Requests to the board

[Max Spevack]

On Fri, 25 Jan 2008, Josh Boyer wrote:

> I've been happy because the board hasn't really done anything that I 
> feel gets in the way of Fedora growing and progressing.  I can't say I 
> honestly know what the board does exactly.  Most of the meeting 
> minutes that come out consist of things like "$random question: 
> revisit later", or are so terse I've no idea what discussion could 
> have possibly taken place.

<snip>

> Most of the rest of the items I see the board discuss are generated by 
> non-board members.  The minutes seem to imply the board finds them 
> interesting, chats about them a bit, and then basically waits for the 
> originator to do something more with the idea.  Which, I suppose, is 
> often the best form of leadership.

To an extent, this is kind of the point.  The people on the Board are 
either (a) already very active in Fedora, or (b) active in other parts 
of Red Hat that need to have a better understanding of Fedora.

My leadership philosophy w.r.t the Board has always been that it is our 
job to understand and work either individually or behind the scenes to 
facilitate the general "will of Fedora" and to supplement that with our 
own ideas when necessary.

Not to dictate policy, but to delegate decisions when possible.  The 
Boards of Directors of companies don't tell the leaders within the 
company what to do -- they just set the general parameters, and defend 
the mission to anyone who doesn't get it.

In Fedora, where most of the work is done by volunteers, and when the 
"Fedora Project Leader" be that me or Paul doesn't even have any direct 
people working for them, being able to build consensus and empower folks 
to achieve their goals in the Fedora context is most important.

The Board's job is to make sure that Fedora doesn't stray from its core 
mission of freedom and innovation, and to ensure that Fedora's 
commitment to the community is always paramount.

That is why many of our topics are simply making sure that everyone 
understands things of interest that are going on in different parts of 
the project, and making sure that our Fedora community leaders have an 
opportunity to understand what is going on inside of RH, and when that 
affects Fedora, to be able to have that insight.

Inside of Red Hat, there are many times when people have a question 
about whether or not something can/should be done in Fedora.  It has 
become habit over the past two years that when issues like that come up, 
someone will say "we should ask the Fedora Board".  That alone 
represents success -- people recognize that the Fedora Board is the 
leadership entity of the project.  It's the Board's responsibility to 
continue to earn/respect the trust of the community.

If the Board made a habit of issuing orders directly, then we'd be Doing 
it Wrong, IMHO.

Have a good weekend, all.

--Max