[Ambassadors] Red Hat's investments (was Re: Going passive)

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 11/10/2010 02:20 PM, "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" wrote:
> You must be referring to Will rather then Jeremy here and the only 
> reason in increased QA employment surge from Red Hat is because Will 
> manage to sell his dream pony ( AutoQA which is a win win for everybody 
> btw ) and at the same time convince upper level management of Red Hat of 
> the benefits of strong Fedora QA treatment on the bits before they reach 
> RHEL.
> 
> I dont know how much of a history lesson you are given at Red Hat when 
> you sign up but I suggest you take of your QE glasses ( QE!=QA ) study 
> the history between Red Hat and Fedoraunity even after they literally 
> saved the official GA release which was what FC5 or FC6 ( Anaconda 
> installing the wrong kernel arch for those that dont remember that screw 
> up ) amongst all the good work unity does and the reason why bug-zapper 
> ( which in it's current form is more or less on John Poelstra and Jon 
> Stanley work if I can recall correctly ) are on it's own channel on 
> freenode ( they used to be on the QA channel )  and as I pointed them 
> out when they were making the 3 attempt to get triages up and running 
> that it would not solve the underlying issue ( which it has not up today 
> ) then perhaps you start seeing things a bit from community perspective .

I'm going to attempt to be as "excellent" as I can in this reply, but as
I have been involved with Fedora since day 0 (and before), not to
mention having been with Red Hat for almost 10 years now, I can say
without reservation that you do not have the complete story here.

To your first point:

"the only reason in increased QA employment surge from Red Hat is
because Will manage to sell his dream pony"

This is patently false. There have been many many people within Red Hat
who have worked very hard to increase QA employment (and work allocation
to existing employees) on Fedora. Specifically:

* I pushed for Red Hat to hire Adam Williamson (formerly of Mandriva) to
help grow Fedora QA/QE efforts, with a specific focus on building
community QA/QE. I happen to think he's done a rather good job.
* I continue to ask Red Hat for additional resources to improve and
accelerate Fedora QA initiatives. My management chain has encouraged this.
* James Laska has been working tirelessly to increase QA employment and
allocation of existing employees on Fedora. He regularly goes above and
beyond the call of duty to ensure that not only is Fedora well-tested,
but that we learn from our mistakes and are constantly improving our QA
preocess. His management chain has been extremely supportive of this
effort.
* All of the Fedora QA/QE members have been instrumental in organizing
and coordinating Fedora Test days, even going so far as to involve
groups within Red Hat who are not normally as active in Fedora as we
would prefer.

To your second point:

"when they were making the 3 attempt to get triages up and running that
it would not solve the underlying issue ( which it has not up today )"

This is also false. Fedora 14 is the first release that we have hit our
release target for. Ever. A big reason is the aggressive triaging work
done during the post-beta process.

There are plenty of places for improvement, and plenty of areas for
valid criticism of Fedora and its processes, but those people who
repeatedly insist that the existing practices are fundamentally broken
and worthless are not only wrong, but they are actively poisonous.

( From this point on, please note that when I say "you", I am not
referring to Mr. Guðmundsson, but rather, the greater communal "you".)

Also, while I'm here, let me attempt to address any conspiracy theories
about Fedora and Red Hat. There are no secret agendas, no active and
conscious discrimination against EMEA community or contributors, or plan
for Red Hat to do evil things to the Fedora community.

You may be asking, how can you say this for sure? The answer is: I
wouldn't stand for it. I've been to EMEA, many times. That community
knows me, by my words and my deeds. And I tell you this now:

My job at Red Hat is to make sure that Fedora has what it needs to
succeed and to ensure that Red Hat avoids making mistakes that would
harm Fedora. I consult with every group inside Red Hat to make this
happen, every day.

Red Hat still makes mistakes, so does Fedora. But we learn from our
mistakes and we move forward. Fedora needs Red Hat as much as Red Hat
needs Fedora, and if you ask the Red Hat CEO that, he'll tell you the
same thing.

If you don't want to be part of a community where Red Hat is the parent
and provider, we have quite literally done everything possible to enable
you to take our work and build your own community. If you want to
contribute to Fedora at the monetary and resource level that Red Hat
does, by all means, please join us.

But if your only purpose of being in the community is to push a
poisonous vision of a malicious Red Hat, ask yourself:

* Why does Red Hat continue to allocate significant amounts of money to
Fedora?
* Why does it allocate the responsibility for allocating that much of
that money to non-Red Hat employees?
* Why does Red Hat prefer to hire new employees from the Fedora community?
* Why doesn't Red Hat restrict contributors on core packages anymore
(like we used to, and like Canonical still does)?
* Why doesn't Red Hat require that all Fedora contributors assign their
copyright over to Red Hat (like Canonical does)?
* Why does Red Hat regularly appoint non-Red Hat employees to Board seats?
* Why does Red Hat have lawyers that are practically dedicated to
advising and assisting Fedora?
* Why doesn't Red Hat have any sort of profit model around Fedora?

I could keep going, but I hope I've made my point. If Red Hat wanted to
be malicious or damaging to the Fedora Community, we'd be doing a much
better job of it.

And if anyone really still thinks that the fact that Red Hat is present
and involved in Fedora is a major problem, the door is right there.
Don't let it hit you in the butt on the way out.

Thanks,

~spot