the question "What is Fedora's purpose?' and hands it to quaid_moderator 11:02
herlo lol 11:02
JKnife isn't it to promote the use of opensource software and opwn standards while freeing computers of horrid file formats? 11:02
quaid_moderator ke4qqq: got it 11:02
herlo it was bound to be asked :) 11:03
quaid_moderator thx, ke4qqq, I wanted to ask and comment but I'm supposed to moderate! 11:03
ke4qqq figured I might as well get it out of the way 11:03
quaid_moderator all I know is I didn't envy that question being my responsibility to answer when on the Board :) 11:03
ke4qqq though it's likely to be a long one....so others may want to go first 11:03
nirik I'll bring up the question I always do: "What is the news on the 'incident' last year, and when can we hear more? I was hoping there was going to be some news, but I haven't seen anything" 11:03
stickster quaid_moderator: spevack has doubled up before, it's not unprecedented. :-) 11:03
ke4qqq true....and you have the multiple personalities thing already going - two diff. nicks 11:04
quaid_moderator stickster: heh, that would be my caveat -- I didn't think it was the Board's to answer then, and I don't now :D 11:04
quaid_moderator ke4qqq: this is the same personality 11:04
quaid_moderator you all should be happy diauq isn't here moderating 11:04
* spoleeba lurks 11:04
* quaid_moderator passes spoleeba walking slowly from his emeritus parking spot 11:04
thomasj nirik +1 11:04
JKnife ohh i have a question, why did yall use UTC for the meeting time instead of RedHats main office local time? (like y'all do with releases?) 11:04
quaid_moderator JKnife: I'll queue that, because the "official Fedora time" question is still open 11:05
quaid_moderator but I do think folks are good about using UTC, so you might get a -1 troll :D 11:05
JKnife lol 11:05
edneymatias :) 11:05
* viking_ice raises the question "when is Fedora going to get it self a live pony and give everyone a free ride on that pony when a pony ride is needed/wanted" 11:06
viking_ice hehe 11:06
JMakey Technically, it is generally less complicated to convert between one's local time and UTC than between one's local time and another's. Less knowledge is needed. 11:06
quaid_moderator viking_ice: btw, do you want me to ask about world domination? 11:07
kc8hfi and competing with google 11:07
JKnife quaid_moderator: Ok, serious question, Is RedHat ever going to do main stream ads for Fedora(like on TV or Radio)? 11:08
viking_ice quaid_moderator: nope.. 11:08
quaid_moderator JKnife: got it 11:08
ke4qqq JKnife: do they even do mainstream ads for RH? 11:08
quaid_moderator never have, fwiw 11:08
quaid_moderator but Fedora is different, eh? 11:09
JKnife ke4qqq: I thnk it would be something cool todo 11:09
* quaid_moderator wants a series of "Because we do it the Fedora Way," that call back to Sean Connery in The Untouchables 11:09
EvilBob I have a question, I recently heard about the Red Hat Summit in Chicago. It is my understanding that there will not be a FUDcon tied to this event that is in the middle of the coasts allowing contributors from the plains and midwest more of a chance to get to a FUDcon. Why was this decision made. 11:09
ke4qqq I'd love to see truth happens on tv, but the unwashed masses wouldn't get it. 11:09
JKnife heh 11:10
inode0 EvilBob: bad scheduling in the cycle, not the best result combining them in boston, etc. 11:10
quaid_moderator good question EvilBob, got it 11:10
JKnife They could start minor ads on local tvs as a trial run and see how it does then move to a bigger scale 11:10
* quaid_moderator thinks inode0 has the gist, but wants to see Paul answer formally 11:10
JKnife o/ EvilBob 11:10
inode0 will encourage us to do FADs instead :) 11:11
EvilBob inode0: thanks but I want to hear the board as part of the computer and software industry snub the midwest themselves 11:11
quaid_moderator FAD @ Summit is a great idea, perhaps 11:11
ke4qqq quaid_moderator: I'll bite - lets hear the purpose/goal for both the community and distribution 11:12
* viking_ice raises hands and asks a serious question: Why don't we replace the offical GA release with an updated one from Fedora Unity and archive the GA release when they have released an updated GA release ? 11:12
EvilBob inode0: NOTHING happens in with in an 8hour drive from here 11:12
inode0 quaid_moderator: did you get my question, which may have sounded frivolous but was serious 11:12
spoleeba viking_ice, isnt that more of a release engineering question 11:12
spoleeba viking_ice, the board's mandate isn't to micromanage the details of releases 11:12
inode0 EvilBob: you want to organize FUDcon in the twin cities? 11:13
EvilBob inode0: i want ANYTHING to happen where I can drive to it 11:13
viking_ice spoleeba: how so ? this affect all fedora's end users but ok 11:13
inode0 We've really been encouraged ... but paying union rates to colocate with something like the Summit is wildly expensive 11:13
spoleeba viking_ice, the board does not micromanage all decisions 11:14
spoleeba viking_ice, this is a bottom up organization 11:14
quaid_moderator inode0: still looking, can you repost 11:14
EvilBob inode0: the lack of events in this area is what made being an Ambassador a waste of time for me. 11:14
inode0 quaid_moderator: is cowsay code or content? 11:15
spoleeba viking_ice, fesco/releng set time tables for release milestones.. a respin would be yet another mileston in the release process 11:15
quaid_moderator inode0: can you enlighten me what that is just in case I have to explain? 11:15
inode0 quaid_moderator: the question really is how can I look at a package and classify it as code or content 11:16
viking_ice spoleeba: Has fedora unity been asked if they could not manage that/those milestone(s) ? 11:16
spoleeba the purpose discussion is never going to go away 11:16
inode0 cowsay is a perl script and a library of cows 11:16
JKnife so wait.. Fedora has mixed unknown goals? shouldn't the goals be one f the first things done when starting a project to help build the road map? 11:16
spoleeba Fedora as a project pushes the boundary of purpose because its pushing tech 11:16
inode0 I found the OVM business a little unsettling 11:17
spoleeba we arent going to be able to build a 12 foot fence around what Fedora is...all we can do is put little sawhorses around and make a temporary fence 11:17
spoleeba inode0, shrug 11:17
spoleeba inode0, its absolutely no different than what has come before with java 11:18
spoleeba inode0, no different 11:18
kc8hfi what are the 4 F's that marketing have been promoting? 11:18
spoleeba inode0, there was a crap load of open java code out there that we did not ship until we had an open java to intepret it 11:18
inode0 following precedents doesn't make things right - that argument means little to me 11:18
spoleeba inode0, its absolutely right 11:19
spoleeba inode0, same arguments then as now 11:19
inode0 it may be right, following a precedent doesn't make it right 11:19
spoleeba inode0, the argumetns have not changed 11:19
mmcgrath ctyler: Its tricky to say "best" because its subjective. Saying "newest" or "most stable" is more objective. 11:19
mmcgrath both could be best, but they tend to conflict with eachother. 11:19
spoleeba inode0, recycling the arguments..again...doesnt change history 11:19
inode0 spoleeba: it might help if code in this context were better defined (say interpreted code is content without an interpreter if that is the position of Fedora) 11:20
inode0 is that the position? 11:20
spoleeba inode0, you arent going to get a clean definition of code/content 11:20
ctyler mmcgrath: agreed 11:20
spoleeba inode0, C code is intepreted code 11:21
EvilBob As a FEdora user and Contributor I would hate to see a "LTS" branch take away from our already strained manpower resources 11:21
spoleeba inode0, a compiler has to...interpret it 11:21
spoleeba EvilBob, yes... anything like that would require new resources 11:22
inode0 then saying cowsay or ovm is content is arbitrary and that is just going to cause hard feelings 11:22
inode0 if you can't define it, don't use it as a point to discriminate 11:22
spoleeba EvilBob, but..if for example.. I started a company whose busines it was to create a Fedora LTS...and put the resources in place... 11:22
spoleeba inode0, im not descrimating 11:22
spoleeba inode0, its the same as java 11:22
spoleeba inode0, there is precedent.. on a case by case basis 11:23
spoleeba inode0, feel free to cite an opposing precedent 11:23
inode0 yes, you are making a discrimination by classifying a package as content rather than as code and applying different rules to it 11:23
spoleeba inode0, you are attempting to desciminate by making OVM a special case 11:23
spoleeba inode0, i am not saying its content 11:23
inode0 i haven't even stated a position on ovm 11:23
spoleeba inode0, i consistently stated that I view ovm as code 11:23
