Okay, I promised to take this to the list, so here it is.
The budget for this year (FY16) is the same it was last year. The
budget request to our sponsor for next year (FY17, which goes from
March '16 to February '17) was the same again, but we need to plan for
the fact that it's likely to come back lower — even though Flock is
likely to be more expensive and we'd _like_ to do more things. (We
probably won't know until January or February. ¹)
I'd _really_ like to ask for increasing amounts as Fedora grows and as
we invest to grow Fedora. This goes for fundraising beyond Red Hat as
well (for sponsorships for things like Flock, but need not be limited
to that). Remy and I have been working hard to do what we can, but we
need your help.
I really _want_ and support the idea of making many decisions at the
regional and even local levels. You know what works on the ground. At
the same time, those decisions _need_ to connect up to broader project
goals, and they _should_ connect across and coordinate with other parts
of the project, for efficiency and for consistant message.
If you haven't seen the blog post I wrote about objectives, please see:
*
http://fedoramagazine.org/lets-talk-about-fedora-project-objectives/
If you have something you're interested in that you feel benefits
Fedora, _awesome_, do it. As long as it fits within our Foundations,
you don't need anyone's permission and there won't be any "veto". ²
But, if you want to use Fedora resources — money, other people's time,
but also including speaking for the project as a representative —
please, please, be mindful of these connections. If you can draw a line
from what you're doing directly up to the Objectives the Council is
working on, that's _very_ powerful, and helps _me_ and Remy, and the
rest of Fedora leadership in lending our weight to supporting you.
If the things you're interested in don't really connect to the
collective project strategy, again, see above: there's room in Fedora
for all kinds of different ideas and directions. But, we have limited
resources. To put this in concrete terms, if the overall strategy calls
for growing Fedora beyond traditional Linuxfests and appealing directly
to developers and to sysadmins in new ways, but Ambassadors want to
spend the bulk of effort on those traditional things, we need to put
the money elsewhere.
That might sound like a threat, and it kind of is, but not necessarily
the way it sounds. It's not a threat to stop doing what you're
interested in. It's a threat to _get involved in connecting this up_,
and the consequence for not doing it isn't arbitrary punishment. The
consequence is that Fedora gets less attention and resources because
we're not making an impact with what we have.
The super-awesome thing about Fedora is that these objectives and
strategy aren't dictated to us from corporate overlords. Of course,
when it comes to budget, Red Hat is our primary sponsor, and we
certainly need to take those needs into account as stakeholder. But
there's no secret agenda there: in fact, it's public:
*
http://www.slideshare.net/mattdm-fedora/flock-2015-what-does-red-hat-want
*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb3zTQMJggo
Most importantly, keeping the sponsor happy isn't the only goal. *You*
are a stakeholder too, and I am too independent of my employment. ³
In our new governance model, the Council's *primary* role is "to
identify the short, medium, and long term goals of the Fedora community
and to organize and enable the project to best achieve them". That's
the "Objectives" I mentioned above. ⁴
If there's something which you believe can be demonstrated to
measurably advance Fedora which we're _not_ convering but should, we
have room for that! Write up a proposal, rally some people behind it,
convince the Council that it will work — and then make it work, with
the full weight of _everything_ behind you.
----
1. See this page Remy is working on for refinements and improvements to
the budget process:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Budget.next
2. Since it came up in IRC, please note that the "FPL veto" is no
longer part of the governance model. See
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Council#Historical_Note
3. Red Hat has an awesome clause in our employment contracts, by the
way: when working on an open source project, we're instructed to
make decisions in the interest of the project even if they differ
from Red Hat's interests.
4. More at
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Council#Responsibilities and
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Council#Objective_Leads
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader