council January 2020

council-discuss@lists.fedoraproject.org

20 participants
10 discussions

A new vision statement for Fedora
by Matthew Miller 19 Mar '20

19 Mar '20

A few years ago, the Fedora Council updated the Fedora mission statement. The result is functional but not particularly inspiring. It talks about what we’re doing, but not much about the why. So, this year, we worked on a new vision statement to serve as the proverbial “banner on a hilltop” that we can use to rally our existing community and to attract new contributors. Our draft is at: https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/lets-write-a-new-vision-statement-f… We need your feedback and help in crafting a final version. Please reply here in this thread to keep discussion in one place. We'd like to come to a decision on this in Februrary. -- Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org> Fedora Project Leader

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My two cents worth
by Ian 23 Jan '20

23 Jan '20

I would like to contribute a few thoughts to this list as a non-techhead, non-guru, humble end user. Please note that all of the comments below are my opinion only, and are not intended to reflect any truth or fact. I spent most of my life in IT departments of large companies and government departments preparing system design documents and working with developers and end users to build the user systems to meet the user's requirements. So I basically had one foot in user space and the other in development space. From that perspective, may I say that, to me, it looks like some of the documentation referred to in this list has been prepared by people with a strong technical background, but perhaps with less focus on the end user experience. I feel that there could be some benefit from taking a broader view of where Linux may be going. Couple of questions. Do you see the future of Linux as growing in the community and seriously challenging the current software paradigm of paying to use software? Do you see Linux desktop becoming more ubiquitous in the community at large? And even seriously challenging the market dominance of the current market leaders? Do you see Linux becoming more ubiquitous in the corporate community, running corporate networks with Linux desktop on every desk? If the answer to either/both of the last two is "yes" do you see Fedora as being the distro of choice for these scenarios? Or coexisting with some number of other distros living in the same user spaces. Do you see the development and maintenance of Linux moving from the realm of the amateur enthusiast and centralised in one of more corporate like organisations that can manage the development and distribution of Linux cooperatively? Do you see Fedora as a leader in the Linux ecosystem? How do you see the relationship of Fedora to all the other Linuxes? Do you see Linux "coalescing" into a smaller number of varieties than are currently available (hundreds on distrowatch)? If so do you envision that Fedora will be (or should be) the motivating driver behind the move to a smaller number of "primary" Linuxes; better supported, more robust and generally better managed? I hope from the above you can see that my view is to ask what Linux/Fedora can or should *be*, not what it can *do*. In five years time what do you want to see when you look at Linux? where is it? What is it doing? How is it being used? Who is using it? How is it making all our lives easier and better? In my view, part of the future for Linux is expansion into the non-geek world of personal users who want to use their computers to get stuff done. A certain amount of rationalisation of the Linux space may need to occur for this to happen, and there may emerge a few market leaders that support personal users, and become the "go to" distros for new Linux users. It would make sense, in this scenario, for Fedora to to be one of the market leaders, as it is one of the oldest and best supported distros. (the first distro I ever used was Fedora). If this occurred I think it would leave the rest of the Linux userspace basically unaffected. Some of the more esoteric distros out there might lose a few users, but I would expect the effect to be basically unmeasureable. On the other hand it may be that, once the average PC user has had a taste of Linux, they may look around for something that suits them better, so some of the lesser known Linuxes could actually gain users. Roundabouts and swings. I also see an opportunity for Linux, and Fedora in particular, to move more aggressively into the corporate sector. This expansion however would have to be managed, and would require "corporatisation" to manage the development, maintenance and marketing of Linux to the corporate and government sectors. It seems to me the logical organisations to take up this role would be those offering implementation, management and support services for large computer networks and installations, on a contract basis. They already exist (Like RHEL), and many of them already manage Linux networks. But two things need to happen for this to occur. 1) a greater focus on marketing the Linux desktop to corporates and government, and 2) a more robust, resilient and reliable Linux desktop. Unfortunately I believe that currently the Linux desktop is just not robust enough to be considered for corporate use. I like to tell my friends that the difference between using Windows and Linux is like the difference between driving a Toyota Camry and a '66 Mustang. The Camry will always get you there with no fuss, always work, is reliable, efficient, and boring as bat-poo. The Mustang on the other hand is exciting and fun to drive, drinks petrol, can surprise and delight you, terrify you sometimes, will usually get you there, and is fairly reliable. But expect to spend a fair bit of time under the hood (or bonnet, if you are in Australia). I hope you get my point. So the Linux desktop needs to be the Toyota Camry of desktops (maybe without the boring part). So my vision for Linux would include: Linux supports everybody using computers to achieve their goals, whenever and wherever they need it. Linux champions the principal of free and open source software. Fedora is a market leader in the development, distribution and support of Linux. Fedora welcomes all contributions to its continuous improvement and quality at all levels. Fedora provides a simple, powerful and reliable user experience. As a final note, this blog post https://sourceforge.net/blog/open-source-growing-not/ gives another perspective of open source software development. It recommends that developers get paid to contribute to open source software development, a not unreasonable outcome. In my opinion, it also lends weight to the concept that the development of open source software needs at least a degree of centralised management, which could also help in the management of payment to developers for their contributions. Just a thought...