inode0 ok, if ovm is code that it should be accepted by the guidelines, right? 11:24
spoleeba inode0, no 11:24
spoleeba inode0, for the same reasons that java was not..before we had a java interpreter 11:24
inode0 fesco rejected it because they said it wasn't code but rather it was content and had to meet an extra burden 11:24
spoleeba inode0, i am not fesco 11:24
EvilBob inode0: forgive me, the OVM issue is the Chitlesh item, is that correct? 11:25
spoleeba EvilBob, FEL..yes 11:25
EvilBob K 11:25
* viking_ice raises hands and asks another one ( not sure if that's a micro one as well ) Now with the ability to create a "live" cd should'nt Fedora stop officially site with a specific DE ( Now it's Gnome ) and allow all DE to compete on a fair ground and all reference to "Desktop" would strictly be a generic one ( containing a just a list of all the DE's that Fedora offers ) ? 11:25
inode0 this "enhances the OS user experience" requirement is for content, not code 11:25
quaid_moderator viking_ice: got it 11:25
spoleeba viking_ice, are you saying the Desktop Spin should be called the Gnome Desktop Spin? 11:26
viking_ice This basically comes down to Anaconda not auto select for an End user a specific DE but rather ask the end user to choose one of the DE's available if he has not done so already on the DVD ISO 11:26
EvilBob quaid_moderator: add to my FUDcon query, WHat funding is available if the community got something arranged in the area. 11:27
nirik skvidal: it would be: "we plan to release details in a press conference at 2009-xx-xx and will take questions then" 11:27
nirik but I understand not having that. I think it's important to ask. 11:28
quaid_moderator EvilBob: got it 11:28
* quaid_moderator notes that is a question probably for the NA Ambassador group, ke4qqq might have a clue what Sep. looks like for budget 11:29
ke4qqq EvilBob thus far we have paid for FADs out of FAMNA's budget 11:29
inode0 we don't really fund FUDcons if that is what the question it 11:30
ke4qqq propose one, tell us how much you need - we'll try and get it for you provided CommArch give us the money 11:30
ke4qqq no but we are funding FAD @ SCALE and LFNW 11:30
nirik skvidal: I think I would like to hear "it was a failure of: people or packages or process" and I would love to hear that the people or packages or process were fixed both for fedora and anyone using the fedora distro. 11:30
quaid_moderator EvilBob: it could be a shadow conference, but that would require people to be at the Summit 11:30
* inode0 thought EvilBob was still talking about FUDcons 11:30
quaid_moderator EvilBob: the venue is going to be the hardest part, I reckon 11:30
EvilBob ke4qqq: see that is the God Damned problem 11:30
EvilBob ke4qqq: there are NO events to piggy back on any where near here 11:31
ke4qqq you don't need to - someone picked those - we are talking about one at clemson that is attached to nothing 11:31
viking_ice spoleeba: Well yes in Gnome case it would be Gnome Desktop Spin and so for "$DENAME Desktop Spin" and the Desktop wiki page would be a generic desktop page ( just contain list of all the DE that are available in Fedora and sub pages of those DE would be there as in Desktop/Gnome Desktop/XFCE etc.. ) 11:31
ke4qqq the issue is - who can you get to come, what can you get accomplished, and how much will it cost. 11:32
EvilBob ke4qqq: and I am not really interested in a FAD as I understand what a FAD is 11:32
quaid_moderator EvilBob: talk with lcafiero about Lindependence 11:32
spoleeba EvilBob, where is here? 11:32
* nirik thanks the board and skvidal. 11:32
quaid_moderator that is good for tapping the wider distro community 11:32
EvilBob you could hold a FAD in my townhouse complex and I would not bother to go 11:32
* mmcgrath admits he has been working on that. 11:33
inode0 EvilBob: FAD may mean something different now than what you are thinking, maybe not 11:33
spoleeba EvilBob, I'm going to be in Ind for a NSF workshop at the end of March... a workshop on sustainable cyber infrastructure.. its a perfect tie in for a Fedora infrastructure FAD 11:33
EvilBob ke4qqq: I have nothing to do with Ambassadors, ambassador involvement for me in the past has been a major waste of time 11:33
quaid_moderator Fedora Activity Day == FAD 11:33
quaid_moderator it _used_ to be Ambassador Day 11:34
ke4qqq it's not necessary related to Ambassador - the one at scale is packaging and docs iirc. 11:34
