Fedora events in 2009

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 03:39:46PM +0100, Max Spevack wrote:
> WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE:
>
> In our quest for globalization, I don't want to fall into a trap of  
> saying "there are four quarters in the year, and therefore we should do  
> one FUDCon per quarter in a different region of the world".
>
> There are a few resons why I dont like this idea, including:
>  * If a particular region of the world only gets one "premier" Fedora  
> event each year, it puts a huge amount of pressure on that event to be  
> everything to everyone.  For instance, the event has to satisfy local  
> Red Hat needs, it has to be at a time and place that maximizes local  
> attendance.

We've felt this pressure already, not just in the North American
FUDCons.

>  * The event risks being spread too thin.  It trieds to address all of  
> Fedora's many parts, and risks not getting sufficient depth in any of  
> them.
>  * It doesn't give a region a chance to build momentum, and string  
> events together, creating stronger personal relationship, stronger  
> community, and better results that directly benefit Fedora.

YES!  Now, I have very much enjoyed FUDCon both as a volunteer
community member and now as a planner and Red Hat attendee, but this
is the best summation I've seen of what's lacking in FUDCon.  The
current organization creates the impression that without a huge Red
Hat attendance list, the event is diminished.

That is not to say that Red Hat attendees don't participate or deliver
in a big way at FUDCon, because they do.  But we have a better shot at
extending our community reach and inclusiveness, for those who are
willing to put forth effort in Fedora, if we can spread the events
across more of a given region.  We then have the potential to involve
more local energy in the planning, execution, and work.

>  * It allows only one "premier" Fedora event to be held per quarter.
>
> I think we can be more efficient than that.
>
> As such, I would like to do two things:
>
> (1) Think of the "FUDCon money" in the Fedora budget not as "FUDCon  
> money", but rather as "money for premier, Fedora-centric events".
>
> (2) Create a second kind of Fedora-centric event that can complement  
> FUDCons, and allow folks like me, Paul, or regional Ambassador leaders  
> to create the sorts of events that are most useful to their region.
>
> To that end, I would like to re-brand the idea of "Fedora Ambassador  
> Day" to "Fedora Activity Day" (still keeping the FAD acronym).  The idea  
> of the new FAD is to bring smaller groups of people in a region (I'm  
> picturing 5-20) together for day-long or weekend-long sessions that  
> focus on one or two specific Fedora topics, and also include some sort  
> of social event, or interesting location.
>
> I'm picturing bringing a bunch of packagers together for a weekend and  
> giving them the resources they need to knock one or two things off their  
> agenda, or bringing a couple of people who are working on a particular  
> feature to the same place and enabling them to have a code sprint.  
> Little "Fedora summits", all over the place, focusing on whatever piece  
> of Fedora is interesting to a group of contributors who want to come  
> together.  The model the Fedora Ambassadors have been using -- bringing  
> the regional leaders together for a weekend to plan the next 6-12 month  
> strategy -- is also a good example.
>
> Smaller, contributor-focused events that have specific goals, and can be  
> organized by whoever is interested in putting them together, wherever  
> they are in the world.  These events complement FUDCons, and allow us to  
> mix FUDCons and FADs together in different regions of the world with  
> more flexibility and modularity.

We've been trying for some time to get FUDCon to involve more new
people so it doesn't end up seeming like a gathering of the "in
crowd."  We succeed somewhat, but not to the extent I'd like -- as
someone who came out of the volunteer community I would very much like
to see more bootstrapping of community members into involvement in
Fedora's daily activities.  The FAD idea can help us achieve that
objective.

> Because everything still comes out of one quarterly budget, finances  
> remain clear and simple.  There is a sum we cannot exceed, but we can  
> subdivide that sum each quarter into whatever mixture of FUDCons and  
> FADs we like.
>
> Maybe this even gives us an opportunity to remember the "U" in FUDCon,  
> and organize events that are more user-centric.  It also enables us to  
> take some of the hackfest ideas that are worked on at FUDCons and  
> replicate them in different locations and with greater frequency.

Thank you -- this is something the North American Ambassadors have
been championing for a while, and I do believe it's time we found a
way to start bridging that gap more effectively.

> All we need to do is figure out a way of tagging FADs as "proposed" and  
> "approved" so that as groups of people get their act together, we can be  
> sure that (a) the value of the event makes sense and (b) budget for the  
> event exists.
>
> The people who take ownership of FADs will be responsible for setting  
> and achieving goals to demonstrate the value of the event, so that  
> everyone has proper expectations.  Goals might include N bugs triaged or  
> N packages reviewed, translation sprints, or focused testing on a piece  
> of the application stack of interest to that group.
>
> Interested to hear whatever comments the rest of f-a-b has.

I'm not naive enough to think that Red Hat is going to suddenly start
sending groups of engineers around to more events in more places
around the world, even in their own region.  The beauty of expanding
the FAD concept is that we can make small strategic commissions of
travel funds for one or two people (if they're needed at all) to these
events as needed for particular purposes.  If there are going to be
packaging sprints, we can try to put a Fedora packaging expert at that
event; if the concentration is L10N, we can try to put a Fedora
translation leader there.

I know there are more details to work out around this plan.  I'm
probably getting ahead of the idea with implementation details, as I
tend to do when I hear ideas that are exciting, but this is definitely
one worth pursuing.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
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