[Ambassadors] Broadening how we empower community action - opening a dialog for change

[Max Spevack]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2011, David Nalley wrote:

> I would like to see FAmSCo should evolve here to fill the void that 
> you are talking about, and towards the end of the year 2010 I sent a 
> few emails to various lists to that effect. When FAmSCo was first 
> formed there really was a lot more management overhead.  Ambassador 
> were also one of the first groups to have large scale autonomy within 
> Fedora.
>
> I agree with you that I can't see FAmSCo-as-it-is-today taking that 
> role without some level of consternation (and also questions of 
> constituency.) I also think it's a problem I'd prefer to not see the 
> Board or FESCo solve (my personal opinion only, even though I am a 
> board member). At the same time I have a hard time justifying a 
> completely separate leadership body when FAmSCo will continue to 
> manage the vast majority of Fedora monies.
>
> If a separate body were to be formed, I think It'd like to see it take 
> over FAmSCo's current fiduciary role now, and deal directly with 
> people doing the work. I have said for a couple of years that I think 
> the role of FAmSCo as it was originally defined, is largely outdated, 
> and that FAmSCo.

There would clearly be a lot of parallels between FAMSCO as it is now, 
and the hypothetical new body that John suggests.

David's points above basically say the same thing -- there would be 
overlap.

I agree that the primary challenge -- and probably the first thing on 
the strategic list -- would be to figure out:

(1) How the current stuff that FAMSCO takes care of can still be taken 
care of, and how to use or leverage the fact that a leadership body such 
as FAMSCo already exists.

(2) How to *evolve* FAMSCO into its larger mandate -- thinking back to 
the way that the Fedora Extras Steerinc Committee evolved into the 
Fedora Engineering Steering Committee as precedent for such an 
evolution.

(3) How to clearly articulate the different mandates of this group, or 
what use cases people might have that this group could help with?

(4) How to weave into this the community-controlled credit cards that 
will be rolling out for NA, LATAM, and EMEA.

(5) How to eliminate blocks on Red Hat and on me in particular, while 
not compromising the ability to track expenses, accurately account for 
every penny, stay within budget, etc.

--Max