On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Kevin Kofler <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kevin.kofler@chello.at">kevin.kofler@chello.at</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Hi,<br>
<br>
You will have noticed by now that my FESCo term is about to expire, that the<br>
nomination period for FESCo just closed and that my name does not show up on the<br>
list of candidates. No, this is not an accident or negligence, the decision not<br>
to run for another term was intentional, for several reasons:<br>
<br>
* When I ran for election a year ago, one of my reasons for running, and also<br>
something I made part of my campaign, was that it shouldn't always be the same<br>
people who are sitting on FESCo. We have a much higher number of active<br>
contributors than FESCo seats, so it makes sense to see some turnover<br>
happening. So it would be very hypocritical from me to attempt to sit another<br>
year on FESCo myself, now that I'm myself a FESCo "veteran".<br>
<br>
* I have never been a committee person and have always hated sitting on<br>
meetings. I have done it anyway for a year because I believed it to be<br>
important for the good of the project. But I'm really fed up of those meetings<br>
(I'm feeling burned out) and prefer focusing on more practical, less political<br>
areas of Fedora. The fact that I don't feel my presence in those meetings<br>
being of much if any use (more on that later) doesn't help either.<br>
<br>
* When looking back at what happened over the year I've been in office, I have a<br>
feeling that I have been able to acheive basically nothing:<br>
- The vast majority of votes were either unanimous or 8-1 against me. In both<br>
cases, my vote was entirely redundant. Even for more contested votes, my<br>
vote hardly ever mattered.<br>
- Any attempts to discuss those issues where everyone was against me went<br>
nowhere. In most cases, people rushed out a vote without even considering<br>
the real issue at hand and then shot down any discussion with "we already<br>
voted, we want to move on". In those few cases where there actually was a<br>
discussion, my position was always dismissed as being ridiculous and not<br>
even worth considering, my arguments, no matter how strong, were entirely<br>
ignored.<br>
- Basically any proposal I filed was systematically shot down. Even things<br>
which should be obvious such as:<br>
. calling GNOME by its name rather than the generic "Desktop" or<br>
. eliminating the useless bureaucratic red tape of FESCo ratification for<br>
FPC guidelines which just wastes everyone's time and constitutes pure<br>
process inefficiency<br>
got only incomprehension.<br>
I have come to the conclusion that it is just plain impossible for a single<br>
person to change FESCo's ways and that therefore I am just wasting my time<br>
there.<br>
<br>
* I am very unhappy about FESCo's recent (and not so recent, which were what<br>
made me run in the first place) directions. The trend is steady towards<br>
bureaucracy and centralization:<br>
- Maintainers are continuously being distrusted. It all started with the<br>
provenpackager policy, where every single provenpackager has to be voted in<br>
by a FESCo majority vote, as opposed to letting any sponsor approve people<br>
as provenpackagers as originally planned, or just opening all our packages<br>
to everyone as was the case in the old Extras. From there, things pretty<br>
much degenerated and we're now at a point where FESCo no longer trusts<br>
maintainers to know when an update to the packages they maintain is stable,<br>
instead insisting on automatically-enforced bureaucracy which will never be<br>
as reliable and effective as a human. The fact that we trust our maintainers<br>
used to be one of the core values of the Fedora community. It has been<br>
replaced by control-freakiness and paranoia.<br>
- All the power in Fedora is being centralized into 2 major committees: the<br>
Board and FESCo. FESCo is responsible for a lot of things all taking up<br>
meeting time, leading to lengthy meetings and little time for discussion.<br>
Many of those things could be handled better in a more decentralized way.<br>
Power should be delegated to SIGs and technical committees wherever<br>
possible, FESCo should only handle issues where no reponsible subcommittee<br>
can be found or where there is disagreement among affected committees. In<br>
particular, I suggest that:<br>
. FPC guidelines should be passed directly by FPC, only concrete objections<br>
should get escalated to FESCo.<br>
. membership in packager-sponsors and provenpackager should be handled by<br>
the sponsors, with a process to be defined by them (my suggestion:<br>
provenpackager should take 1 sponsor to approve and no possibility to<br>
