Empowering Fedora sub-communities

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 1 April 2014 16:06, Matthew Garrett <mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org> wrote:

> (Breaking this out from the ticket paste)
>
> One of the problems we face with deciding that Fedora is just our
> official products is that it makes it harder to figure out how spins fit
> in. One of the problems with defining Fedora more widely is that it
> makes it difficult to explain what Fedora actually is and guide users to
> appropriate downloads. Perhaps we're thinking about this the wrong way.
>
> .next is an opportunity for Fedora to develop a strong brand image over
> a small set of deliverables - Fedora-the-product, if you will. But
> Fedora-the-community is much larger than those deliverables. Most of the
> discussion we've had has been figuring out how to fit
> Fedora-the-community into Fedora-the-product, and I don't think there's
> any way to do that without compromising the associated benefits.
>
> How about if we decouple Fedora-the-product and Fedora-the-community?
> The obvious model here is Ubuntu, who over time have spawned several
> products driven by independent subcommunities. These products are
> independently managed but use common respoitories and are tied to the
> same overall release schedule, and each has its own strong branding -
> Kubuntu even has its own financial backing.
>
> Rather than saying that Fedora-the-product should represent all of our
> independent subcommunities, we could allow individual subcommunities to
> define their own product definitions, driven by their own branding. For
> example, KDE could define separate desktop (Plasma) and mobile (Plasma
> Active) products without having to worry about them conflicting with any
> other products.
>
> We'd still want some level of overall coordination - for instance,
> deciding what's release blocking would still be a wider discussion, but
> it might be possible for individual subcommunities to re-release based
> on -updates if they can obtain appropriate resources.
>
> The biggest problem I forsee in this situation is the perception that
> all other subcommunities are still to some extent second class citizens
> compared to the three Fedora products. The counterargument is that it
> gives them the opportunity to demonstrate that they're significantly
> better in a way that's currently impossible, and that may be enough to
> get people to change their minds as to future choices.
>

I want to start off with that I think this is an excellent idea and one
that I would endorse and be excited about. But I can see your first problem
being there

The second problem I see is with the standard thorn.. trademarks. In the
case of Kubuntu I think they have some sort of permission in order to
clarify any "Confusion in the Markspace" and they use different colours and
themes to differentiate themselves from the main brand. I think that will
need to be dealt with somehow immediately so that these communities have a
'secure' footing to stand on without having to worry about TM problems.

If a group wants to create Xedora which focuses on desktops that are not 3D
based.. what will be needed to get it done? What kinds of trademark
permissions are needed?



-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/attachments/20140401/98b02447/attachment.html>