[Ambassadors] Meeting minutes FAmSCo 2010-2-19

[Larry Cafiero]

As a preface, this discussion took place during the open floor and no
decisions were made on the issue. I cannot speak for the rest of FAmSCo, but
I think we're still digesting and distilling the proposal, and subsequent
discussion, into some sort of action.

On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 10:37 PM, inode0 <inode0 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> > 13:35:30 <igorps> It is a good discussion, but somehow we also need
> opinion from the
> > Board members
>
> Why? What does the Board have to do with the budget?
>

I don't think the board has anything to do with budget, and while I don't
want to speak for Igor, I believe the "opinion" in question is whether we
need some sort of authority from the Board to approve a decision by FAmSCo
to expand FAmSCo's scope to include non-ambassador funding -- if that's what
we choose to pursue (and again, this discussion took place during Open
Floor, at which time we were just getting a sense of how we, as a group,
wanted to proceed). The Board just might want to have is some say in making
an approval on this decision because, unless you can point it out, I can't
find any precedent or authority that FAmSCo can make the decision to give
itself this power on its own. If we are endowed with the power to make this
kind of financial decision unilaterally, then I think that can be arranged.
And I think FAmSCo should authorize the purchase of a Lear jet for every
member, while we're at it, if we're allowed to make such decisions on our
own. Obviously you can see where the Board might have a problem with that.


>
> > 13:35:38 <liknus> obviously we can choose to accept or not a role (or
> even take part in
> > forming it)
> > 13:36:03 <liknus> but right now we do *not* have a proposal officially
> made (board, some
> > SCo, a person etc)
>
> I made something of a proposal as a community member, David Nalley
> previously made a proposal as well.


I think David's proposal was far more clear, and it's somewhat unfortunate
that David's wasn't acted upon by the last FAmSCo group. I'd be interested
to know in more detail why it didn't fly and what hang-ups we can avoid
going forward.

Even though a proposal from FAmSCo will not agree with my proposal I

welcome your initiative to make a more formal statement of your
> willingness to accept an expanded role if that is what you want to do.
> Getting options on the table will lead to this getting resolved sooner
> one way or another and until it is resolved we can't all get behind
> whatever decision we end up with to move ahead constructively.
>
>
> > 13:38:46 <liknus> yn1v, what is the alternative ?  To elect a new body?
> (besides FAmSCo is
> > the body that is elected by most members in Fedora)
>
> I guess you did not read the proposal I made that began this discussion.
>

I think he did. I think we all did -- all 742 words. To be honest, I thought
it was very hard to follow, and English is my first language. In addition, I
thought it was contradictory in places, which I find to be hurdles moreso
than roadblocks (see below).


>
> > 13:40:30 <igorps> liknus: maybe people are not just aware of board tasks
>
> If the board is making budget decisions people certainly are not aware of
> it.
>

Again, I don't want to speak for Igor, but what I think is in question here,
or at least how I took this, is that the "tasks" of the board in question,
again, is having the authority to check off on expanding the scope of FAmSCo
to allow it to fund non-ambassador projects.


> > 13:40:32 <gbraad-china> agree with lcafiero
> > 13:40:33 <lcafiero> I think John Rose is throwing up unnecessary
> roadblocks, IMO
>
> Personally insulting me is not helpful to anything Larry. I gave the
> reasons I brought this up in my email and how one proposal for how to
> transfer budget work from the Red Hat Community Architecture team to
> the Fedora Project can be viewed as a roadblock boggles my mind.
>

"Roadblocks" was not the right word here. "Hurdles" was probably a better
choice, but at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning, I am not at my most eloquent.
Here's an example of what I consider a hurdle: In your original posting, you
say this:

"After much discussion with new and old friends from around the world
at FUDCon Tempe I've concluded that FAmSCo probably isn't going to be
the best place for non-ambassador budget decisions to happen as we
expand our efforts at increasing funding of various new events (FADs
with explicit work product to be achieved for example) as well as
non-event funding of efforts as they might arise."

Fine. To me that says FAmSCo is not the place for non-ambassador funding
decisions to happen. But later on in the same original post, you say this:

"There was a subtle suggestion at FADNA last year that we consider a
new organization. I was resistant to this, I thought FAmSCo has stuff
in place and has experience dealing with budgets, etc. Now after
talking to more people, especially non-ambassadors, I think I was
wrong to be resistant. Now I think that if we can modify our structure
a bit to encourage more engagement from more contributors and have
those contributors be comfortable asking for funds we should do it."

So which is it? Is FAmSCo NOT "going to be the best place for non-ambassador
budget decisions to happen," or "if we can modify our structure a bit to
encourage more engagement from more contributors and have those contributors
be comfortable asking for funds we should do it"?

I can play semantics all day, if necessary, but I'd prefer to take action to
get this done.

Also, I'm sorry if you feel insulted, however that's my opinion and I stand
by it.


> > 13:46:01 <lcafiero> To say, "I can't go to FAmSCo for funding -- I'm not
> an ambassador" is
> > not a good argument if that's the process.
>
> I don't really disagree with you on this, but the reality is that
> other people are offended by it and get quite animated about it.


I find this hard to believe. If the process is: Go HERE for funding, and if
someone is "offended" by having to go HERE to get funding for a project -- a
reasonable following of what would probably (and hopefully) be a simple
process -- then a.) maybe it's not important enough to him or her to get the
funding, and/or b.) if he or she is that "offended" or "animated" by having
to go through FAmSCo to get funding, is this the kind of person that Fedora
wants representing it in what would potentially be a sponsored and public
venue?


> However FAmSCo wants to proceed I just ask that you be sensitive to
> the way non-ambassadors view (rightly or wrongly) FAmSCo and the
> ambassadors group because as Neville said this will be touchy for some
> while it will be of no concern to others.
>
>
So noted.

Larry Cafiero
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