Board/Project Governance

[inode0]

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 11:14 AM, Rahul Sundaram <metherid at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Josh Boyer wrote:
>
>>
>> The overall lack of commenting really kind of baffles me still.  Now I
>> can't tell if it's simply apathy, "silence means agreement", or some
>> kind of boycott.
>
>
>
> I stopped following this list overall because I got the impression that the
> board isn't really doing anything anymore.  I do wonder why it should exist
> at all.  Can anyone (preferably a board member) explain why it shouldn't
> just go away?

I'll speak mostly for the short term without ruling out the
possibility of various reorganizations making the Board as it now
exists unnecessary in the future.

The Board is tasked via the Fedora Trademark Guidelines with various
responsibilities which it takes seriously. I plan to ask Red Hat legal
what other arrangements they might be agreeable to where perhaps
another group of Fedora contributors could be tasked with these
responsibilities but I believe it is important for these
responsibilities to rest in the Fedora community somewhere.

Someone needs to be in a position to resolve disputes within the
community and that responsibility now resides with the Board. While we
have created a Community Working Group to help resolve disputes it is
specifically designed to do mediation, not to do arbitration, make
judgments, or enforce sanctions. The Board gets to be the bad guy and
fortunately that obligation is seldom needed.

FESCo has oversight of the technical direction of the products Fedora
produces, the Board has oversight over the rest of the project. This
is an area where I think the Board should probably be a lot more
active than it has been historically.

The Board sets the strategic philosophy of the project. While I've
been on the Board there have been questions directed to the Board
concerning whether some change being considered is consistent with the
philosophy of the Fedora Project. There needs to be a final arbiter of
such questions and today that is the Board's obligation.

To quote from the Board's wiki page:

"Like any board of directors, the Fedora Project Board advises Fedora
leadership and helps the project pursue broad goals. The Board does
not generally implement practices, but instead relies on the
recognized community leadership including but not limited to the
Fedora Engineering Steering Committee to do so."

And from my perspective that is exactly what the Board is doing now.

John