Appointment of Board Members.

Tue Aug 17 16:56:40 UTC 2010

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 07:59:24AM -0700, John Poelstra wrote:
> Toshio Kuratomi said the following on 08/16/2010 10:38 PM Pacific Time:
> > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 08:52:22PM -0700, John Poelstra wrote:
> >> Toshio Kuratomi said the following on 08/16/2010 07:06 PM Pacific Time:
> >>> On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 09:02:45PM -0400, Max Spevack wrote:
> >>>> On Mon, 16 Aug 2010, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Poelcat was asking for examples where the Board interfered with things
> >>>>> that were rightly in fesco's sphere of influence.
> >>>>
> >>>> This got me thinking:
> >>>>
> >>>> Let's forget the past for the moment, and worry about the present.  How
> >>>> well articulated is FESCo's *current* spheres of influence?
> >>>>
> >>>> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Engineering_Steering_Committee
> >>>>
> >>>> "FESCo handles the process of accepting new features, the acceptance of
> >>>> new packaging sponsors, Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and SIG
> >>>> Oversight, the packaging process, handling and enforcement of maintainer
> >>>> issues and other technical matters related to the distribution and its
> >>>> construction."
> >>>>
> >>>> How good is this description?
> >>>>
> >>> So... if we go with this... FESCo seems to fit poelcat's view that it's
> >>> middle management.  FESCo isn't expected to be innovative here.  They're
> >>> expected to take care that the routines of creating the distribution are
> >>> there and no wheels come off in the process.  So how good is that
> >>
> >> This is not my view.  This is not what I think. It isn't helpful to the
> >> discussion.
> >>
> > Sorry -- I was speaking right after reading this old thread:
> > http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/2007-June/003324.html
> >
> 
> 
> Three years ago, in response to a proposal written by someone else, I 
> replied with these words,
> 
> "
> <disclaimer>
> I have a very primitive understanding of FESCo.  Each time I try to
> understand it (asking on fedora-devel or searching the wiki) I have come
> up empty-handed.  I'm not against FESCo, I simply do not understand what
> it is supposed to be or do.
> 
> The overall impression I got from reading this complete proposal was
> that FESCo is a layer of "middle-management".  Naturally, I find that
> hard to believe considering the spirit Fedora :)  I doubt this is the
> case so I think being more explicit about FESCo's job would be a good
> thing for those less familiar.
> </disclaimer>
> "
> 
> I'm not sure we're going to be able to make any progress here if my 
> views are construed as being the opposite of what I've said.
> 
> > So as to erase that old memory from my head, how has your view of FESCo
> > changed?  What do you presently think of it as?
> >
> > -Toshio
> 
> I'm not able to invest any more time in this tread as I'm getting less 
> and less clear what problem really needs to be solved or what progress 
> this discussion is really achieving.
>
Since it seems like you took offence to this, rather than answering my
questions, let me try to clarify what I would hope to gain from your
answer.  Yesterday you asked me to look for examples where the Board had
interfered with technical matters.  I perused the old mailing list archives
and this is one of the threads I happened upon.  Seeing your name,
I naturally read what it said and became intrigued -- FESCo didn't seem to
be "middle-management" historically, but the current FESCo seemed to have
become a lot more like that than it had historically.  So I kept reading the
thread to see if you were given information to change your mind.  I didn't
find anything there (the thread dove off into other directions, as mailing
list threads are apt to do).  So, still having that term rattling around in
my head, I wrote a message last night in which I used your term and credited
you with being the originator of it.  Then you said that you didn't believe
that currently, that term fit your view of fesco.

So, since I can see how that term can be applied,  I think it would be very
helpful if you told me in what ways the term and old analysis doesn't fit.
By explaining how you see FESCo now and what your present analysis of its
role is we might be able to better answer Max's question of whether the
present description of FESCo is adequate.  We might be able to better
clarify and write down what the division between FESCo and the Board's
responsibilities are.  (spot, smooge, and my request).  We might be able to
determine that FESCo and the Board are targetting the same areas or if they
are truly different.  We might have better insight into whether the role of
FESCo is more mechanical or innovative.

> I think we could make a lot more 
> progress discussing these topics in person or on the phone.
> 
Re: phone conversations, I think that you would get to talk a lot and
I would get to silently listen and feel more frustrated.  We could use both
qualitative and quantitative measurements to figure it out.  Have someone
with a stop watch on the conversation log the total talk time used by each
participant to see if that's the case.  After the conversation record the
heart rate of both participants.  Administer a survey of how the
participants felt their views were heard to see if they walked away with the
same impression of the success or failure of the meeting.

Could be interesting since I've never performed the quantitative side of
this only the qualitative :-)

-Toshio
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