Fedora Board Strategic Working Group

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:39:49AM -0500, Jon Stanley wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:24 AM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There are potential issues.  For instance, when the Desktop spin wanted to
> > move to PolicyKit-1.0 and said that they'd veto a PoicyKit-compat package to
> > allow KDE applications to work.  Or when zope was dropped from the
> > repositories because it wasn't ported to python2.5 and we didn't want to
> > have a python-2.4 compat package.  There have also been times when certain
> > compilation options on one package were needed to allow other packages to
> > function but, because of the dependencies that the compilation options
> > brought in, that package didn't want to do so.
> 
> Good points - but where and how do we draw the line between something
> that's acceptable to be called Fedora and something that is not?
>
I like the line of "in the Fedora repositories" but I'm warning that
sometimes we keep things (that are free software and legal to ship in the
US) outside of the Fedora repositories and that limits what a spin can do.
When we discuss a target audience we have to be careful that we continue to
make it possible for other audiences to be addressed by having ways to
mediate these differences.  Deciding that the default spin is more important
than any other spin and that the default target audience is more important
than any other audience is dangerous as we start making decisions based on
the importance to the target audience instead of on how the decision enables
more contributors to do the work that's important to them.

I see things a bit differently from poelcat in that I think that having the
Board define a target audience for Fedora is not beneficial.  In fact, it is
detrimental to Fedora.  *Individual spins* (including the default spin)
would definitely benefit from targeting specific audiences but the Board and
FESCo's responsibility is to help all the sub-communities that make up
Fedora be able to derive usable products from the Fedora Package Collection.
This means mediating disputes, drumming up support for switching base parts
of our architecture (like moving from SysVinit to upstart), and defining the
absolute limitations that the Fedora Project will follow (free software,
legality within the US).

If there's any audience that should be targeted for Fedora, the Project, it
is the people who want to create a free software operating system.  Those
people can then define audiences that their individual spins and SIGs will
target.  The Board can mediate disputes because they're tasked with
providing an environment in which people can build the free software
operating systems that are right for them.

-Toshio
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