Fedora Board Strategic Working Group

[Mike McGrath]

On Tue, 12 Jan 2010, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:39:49AM -0500, Jon Stanley wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:24 AM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > There are potential issues.  For instance, when the Desktop spin wanted to
> > > move to PolicyKit-1.0 and said that they'd veto a PoicyKit-compat package to
> > > allow KDE applications to work.  Or when zope was dropped from the
> > > repositories because it wasn't ported to python2.5 and we didn't want to
> > > have a python-2.4 compat package.  There have also been times when certain
> > > compilation options on one package were needed to allow other packages to
> > > function but, because of the dependencies that the compilation options
> > > brought in, that package didn't want to do so.
> >
> > Good points - but where and how do we draw the line between something
> > that's acceptable to be called Fedora and something that is not?
> >
> I like the line of "in the Fedora repositories" but I'm warning that
> sometimes we keep things (that are free software and legal to ship in the
> US) outside of the Fedora repositories and that limits what a spin can do.
> When we discuss a target audience we have to be careful that we continue to
> make it possible for other audiences to be addressed by having ways to
> mediate these differences.  Deciding that the default spin is more important
> than any other spin and that the default target audience is more important
> than any other audience is dangerous as we start making decisions based on
> the importance to the target audience instead of on how the decision enables
> more contributors to do the work that's important to them.
>
> I see things a bit differently from poelcat in that I think that having the
> Board define a target audience for Fedora is not beneficial.  In fact, it is
> detrimental to Fedora.

Pretend you're on the desktop team.  You've got lots of people working
with you and are going to spend the next 3 years on something.  Is it
going to be features or usability?  Sure it's a mix of both, but when an
issue comes up that that will either sacrifice usability for a feature,
or will sacrifice a feature for usability what do you do?  You can't
answer that question without a target audience or what is Fedora (the OS).

At the moment though we seem to be sacrificing usability for features,
that may be right or it may be wrong for Fedora.  I have no idea and
neither can anyone else without some focus.

  *Individual spins* (including the default spin)
> would definitely benefit from targeting specific audiences but the Board and
> FESCo's responsibility is to help all the sub-communities that make up
> Fedora be able to derive usable products from the Fedora Package Collection.
> This means mediating disputes, drumming up support for switching base parts
> of our architecture (like moving from SysVinit to upstart), and defining the
> absolute limitations that the Fedora Project will follow (free software,
> legality within the US).
>

The funny thing here is I think spins are a detriment to Fedora.  We
pretend they're useful and interesting but they're really not.  If we
describe them as "a subset of what is in the Everything/ directory" which
is what they are, they're not at all compelling.

> If there's any audience that should be targeted for Fedora, the Project, it
> is the people who want to create a free software operating system.  Those
> people can then define audiences that their individual spins and SIGs will
> target.  The Board can mediate disputes because they're tasked with
> providing an environment in which people can build the free software
> operating systems that are right for them.
>

I agree with this, I don't think there's any doubt the project is healthy
and thriving.  It's our OS I'm worried about.

	-Mike