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Git Forge Requirements: Please see the Community Blog
by Leigh Griffin 21 Jan '20

21 Jan '20

Hey Everyone, On behalf of the CPE team I want to draw the communities attention to a recent blog post which you may be impacted by: https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/git-forge-requirements/ We will be seeking input and requirements in an open and transparent manner on the future of a git forge solution which will be run by the CPE team on behalf of the Fedora Community. This mail is being sent to the devel, mindshare and council-discuss lists for maximum visibility on a BCC to allow each list have their own views. Please forward it to any other list you may feel is relevant to maximise the exposure. Thanks in advance, Leigh -- Leigh Griffin Engineering Manager Red Hat Waterford <https://www.redhat.com/> Communications House Cork Road, Waterford City lgriffin(a)redhat.com M: +353877545162 IM: lgriffin @redhatjobs <https://twitter.com/redhatjobs> redhatjobs <https://www.facebook.com/redhatjobs> @redhatjobs <https://instagram.com/redhatjobs> <https://red.ht/sig>

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[Fedocal] Reminder meeting : Council meeting
by bcotton＠redhat.com 21 Jan '20

21 Jan '20

Dear all, You are kindly invited to the meeting: Council meeting on 2020-01-22 from 10:00:00 to 11:00:00 America/Indiana/Indianapolis At fedora-meeting-1(a)irc.freenode.net The meeting will be about: The Fedora Council will hold our regular meeting at 10:00am US/Eastern in #fedora-meeting-1 on irc.freenode.net. All are welcome! To convert to your local time, run: date -d 'TZ="US/Eastern" 10am tomorrow' We will begin with a review of open tickets and then have open floor time for discussion. The primary chair for this meeting (usually the FPgM, FPL, or FCAIC) should reply to this message with this week's agenda. More information available at: [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Council_Meetings](https://fedoraproject.org/… Source: https://apps.fedoraproject.org/calendar/meeting/9580/

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I want to post on this list
by Vitaliy Shatrov 19 Jan '20

19 Jan '20

D0dyBo0D0dyBo0(a)protonmail.com Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email.

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Cancel 22 January meeting?
by Ben Cotton 13 Jan '20

13 Jan '20

Anyone strongly opposed to canceling the 22 January Fedora Council meeting? I know I'll be getting ready to depart for Brno at that point and I assume others will be too. If you want to have the meeting, you can do it without me. :-) -- Ben Cotton He / Him / His Fedora Program Manager Red Hat TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis

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Re: [social-media] What about Mastodon?
by Justin W. Flory 13 Jan '20

13 Jan '20

Hi Alessio, On 1/12/20 6:15 PM, Alessio wrote: > Hello. > > I submitted this idea to the marketing team some time ago [1] > > What do you think to have a Fedora presence on the Fediverse? > I'm not an expert, but it is now a mature technology, and no more an > hype. Many people started using Mastodon, in many cases with the intent > to leave the mainstream social medias. > I have not statistical data, but, looking around, a lot of these people > are concerned about privacy, freedom and digital rights, they are free > software supporters, and they are critical versus the overwhelm power > of the big giants of the internet. > > There were some toughts about running a Fedora instance [2], but maybe > it is not useful, it whould be an high energy expenditure; however this > is not the point of this mail. > > What I'm talking about is a profile on the fediverse. > We are on twitter, we are on facebook, youtube, instagram. Why not on a > social network that is powered by an open source software, and where > there are many free software supporters? > > Gnome is there https://floss.social/@gnome > Fosdem is there https://fosstodon.org/@fosdem > Opensuse is there https://fosstodon.org/@opensuse > Gentoo https://fosstodon.org/@gentoo > Ubuntu (that runs his own instance) https://ubuntu.social/@ubuntu > KDE https://mastodon.technology/@kde > And many other FOSS projects and communities. > > What do you think? > > [1] https://pagure.io/fedora-marketing/issue/286 > [2] https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-in-fediverse/1168 > I think this is a tough issue for the volunteer community to take a lead on, even if the interest is there. To add historical context, we did discuss Mastodon at some point in the last couple years—I forget exactly when. There was no opposition to a Mastodon as a concept, but it was more an issue of who manages it. Most/all of Fedora's social media accounts are managed by Red Hat employees in RH's Open Source Program Office, with some volunteers on a few accounts. When it was last proposed, the discussion faded out because the folks managing Fedora's social media account were concerned there were already many platforms to cover and things would get dropped. For example, we used to have profiles on GNU Social and Diaspora, but I'm not sure if they were actively maintained. Account permissions and privileges is an issue still faced by Fedora's other social media accounts too. See these Mindshare tickets for more context: https://pagure.io/mindshare/issue/138 https://pagure.io/mindshare/issue/139 - Justin -- Cheers, Justin W. Flory justinwflory.com TZ=America/New_York Pronouns: he/him/his

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[Fedocal] Reminder meeting : Council meeting
by bcotton＠redhat.com 08 Jan '20

