A vision statement

[Stephen John Smoogen]

2010/8/17 Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org>:
> In the interest of taking action rather than talking about a vision
> statement is needed, here is something for target practice, please fire
> away.
>
> ---
>
> OUR MISSION (Why we exist)
>
> The Fedora Project's mission is to lead the advancement of free and open
> source software and content as a collaborative community.
>
>
>      * The Fedora Project always strives to lead, not follow.
>      * The Fedora Project consistently seeks to create, improve, and
>        spread free/libre code and content.
>      * The Fedora Project succeeds through shared action on the part of
>        many people throughout our community.
>
>
> VISION (What we're working towards)
>
> The Fedora Project strives towards a world in which computers fueled
> primarily by free & open source software, both client and server, and
> content improve the lives of users all over the world.
>
> ---
>
>
> Does anyone take issue with that?
>
> If not, let's take a look at what we're doing and prioritizing now and
> match it up with how well it contributes towards getting us to that
> future.

Darn it, quit looking at what I am writing. Now I have to come up with
something new.  I would like people to also look over

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusions_of_innovations
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm

The reason is that I look at the Diffusions and see where several of
our tensions lie (even below the boar-headedness of some
participants.). Fedora has been something written by innovators FOR
innovators. An innovators view of what they want in things is
completely different from other market groups. They do things because
they like to do something not because they are told to do it. If it
works 50% of the time they are happy.

The next group is called everything from "Early Adopters" to
"Visionaries". It takes things from the Innovator market and tries to
get ahead or fulfil a vision/niche. Sometimes things go well and
adopters are able to communicate to the innovators and new innovations
come in to feed more 'visions'. Other times it falls on its head and
the two groups squabble like nuclearized nations. If it works 84% of
the time they are happy. However it also must fulfill some specific
need, (SugarLabs? is a visionary group that takes a Fedora release and
makes it something students around the world can use.. )

The third group is called things like "The Early Majority" but for
this discussion I will call it "Red Hat Enterprise Linux". For the
most part this is the group that funds Fedora (our innovators) and in
return wants something that every X.Y years it can turn into the new
version of RHEL. The things that Majority owners want is stability. If
it doesn't work at least 99.8% of the time there are complaints.

So our Vision, Mission, and inevitable Charter MUST cover this to help
people know what is going on. Yes we want innovations and new stuff,
BUT eventually it has to be something that can be made into an
Enterprise Linux (lets call it CentOS for argument). The community
elects the Board and FESCO to bridge that gap somehow, and we are then
tasked with figuring out where this Middle area is and how we will
fill it.

Hope this makes sense.. its been a bad day of headaches.

-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.
“The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance.”
Randy Nelson, President of Pixar University.
"We have a strategic plan. It's called doing things.""
— Herb Kelleher, founder Southwest Airlines