To be or not to be, the question of Future Fedora Release Names

[inode0]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 5:44 PM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:
> Today the Board decided that the Fedora 18 release naming process was
> already in progress and therefore we would continue to work with the current
> process for naming Fedora 18.  However, we could change things for Fedora 19
> and above.  The question was how.
>
> Several of the Board members felt that the release names were valuable, at
> least one expressed the opinion that the current method of choosing release
> names was fun and one expressed synmpathy with getting rid of the release
> names.  All pretty much agreed that they wanted to know whether there was
> an overwhelming feeling that release names should go, should not go, or
> just that the current system was broken.
>
> What we'd like to do is have a poll that runs at the same time as the
> Fedora 18 Release Name voting to determine whether to continue to have
> release names for Fedora 19+.  The poll will be in the voting system and
> have three choices:
>
> * Get rid of release names
> * Keep release names with the present process
> * Keep release names but have the Board and community create new
>  criteria/process for choosing them

Sadly this doesn't give someone like me a very good way to express his
opinion on the matter. I don't much care whether the naming process
stays the same or changes, but I would like to not prevent the
hundreds of contributors who have fun participating in this process
from continuing to do so. I'm fine with those doing the work and those
participating in the process deciding such details rather than a
collection of the uninvolved (e.g., people like me voting randomly
between options that don't allow me to express my opinion clearly)
deciding for them.

> The Board will use the results of this to decide whether to have a new
> release name for Fedora 19 and if so, whether the process will use the
> current criteria or we'll create a new one (for instance, mizmo's gathering
> of ideas for themes for release names).
>
> Two notes that the Board wanted to be clear about this proposal:
>
> 1) If the Board chooses to create a new process that will likely happen with
>   the people who are doing the work to revamp the process rather than be
>   put to another vote.

Makes sense, those doing the work figure out the details.

> 2) The Board wanted to make clear that this is a poll, not a binding vote
>   An overwhelming vote will likely influence the Board to go along with
>   a certain plan much more than a close vote where the Board members will
>   feel that there isn't a single definite path being sought for by the
>   community.

Doesn't make so much sense. Likely by far the most common vote will be
apathy just like in every election we have with, well, almost everyone
abstaining. And I'm going to guess that most of the people who will
vote to do away with naming don't actually have to do any additional
work whether we have naming or not and in my opinion don't have
standing to make the decision about what other people choose to do.
Maybe some of them feel compelled to vote to prevent names they find
offensive and I suppose that counts as work.

I'll find a way to vote for fun though and to support those doing the
work also doing the deciding.

John