Elected/Appointed Board

[Josh Boyer]

On Sun, 2008-04-20 at 21:50 +0100, Jonathan Roberts wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I was just looking over the minutes from the first "town hall" meeting
> and read Rahul's question with interest: "Will the Board ever switch
> from 5 appointed/4 elected to a majority in the other direction?"
> 
> The answer that Paul gave to this didn't seem clear to me, and I was
> wondering if a clarification was possible? Paul said:
> 
> "-- but this question is academic until and unless Fedora has sponsors
> other than Red Hat."
> 
> Why does Fedora having [significant] sponsors other than Red Hat make
> a difference to the make-up of the board? While I understand that Red
> Hat makes significant contributions to Fedora, I'm not sure I
> understand why it is correct that the majority of the board and the
> chair person with their veto should be appointed by Red Hat.

Red Hat provides the financial backing.  While some other companies have
donated hardware, etc, Red Hat is by far the company that makes Fedora
possible.

Having a non-Red Hat employee as the Chair would seem entirely odd to
me.  Would you appoint someone to control a portion of your bank account
that you had absolutely no ties, no insight as to what is good for you
in the long run, and no control over?  I sure wouldn't.  I wouldn't ask
Red Hat do to so either.

josh