11:38 p.m.
These questions were originally posted to the Spins SIG a couple weeks
ago. At the following SIG meeting, members suggested that these
questions would be better posed to the individual spin owners, or
teams that are working on the spins, in addition to the SIG. I have
collected the mailing lists and individual spin owner names for all
spins, current or historical, and included you in this mail. As a
Fedora contributor with specific interest in using Spins as a method
to reach specific audiences or cater to specific use cases, you are
uniquely qualified to answer these questions. Your time to
thoughtfully answer is appreciated.
As you may be aware, the Fedora Project Board is trying to set a more
clear vision for what Fedora is, and should be going forward. One
aspect of this conversation is Fedora's target audience. As Spins and
Remixes specifically seek to use Fedora to reach a particular audience
or cater to specific use cases, we seek your input to help guide our
thinking.
Your responses to these questions would be appreciated. Fellow Board
member Colin Walters and I have agreed to poll the Spins and report
back to the Strategic Working Group and the Board as a whole.
Board-level Question:
Can Spins/SIGS or Fedora remixes define their own target audience?
Background
The Board has been working on defining a target audience for
Fedora. In response to this, some people feel that Fedora should allow
sub-groups to define their own target audience. Or even more strongly
that Spins/SIGs should be the only groups defining target audience; in
other words, the Board should not be defining one. An example mail
supporting this position is this mail from Toshio [1].
However, the potential conflict between a Board target audience and a
SIG target audience is still theoretical. No SIG appears to have
explicitly disagreed with the "working" target audience proposal.
Possible Solutions
1. Board sets target audience broadly, spins tailor to a subset
thereof.
2. Board sets target audience broadly, spins tailor to either a
subset thereof, or to additional audiences outside that scope so
long as there are no conflicts.
3. Board does not set target audience, leaves it to each Spin to
set their specific target audience.
1. requires spins to be much more than consumers of Fedora
content.
2. audience of some spins may overlap. That's OK.
3. audience of some spins may technically conflict. How to
resolve conflicts? Spins -> FESCo -> Board.
As members contributing to Spins, how do you view the above, and how
would you like to see Spins interact with the larger Project with
respect to defining target audiences?
Board-level Question:
Can Spins/SIGS or Fedora remixes change the code enough to meet their
goals?
Background
In the present situation, Spins must take all of their content from
the official Fedora repositories. Remixes may take content from
wherever, and modify as they see fit, but may not use the primary
Fedora trademarks.
Questions for Spins and the Spins SIG
Given the present situation:
1. Has any Spin found the present situation unduly restrictive?
1. If so, how specifically?
2. Has any Spin found they cannot address their target audience
properly?
1. If so, in what way?
2. Is the root problem that all packages must be in the
official repositories?
3. How are you addressing this today?
4. How would you like to address this in the future?
5. Are the resources you would need readily available?
1. If not, what would you need to properly address this?
6. Is the transition from "Spin" to "Remix" onerous?
1. If so, what can be done to make it less so?
[1] http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/2009-October/0074...
Thanks,
Matt & Colin