ke4qqq no ambassador involvment except the ambassadors present are involved in other aspects and we provided some funding 11:34
viking_ice spoleeba: This allows for the current ones and new ones that might emerge later to compete against each other on a fair ground as in they them self are responsible to market them self the best DE to use to the end user then the end user choose himself what to use ( based on the live cd experience he got ) 11:34
EvilBob quaid_moderator: thank you for the clarification, still does not make sense to me that one has to ask the FASCo for funding in that case 11:34
quaid_moderator EvilBob: FAMSCo handles the purse strings for Community Architecture 11:35
quaid_moderator EvilBob: also, if you haven't been paying attention, we have a ... uniquely American NA Ambassador regional crew 11:35
poelcat quaid_moderator: Q: What key strategic initiatives is the board pursuing for 2009? 11:35
* EvilBob just shakes his head 11:35
quaid_moderator inode0, ke4qqq, herlo, lcafiero ... darn, who am I forgetting? 11:35
quaid_moderator bpowell ... 11:35
quaid_moderator EvilBob: wtf do you want to ask then? 11:35
EvilBob Nothing 11:36
EvilBob forget I asked anythign 11:36
quaid_moderator roger 11:36
viking_ice quaid_moderator: Did you pick up my question regarding the "Official Desktop" ( as in there would be none ) 11:38
quaid_moderator viking_ice: yes, got it 11:39
quaid_moderator that's the last question in my queue, btw 11:39
JKnife I think just think a tv ad of college students saying stuff like "I use fedora because I support sharing of infromation" then at the end show a fedora logo 11:39
ke4qqq poelcat's question isn't in your queue quaid_moderator? 11:39
ke4qqq JKnife: produce one - tv stations have to air public service announcements for free.... :) 11:40
spoleeba quaid_moderator, speaking of contributors...... here's my question... have we identified target groups to seek out as contributors? Or are we content with a walkin only approach to recruitment? 11:41
viking_ice Well there seem to be lack in of future vision as in as I see it Fedora needs focuse more on the end user ( instead of focusing mainly on contributes ) because the more Fedora is exposed and use the more likely will more maintainers ( or a person that grows up to be a maintainer ) want to join 11:41
quaid_moderator ke4qqq: thx, looking ... 11:42
quaid_moderator poelcat: got it 11:42
quaid_moderator Sparks_Work: got it 11:42
quaid_moderator sorry , that was for spoleeba 11:42
EvilBob thanks F13 11:42
JKnife ke4qqq: uhmm... I could drive upto UNC if I had a video camera :P 11:42
ke4qqq JKnife: you don't have to do all the work, just lead the effort - others will get involved - though I think it might be more interesting to tap actual contributors rather than just random students. 11:44
EvilBob Would FAD attendees at the Summit have to pay the couple months wages to be there? 11:44
herlo EvilBob: no, we didn't have to pay to be at FUDCon 11:44
JKnife ke4qqq: ohh i have a idea.. have people submit videos to say youtube, we download them and make the video :) 11:44
herlo EvilBob: I don't know if that goes for the actual RH SUmmit events 11:44
quaid_moderator herlo: Fedora track was free to FUDCon attendees, but ... whatever :) 11:45
ke4qqq JKnife: you'd need higher quality, but you should toss the idea up on the f-marketing list 11:45
quaid_moderator herlo: the key is, it was physically possible to be in the same building, but Fedora paid through the nose for the space aiui 11:45
herlo quaid_moderator: yeah, that was kind of my point. I didn't know for sure on that part though because I didn't get to go to the RH Summit :( 11:45
* quaid_moderator was a like a one-armed wallpaper hanger at that event 11:45
EvilBob herlo: so it was a non-answer, thanks for sharing however 11:46
herlo quaid_moderator: yeah, RH Summit seems like a good spot for the FAD format 11:46
herlo EvilBob: anytime 11:47
* herlo did get the sarcasm :) 11:47
JKnife ke4qqq: youtube now has high quality videos... normal youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL_ZjJgbDmc watch about 10secs then click on "watch in high quality" on the bottom right of the video 11:47
quaid_moderator herlo: I'm going to submit a few talk ideas, see if I can get to go anyway, so I'll pitch in on a FAD 11:47
herlo :) quaid_moderator good call 11:48
EvilBob quaid_moderator: I have a few ideas also 11:48
quaid_moderator EvilBob: sweet 11:48
* inode0 thinks separate FADs would be better 11:48
quaid_moderator EvilBob: if you want to collaborate or just get a readover from someone, ping me 11:48
inode0 why tie them up in a circus? 11:48
quaid_moderator I worked on the committee last year so have seen a few proposals now 11:48
herlo inode0: we should try them both ways and see which works best and gets the most contributors to a FAD 11:49
EvilBob quaid_moderator: that was one thing that was super in 2007 we did not have anything structured for Fedora stuff but we got a lot of things done being able to meet and work out things, 11:49
herlo +1 glezos, that is pretty much what we're shooting for at the SCaLE FAD :) 11:49
EvilBob quaid_moderator: that is where we laid out the May/Oct release target 11:50
quaid_moderator glezos: yeah, I proposed that to mmcgrath for Infra, since that would work there ... I am going to be trying something like that at the SCaLE FAD 11:50
glezos herlo: it's successful, productive and VERY cost effective. Lots of groups of people together. Minimize travel and lodging costs. 11:50
herlo glezos: yes, and they successfully do it at PyCon and other conferences all the time 11:52
* viking_ice answers skvidal: Just alone the whole i586 should be enough for justifying the their being or an updated GA existance 11:52
viking_ice the whole i586 incident 11:52
EvilBob mdomsch: and we will keep doing it until the Board tells us we can't, and in that case we will become something else 11:52
quaid_moderator EvilBob: I gave a magazine a Unity spin, too; darn handy 11:53
herlo stickster: (in f-board), we did hand out Unity discs, but I'd like them to become more official and thus want to press them if it can be blessed by the board. 11:53
* quaid_moderator thinks with this question we'll never get to the others, but still has them in queue 11:55
ke4qqq herlo: press? 11:55
herlo ke4qqq: yes 11:55
* viking_ice answers bandwith question is it fair to enduser to download first the official dvd iso then having to update it with x GB instead of just download an updated dvd ISO 11:55
herlo ke4qqq: as opposed to burn and distribute 11:55
ke4qqq wow 11:55
quaid_moderator I have one from viking_ice, poelcat, and spoleeba 11:55
herlo ke4qqq: it would be something we could do with the 2nd quarter funds 11:56
herlo ke4qqq: let me clarify that 11:56
herlo 2nd quarter after a release 11:56
ke4qqq so if they produce a single respin we only have three months to hand it out 11:56
EvilBob herlo: remember the Re-Spins of Fedora that Unity produces are released under the 3b section of the GPLv2 also so you as an ambassador have no worries about needing to have source available 11:56
inode0 you do real cowsay contents into perl 11:56
herlo EvilBob: k 11:56
inode0 read 11:56
ke4qqq EvilBob: Board says otherwise 11:56
EvilBob ke4qqq: what does the board have to say about what I do? 11:57
EvilBob ke4qqq: NOTHING 11:57
herlo ahh, I should ping FESCO it seems if we ant to go that direction 11:57
ke4qqq EvilBob: board set policy that Ambassadors must have source on hand and able to burn if handing out discs at an event 11:57
spoleeba ke4qqq, Unity is free to rely on that clause for the stuff they distribute 11:57
inode0 nice 11:57
EvilBob ke4qqq: you need to read the GPL 11:57
herlo quaid_moderator: sounds like you should get those guys back on track :) darn that inode0 11:58
spoleeba ke4qqq, i do not think the Board decision was about Unity respins..it was about Fedora project media 11:58
ke4qqq right 11:58
ke4qqq but we are talking about burning unity media and handing it out at a fedora booth 11:59
EvilBob ke4qqq: the Re-Spins that Unity Produces are beyond the control of the board 11:59
ke4qqq I don't dispute that, but the behavior of Ambassadors representing fedora at a fedora sponsored both isn't 11:59
EvilBob ke4qqq: and Unity has the guts to keep sources around for 3 years 11:59
spoleeba ke4qqq, the Ambassadors can choice to apply the same policy to Unity respins 11:59
ke4qqq s/both/booth 12:00
EvilBob ke4qqq: and here goes more politics with the Ambassadors that their FiASCo has to decide for them 12:00
ke4qqq that came down from the Fedora Board, not famsco 12:01
spoleeba ke4qqq, again i do not belive the Board said anything about Unity respins 12:01
JKnife quaid_moderator: Why Linux for Fedora and not, lets say *BSD or minix3? 12:01