08 Jan '20

Dear all, You are kindly invited to the meeting: Council meeting on 2020-01-08 from 10:00:00 to 11:00:00 America/Indiana/Indianapolis At fedora-meeting-1(a)irc.freenode.net The meeting will be about: The Fedora Council will hold our regular meeting at 10:00am US/Eastern in #fedora-meeting-1 on irc.freenode.net. All are welcome! To convert to your local time, run: date -d 'TZ="US/Eastern" 10am tomorrow' We will begin with a review of open tickets and then have open floor time for discussion. The primary chair for this meeting (usually the FPgM, FPL, or FCAIC) should reply to this message with this week's agenda. More information available at: [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Council_Meetings](https://fedoraproject.org/… Source: https://apps.fedoraproject.org/calendar/meeting/9580/

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A Big Idea for a New Decade [was: Minutes for CentOS Board of Directors 2019-12-18 Meeting]
by Matthew Miller 07 Jan '20

07 Jan '20

On Fri, Jan 03, 2020 at 03:13:53PM -0500, Karsten Wade wrote: > As a centralizing effort, the Board agreed to revisiting the goals > document created five years ago, and to undergo an effort to refresh those > goals in the light of the project’s evolution. The Board will be inviting > various stakeholders into these discussions as we undergo a public > revision of the goals at the start of 2020. Wow, five years goes fast! I'd like to raise an idea for discussion and thought, and possible further discussion between the Fedora Council and the CentOS board. [I'm posting this in both groups.] Around the same time the CentOS goals were being created, Fedora was working on plans for "Fedora.next", which included among other things Fedora Server. I won't rehash all that here, but in short: while that succeeded at some of its goals, it never really had the user adoption we'd hoped for. Of course, some of that is simply a matter of lifecycle: while a fast-moving server OS is useful in some very real cases, it's decidedly niche. When Fedora launched that plan, CentOS wasn't really in the "family", and after, we just kind of existed in parallel, with some very loose collaboration in areas like EPEL. Of course, things are different now. Therefore, I propose that in this next decade, we make that collaboration stronger. Together, we have a very nice answer to the fundamental problem of unified operating systems. That is, some parts move too fast and other parts move too slowly. Between Fedora and CentOS, we have answers to both! And, with the in-progress dist-git merge, we even have both _in the same place_. Specifically, I'd like to suggest three things. First, let's replace Fedora Server as a user-focused artifact with CentOS Stream. There's still a need for a Fedora Server as an upstream, but most users of Fedora as a server are making custom builds (or using the basic Cloud image), not using Fedora Server per se. So, I think we should stop marketing that to users, and steer people with server use cases outside of the fast-moving niche to CentOS Stream. The current story of CentOS and Fedora is pretty confusing to users, and Stream only makes it more so. Let's simplify things! Second, where there's overlap, let's look at merging Fedora and CentOS SIGs into joint bodies. We have groups like the cloud image SIGs which are basically doing the exact same thing in two different ways. Same thing with containers. We also have huge overlaps in documentation and community user support and all sorts of non-technical project areas. I'm not saying these all need to be smooshed together, but where it makes sense let's work together. This, too, brings simplification to the "what's with CentOS vs. Fedora" story: rather than making contributors pick, we can welcome all with open arms. And finally, let's really take advantage of a merged dist-git repository, and the capabilities that Modularity gives us. SIGs building things for CentOS should be able to directly reference Fedora branches where faster-moving software is useful — and people building things in Fedora should be able to pull in branches from Stream where a slower-moving version would make sense. And we could even make additional shared branches where necessary, using modularity to make optional streams which could be used in CentOS SIGs, EPEL, or a Fedora OS. What do you think? -- Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org> Fedora Project Leader

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Getting more metrics: Fedora net promoter score survey
by Matthew Miller 06 Jan '20

06 Jan '20

Hey everyone! I happened by chance to meet someone at Red Hat who works on Red Hat's Net Promoter Score program. NPS, if you're not familiar, is a metric based on the simple question "How likely are you to recommend this?" on a scale from 0-10. I think this can be very useful, especially as tracked over time. And it turns out that the group at Red Hat who does this would be happy to provide this to Fedora as a service. I'd like to make a link to this survey available on some of the various Fedora websites. (Get Fedora, Fedora Magazine, Ask Fedora...) We'll ask that basic question and a couple of followups like "Do you participate in the Fedora community" and "What are your top challenges?" (This is different from the demographic / contributor survey and won't ask any of those sorts of questions.) For, like, a hotel chain, you usually get this survey as an email to some customer list. While we have email addresses of Fedora contributors, for obvious reasons we aren't gonna be using those for this in bulk. I also don't feel good about using the announce list — I will probably include a link to the survey in future release announcements, but just sending mail about the survey itself doesn't feel like what people signed up to that list for. I am thinking, though, of creating a "please survey me" mailing list that people can opt-in to — if you sign up, we'll email you once every three months or six months or so. What do you think of this idea overall? We also have the option of creating more specific surveys focused on an edition or spin, if your team would be interested in such a thing. -- Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org> Fedora Project Leader

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MOVED to https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/tag/council January 2020