object or veto, sponsor should take 3 sponsors to approve and objections<br>
can be escalated to FESCo).<br>
. features should get approved by the responsible SIG or committee (e.g.<br>
FPC for RPM features, KDE SIG for KDE features etc.). The feature wrangler<br>
should decide on a SIG to hand the feature to for approval, or even accept<br>
features filed directly into "approved" by the responsible SIG, and FESCo<br>
would be responsible only where there is no clearly responsible SIG, or<br>
to arbitrate when a SIG is trying to make a change which affects other<br>
SIGs without their consent.<br>
Unfortunately, these suggestions are falling on deaf ears, in fact I filed<br>
the first suggestion as an official proposal (as it looked very obvious to<br>
me, the ratification process is pure bureaucracy) and it was shot down (also<br>
due to the FPC chair claiming FPC doesn't want this, despite at least 2 FPC<br>
members having spoken out rather favorably). I think a more decentralized<br>
approach (in general, not just for FPC guidelines) would be more efficient,<br>
more democratic, less bureaucratic and less corporate and would increase<br>
overall maintainer happiness by reducing the impression of the "diktat from<br>
above".<br>
- The prevailing opinion of the electorate of Fedora contributors keeps<br>
getting ignored. Feedback on the Fedora devel mailing list is never seen as<br>
in any way binding, it's often dismissed as noise or "trolling". The<br>
predominant opinion in FESCo is "you voted for us, now we get to do whatever<br>
we want", which is flawed in many ways:<br>
. It assumes there were true alternatives to vote for instead. This<br>
assumption does not look true to me.<br>
. It assumes the voters were aware of the positions of all the candidates.<br>
I'm fairly sure this was not the case. While I appreciate what has been<br>
done in an attempt to solve this issue (questionnaire, townhalls), this<br>
has proven by far insufficient to build an opinion on the candidates. I<br>
think there's a reason representative democracies normally work with<br>
parties/factions and I think something like that might help a lot,<br>
depending on what kind of factions would show up.<br>
. It assumes representative democracy is a well-working model in the first<br>
place, especially in its most hardcore form ("now we get to do whatever we<br>
want"). I believe elected representatives should really REPRESENT the<br>
people who voted them. I realize politicians aren't doing that, but are<br>
they really a good model to follow?<br>
I believe listening more to the feedback on the devel ML and taking it into<br>
account during decision-making would reduce frustration with FESCo a lot.<br>
- The prevailing opinion of Fedora users keeps getting ignored. See e.g. Adam<br>
Williamson's poll about the kind of updates users expect from Fedora, its<br>
clearcut majoritarian result, and FESCo and the Board both planning to do<br>
the exact opposite.<br>
- Common sense is just generally lacking, see e.g. the decision that the GNOME<br>
spin should continue being called "Desktop Spin", despite evidence that this<br>
is confusing many users, both the ones actively looking for GNOME and the<br>
ones who want some other desktop. And that's just one such nonsensical<br>
decision, the one I remember best because this is an issue I care much<br>
about.<br>
I do not wish to stand for such a committee anymore (in fact I probably should<br>
have resigned much earlier, as I've just been frustrated and burned out for<br>
more than half of the term, but I didn't because my feeling of responsibility<br>
was too strong) and, as pointed out before, I feel powerless to change<br>
anything.<br>
<br>
Therefore, I will stay in office until the end of my term, but I will not be<br>
available for reelection. I would like to thank the people who voted for me last<br>
year for their support and apologize to those who would have liked to vote for<br>
me this time for not giving them this opportunity. If you would like a KDE SIG<br>
person in FESCo, vote for Steven M. Parrish (and vote for Rex Dieter for the<br>
Board). But if you want to see the kind of change to FESCo I'd like to see,<br>
it'll take a faction of at least 5 people to make it happen.<br>
<br>
Kevin Kofler<br>
<font color="#888888"><br><br></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That's too bad. I hadn't realized the political situation within Fedora had gotten so bad, though. I always liked Fedora's policy of trusting its people.... And it seems to be going away.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Though, there are some instances where the prevailing opinion should be ignored, when there is no solid evidence to back it up, e.g. Mono and the like.</div><div><br></div><div>Meh, sorry to see you felt so unsatisfied though. </div>
</div><br>