ke4qqq they didn't specify anything - they said source for the media we hand out 12:01
inode0 the board just said things worked the other way! 12:01
spoleeba ke4qqq, the issue is the fact that Fedora as a project makes no garuntee or even implies that source will be available long enough for that clause to be effective 12:03
EvilBob ke4qqq: again, please read the GPL 12:03
herlo EvilBob: the GPL doesn't matter in a case where we go further than it states 12:03
ke4qqq EvilBob: I am not sating that it violates the gpl 12:03
spoleeba ke4qqq, if you trust Unity says they will keep the sources around..and you trust them to keep the sources around...then the Unity spins are a completely different situation 12:03
EvilBob ke4qqq: Fedora Unity releases Re-Spins that the Board has NO control over 12:03
ke4qqq I am not saying that the board has any control over unity or would want to. 12:04
EvilBob ke4qqq: the only control they have is our use of the fedora-release package 12:04
spoleeba ke4qqq, the reasoning for the Board guidance..is to protect amabassadors from a situation where they are liable...because we do not keep the sources around long enough for the clause to be invoked 12:04
spoleeba ke4qqq, you can choose to apply the same policy to Unity spins...but dont suggest that the Board made any ruling at all about them 12:05
EvilBob ke4qqq: I am telling you that the Unity Project can release the Re-Spins under a different clause of the GPL than Fedora Project may 12:05
ke4qqq I make no such pretense 12:05
inode0 EvilBob: as just a guy who occasionally distributes media to others I feel an obligation to make source media available in the same manner if desired - that isn't anything unusual 12:05
ke4qqq spoleeba: I am talking about if Fedora presses media, and has Ambassadors handing it out at events sponsored by Fedora - the policy as it sits now is that media we distribute must have source available to burn or already burned - not that it's a requirement of the GPL, but rather a requirement put upon ourselves. not an obligation to Unity or anything else. 12:07
spoleeba ke4qqq, Fedora media != Unity media 12:07
ke4qqq we were just talking about asking fesco to bless unity release as fedora release 12:07
spoleeba ke4qqq, you are free to choose to require the same policy...but you implied it was Board guidance that people use that policy for all media..which is not the case 12:08
inode0 I think everyone understands that spoleeba 12:08
ke4qqq not 20 minutes ago 12:08
ke4qqq spoleeba: I'll dig it up, but iirc, it stated any media we distributed 12:08
EvilBob ke4qqq: I do not believe that Unity has asked or has interest in such a relationship, as one of the founders I know I do not. 12:09
inode0 when thinking about doing this in the freemedia program we planned to include requests for unity source 12:09
viking_ice Is the Desktop SIG a Gnome Desktop SIG or is that SIG made up of members from other *DE SIG's 12:09
ke4qqq it's been discussed on the mailing lists, irc, and even here. herlo just brought up pressing the media 12:09
herlo yeah, I sure did :) and I was pointed at FESCO. 12:10
spoleeba ke4qqq, im pretty sure Unity media never came up in Board discussions over that policy 12:10
EvilBob ke4qqq: that however would be up to an individual if they want to get media bless that is created from the iso images that Unity creates 12:10
spoleeba ke4qqq, the word 'all' still can be contextualized to mean 'all Fedora spins' 12:10
poelcat quaid_moderator: to caillon: the fedora board is often compared to corporate boards at publicly traded companies so I was wondering what goals and objectives the fedora board is setting and how they plan to lead fedora forward 12:11
EvilBob ke4qqq: has nothing to do with Unity at this point 12:11
ke4qqq EvilBob: true 12:11
ke4qqq spoleeba: could be 12:11
spoleeba ke4qqq, im pretty sure i was in the board discussion 12:11
EvilBob ke4qqq: Unity is separate from the Fedora Project for several reasons that go well beyond this one issue 12:12
quaid_moderator poelcat: my side opinion is that being a "bottom up" organization, it's not really comparable to a public board for a public corp 12:12
spoleeba quaid_moderator, its comparable to a non-profit board 12:12
poelcat you can't have it both ways :) 12:12
quaid_moderator spoleeba: not sure if I agree, but that's just me 12:12
spoleeba quaid_moderator, have you ever been on the board for a local social services org..like a soup kitchen.. or a community theature? 12:12
quaid_moderator it's not clear to me that Fedora's strategy is Board set or approved, nor if it should be. 12:13
quaid_moderator spoleeba: not personally, but I'm a NPO brat -- my mom has been working at NPOs for 30 years, been on the board of several, etc. 12:13
quaid_moderator spoleeba: I won't dispute that it acts like an NPO board at times, but I'm not sure that is the right way. 12:14
spoleeba quaid_moderator, you should probablyt have a sit down with her and talk about common problems witn non-profits when they hit the 5 year mark 12:14
spoleeba quaid_moderator, i think there is a crap load of parallels 12:14
quaid_moderator spoleeba: ok 12:14
spoleeba quaid_moderator, which means a crap load of solution-ineering 12:14
spoleeba quaid_moderator, that would apply to our little baby 12:15
quaid_moderator spoleeba: not saying they aren't comparable, but that I'm careful about thinking they are interchangeable 12:15
spoleeba quaid_moderator, and im saying..there are some common growth pains...and ways to deal with them..that we aren't even looking at 12:16
quaid_moderator spoleeba: do you have interest in forming up a SIG-of-sorts to work on that problem? generate a list of "top 10 shit we should be doing"? 12:17
inode0 Question: could the board collect some questions in advance of these meetings so more thought could be given to them before the board discusses them? 12:17
quaid_moderator heck, just a few wiki pages would be a good starting point 12:17
quaid_moderator inode0: got it 12:17
spoleeba quaid_moderator, after you talk to your mom..and if the light bulb goes on for you and she confirms what i just said..sure 12:18
inode0 or would they be interested in giving questions more thought before discussing them in public I guess? 12:18
quaid_moderator spoleeba: don't misunderstand me 12:19
quaid_moderator spoleeba: my thinking is grounded in reality; I've been a volunteer for 30 years, too 12:19
quaid_moderator spoleeba: it is that reality experience ... I'm asking, _should_ the Fedora Board be run and comparable to an NPO board? 12:19
quaid_moderator because I think maybe not, and maybe it is not comparable in important ways. 12:19
spoleeba quaid_moderator, id settle for one important way 12:20
viking_ice ups wrong channel.. :( 12:20
quaid_moderator spoleeba: so that is different than, "What can Fedora learn from the common experiences of volunteer-run organizations at this point in our history." 12:20
quaid_moderator spoleeba: funding is one way ... the definition of an NPO requires a whole slew of stuff to be a 501 C(3) 12:22
herlo as a follow up to the join-fedora page comment in public, there have been many comments in my daily work to improve that. 12:22
herlo but nobody has taken it on 12:22
quaid_moderator spoleeba: many NPO volunteers are doing it in their spare time and unrelated to $dayjob, the same cannot be said of FLOSS communities. 12:22
herlo one thought would be to get the newly formed fedora-mentors-list off and running and improving the mentoring in each of these areas... 12:23
spoleeba quaid_moderator, how many of our contributors are spare timers? 12:23
spoleeba quaid_moderator, i dont think we know 12:23
quaid_moderator spoleeba: but we do know about NPOs 12:23
spoleeba quaid_moderator, but if you want to say thats a mismatch..youd have to be able to see we dont have enough spare timers 12:24
quaid_moderator spoleeba: I think the clear point is, the Board is surrounding a group of volunteers who have a much wider and varied source than an NPO, where work volunteers do can be intimately tied to their $dayjob 12:27
quaid_moderator even when corporations send people out to do community work 12:27
quaid_moderator it's just not ever for the business interest 12:27
quaid_moderator where I can assure you RHT seeds Fedora money specifically because it is good business. :) 12:27
spoleeba quaid_moderator, am i talking about RHT seeded resources? 12:34
quaid_moderator spoleeba: no red herrings, of course RHT is just an example of a corporate community member. 12:34
quaid_moderator there are hundreds of similar examples in Fedora today. 12:34
quaid_moderator spoleeba: note that it only takes one difference between an NPO board/situation and the Fedora Board/situation for what I said to be true. 12:35
quaid_moderator </meeting> 12:39

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