[FAmSCo] Changing the role of FAmSCo

[Max Spevack]

On Tue, 2 Nov 2010, David Nalley wrote:

> This thread: 
> http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/2010-August/009047.html 
> from a few months back had me thinking, and I'd like to propose 
> something, though I imagine it will require more than ourselves to 
> sign off on this.

/me is glad to see this get picked back up.

> Currently our mission is:
> To provide the governance and support structure necessary to assist 
> and enable Fedora Ambassadors worldwide.
>
> I propose we change that to:
> To provide budget governance for the Fedora Project and to provide the 
> governance and support structure necessary to assist and enable Fedora 
> Ambassadors worldwide.
>
> Currently - FAmSCo controls around $100k of Fedora's budget, and 
> there's another 100-150k that we don't manage that is managed by 
> CommArch, and is largely used for Fedora's premier events (FUDcons and 
> FADs) I propose (with the consent of CommArch of course) that FAmSCo, 
> in addition to its current duties, add the rest of budget to it, and 
> deal with the management of FUDcons, FADs, etc.
>
> It's not secret that we are heavily involved in the premier events and 
> becoming more so on a regular basis.
>
> In my mind, creating a separate group makes no sense, as I think we 
> can easily scale.
>
> So how do we get there?
>
> 1. We need reaction from Max and CommArch. If Max can't/doesn't want
> to cede this, it's a mute point.
> 2. We need to ensure that people know that money isn't just for Ambassadors
> 3. Perhaps we need a name change
> 4. We need a wordsmith better than I to craft the mission more eloquently.
> 5. We need to change our method of operation. We need to actively look
> for opportunities to fund things that bring benefit to Fedora.
>
> For instance, Fedora funded Ryan Rix to go to Akademy - we should be 
> looking for similiar opportunities, we should be encouraging the 
> development of FADs to get things done, and actively letting people 
> know that funds are available to help them get things done.
>
> Thoughts, comments, flames??

I fully support this.

What are the different buckets of spending that the Fedora Project 
currently has, that come from the Community Architecture budget?

* FUDCons
* FADs
* Regional stuff (basically Ambassadors, swag, travel assistance, etc.)
* One-off travel requests for community members
* Amazon EC2 (community-cloud at fedoraproject.org account)
* Fedora Scholarship
* Fedora's LWN subscription
* A catch-all bucket that is basically everything except major 
infrastructure purchases.

The first three lines represent about 90% of the total budget.

I think to myself:

How do we do two things?  (1) Have a Fedora Accounting team, which is 
well integrated with the Fedora Board, the general Fedora planning 
cycle, FUDCons, FADs, and regional needs and also (2) Provide whatever 
centralized leadership Fedora Ambassadors continue to need.

Are those two separate groups?

I wonder if after more discussion, this thread should be restarted on 
advisory-board once we have possible consensus or proposal on this list.

--Max