Candidate Questionnaire

Sun Nov 7 13:41:44 UTC 2010

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I have never been contacted by the questionnaire coordinator, so I'm not
sure where to send these answers. I'm sending to the advisory board list
for lack of a better choice.

 * What is your take on bundled libraries?

Bundled libraries should not be allowed in Fedora except in highly
exceptional circumstances. I do however think that we should be making a
greater effort to promote repos.fedorapeople.org as an alternative
central authority for storing those packages that are unacceptable for
inclusion in Fedora itself but remain important enough for end-users
that they should still be available. It doesn't make sense to require
Fedora end-users to recompile their own packages just because we don't
provide them officially. This has a tendency to drive users away from
Fedora and into distributions that they see as much less restrictive.
Providing these unofficial repositories within a domain mentioning
"Fedora" would also retain mindshare (rather than just telling people to
set up their own competing repositories on unrelated domains).

 * What ideas do you have related to the implementation of the stable
updates vision?

I'll mention the highlights here, but I've discussed this at great
length on the advisory board mailing list here:
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/2010-August/009043.html

My general feeling is that Fedora needs to be divided into three phases:
Stable, Next and Rawhide. In the past, when a stable Fedora is released,
we've branched Fedora N+1 by snapshotting Rawhide and continuing from
there. I think we need to change this. I think that Fedora N+1 should
always start from Fedora N, and changes from Rawhide should be merged in
only when the maintainers feel the time is right.

The goal here would be for Fedora Branched to be a semi-stable feature
preview, while Rawhide should remain a volatile tech-preview.

Fedora Branched should be where (for example) the next version of KDE
should be dropped. Those who can't wait for an official Fedora stable
release should be encouraged to move to Branched. This is in contrast to
encouraging them to move to Rawhide, which is generally too dangerous
for average testing.

I've also proposed that enhancement updates made to stable releases
should require proventester karma similar to critical path updates. This
should be done to minimize the effect of "I installed Fedora on release
day and it behaved one way, but after all of the updates it doesn't work
the same way at all".

 * Is there any new initiative you would like to see happen during your
term to improve packaging?

I think we need to find a way to improve mentoring for new packagers.
Currently, it can be difficult to find a sponsor, and some new package
requests go for months or longer without review. Something that's been
discussed lately was a sort of "classifieds" board that we could set up
to let Fedora contributors request help or offer services to projects. I
think this would be a good way to encourage mentoring in the package
process.

I also think that sponsorship after-the-fact is the wrong way to bring
new packagers into the system. I think that a new contributor should
write on the bounty board something like "I want to package libmcguffin,
I need a mentor" and then the sponsor should help walk this contributor
through his or her first new package. Right now, packagers are
essentially throwing their contributions over the wall, hoping that
someone will bother to review it. I think involving a sponsor right from
the start (and having them guide the new contributor) would provide a
more welcoming environment for packagers.

 * Do you think it's important to have more people vote in Fedora
elections? If so, how would you encourage that?

I think it's important to have Fedora's contributors be a part of the
Fedora process. I think that voters need to have a sense that the people
they are choosing for office really represent them. Unfortunately, when
so few people vote, the selection of leaders tends to become the
election of those best supported by the vocal minority.

I'm not certain what can be realistically done to increase voter
turnout. As Larry Wall famously noted, the chief Virtues of the
programmer are "laziness, impatience and hubris". In order to have more
people vote, there needs to be some sort of positive reinforcement
involved. People need to have a real sense that their vote had an
immediate impact pertaining to their interests.

Perhaps one approach would be to time the voting period around a major
sticking point on Fedora policy (the bundled libraries debate would be a
good example). People should be encouraged to vote for the candidate(s)
who best represents their interests in that debate. In this way, people
have a more obvious vested interest in the outcome of the election.

 * Do you run Fedora on the computer you use most often? If so what
Desktop? If not, why not?

I run Fedora 14 with the GNOME desktop on my laptop. I have also used
KDE quite extensively in the past, but for the last few years I've used
GNOME. The transition from KDE 3 to KDE 4 was a rocky one, and I
switched over to GNOME until KDE stabilized further. I intend to find
the time to give KDE another chance in the relatively near future.

 * Do you think Fedora should focus on the Desktop? Or someplace else?
If so, where?

I don't think "Fedora" can be expected to focus on one particular aspect
of the operating system. I don't think that's the strength of our model.
The strength of Fedora lies in having any contributor be able to say "I
don't think this works quite the way it should" and have that person
decide to fix it.

I think the real focus on Fedora as a project should be to facilitate
improvement wherever the contributors want it. We should be focusing on
making Fedora an innovation platform. Sometimes I think we focus too
much on "Fedora the Operating System" and not as much on "Fedora the
Community".

 * What do you think of the Community Working Group that was just
established?

I bemoan the situation that has led to its creation, but I don't know
that it will lead to an improvement. Fedora is a living entity, and like
all complex systems build from independent parts, sometimes things don't
fit together smoothly. This is a simple fact, and no matter how much
lubricant the CWG applies to the gears, sometimes the teeth just don't
fit together.

I'm not saying we need to remove these gears (my analogy is failing a
bit), just that we might want to work towards directing their energies
elsewhere.

I don't know that adding additional bureaucracy is the way to defuse the
situation, but I'm willing to give it a try and see how it plays out.

 * What if anything would you do about the number of more seasoned
contributors that are reducing involvement in the project?

I think we get back here a bit to my discussions about mentoring and a
bounty board. There are many reasons why individuals reduce their
involvement:
 * Some are moving to other platforms. We can combat this somewhat by
improving our focus on being the best facilitator for the future.
 * Some just face real-life issues: family, jobs, etc. In these cases, I
think we should be providing an infrastructure to help transition these
contributors out. Specifically, I'm thinking of making it easier for
these contributors to find apprentices to take over their work.

 * In one sentence, can you summarize what the Board does and in another
what FESco does and in a third what FAMSCo does ?

The Fedora Board is responsible for deciding the vision and mission of
the Fedora Project at a high level; it defines what Fedora IS.

FESCo is responsible for making all of the engineering decisions about
the Fedora Operating System; it defines how Fedora WORKS.

FAmSCo is responsible for presenting the Fedora Project's public image
to the world by arranging events and other marketing materials; it
defines how Fedora is SEEN.

- -- 
Stephen Gallagher
RHCE 804006346421761

Delivering value year after year.
Red Hat ranks #1 in value among software vendors.
http://www.redhat.com/promo/vendor/
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