Fedora Board Recap 2009-01-20

[Mike McGrath]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2009, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 06:37:24PM -0600, Mike McGrath wrote:
> >
> >To me that's a cop out.
>
> I'll note that you still haven't answered your own question ;).
>

I'm not on the board but I'll play that game just the same:

To provide a platform where new and free technologies come to get first
exposure to our larger industry.

> >How can 13,000+ active community members all lead a
> >single project?  Why have a board at all[1]?  I think the community
> >leading was great back when there weren't that many of us but now I really
> >do think it's hurting people.  I'm happy to continue to aid in leading the
> >infrastructure team but where are we going and for what ultimate purpose.
>
> I think infrastructure is a great example of community leading.  You guys roll
> out stuff all the time that is new and exciting and was never dictated by
> a Board, planned out, and made sure to fit in "mission statements" or "goals".
>

I assure you what we roll out is often planned out.  I'm not looking for
dictation, I'm looking for larger overall direction.  What are we doing?
Where are we going?  If the answer is "building fedora 11" that's not the
"think larger" answer I'm looking for.

> >Everyone has their own expectations of Fedora but no one has said what it
> >is and should be.  The result is us constantly not meeting the
> >expectations of the mainstream (because those expectations have not been
> >defined by us) and then having technical users discount us because of the
> >bad press.  Not everyone is doing this, but enough are that people take
> >notice.
>
> I see both good and bad press surrounding Fedora.  Do you have examples of
> where you think we really need to address a criticism that has been made?
>

People complain about Fedora because they don't get why we are here.  They
jumped in, installed Fedora thinking it was something else.  Why did they
think that?  Because we don't define it so others do.

That overview page has a lot of content.  It is unfocused, unclear, far
too long and isn't really asking the right questions.  "Who uses Fedora?"
"Linus Torvalds"  So what?  We won the Torvalds prize?  That's a nice
factoid but it's not an overview.  There's a reason Torvalds uses Fedora
and he (and we) know what it is.  But since we don't define it, we don't
whistle it while we work, so people not involved in the development
process don't get it.

This thing I'm talking about, we should reek of it.  When you install
Fedora you should smell it in the exhaust of your CPU.

We have not given context with our distribution upon using it.  It's not
just some new jerk distribution.  It's not a general purpose distribution
(unless it is?)  We continue to fight with the press to say we get stuff
in first and we're doing the work, but we continue to get compared to
other distributions out there.  We should hold ourselves and the press to
a higher standard.  When someone uses Fedora or reviews it it should be
under the context of "new" not "compared to distribution X" because I'd
like to think we're different then that.

Simply trying to make a free distribution just isn't enough for us and the
talent we have in our project anymore, what's next?.

	-Mike