[Request for Comments] Governance change for Fedora Project

[Bill Nottingham]

Haïkel (hguemar at fedoraproject.org) said: 
> Following the current discussion about governance, a proposal to
> change the governance model of the project has been made during the
> "Governance for Fedora.Next workshop" in Flock Prague 2014.
> We request your feedbacks about before considering its adoption or rejection.
> 
> * dissolving the current board
> * the board will be replaced by a "community council" (final name to be chosen)
> * the community council will be the main governance body of the Fedora
> Project, its role will be to define a shared vision accross the
> project and the highest decision-making power. That also includes
> technical decisions.
> * the community council will be composed of representatives and
> advisers best suited to help guide the FPL in achieving the project's
> objectives
> * groups will be defined based on the existing groups within the
> Fedora Project in order to have every stakeholders represented by the
> FPL
> * the community council will serve as an advisory board to the FPL,
> decision making will be the latter prerogative based on the council
> feedbacks and his own judgement.
> * community council members should be leaders and doers whom will be
> able to drive and advocate the changes by the FPL for most efficiency.
> * community council members will serve until either they or the FPL
> feel that they should leave their seat to someone else according the
> project agenda.
> * All the existing steering committees will continue to function as
> before until the community council decide otherwise.

The community council can't simultaneously be "the main governance body
[whose] role will be ... the highest decision-making power" and "serve as an
advisory board to the FPL [where] decision making will be the [FPL's]
perogative based on the council feedback." Please pick one.

If given the choice, I'd choose the first - if Fedora is operating under
effective influencing leadership and under a common direction, a
council-decides-with-negligibly-used-FPL-veto won't act materially different
in practice than a FPL-decides/council-follows model, without any of the
dictatorial optics at a glance (that Ben noticed) that would reinforce
Fedora's self-limited nature (as pointed out by Greg).

As to the idea of changing in and of itself, if I were to think of the
'problems' in Fedora, I could come up with examples like:
- inability to organize/motivate the community in a particular direction
- inability to undertake large initiatives
- a tendency of individuals and small groups to stay 'heads down' in 
  an area with less regard to the overall project

Moving to a model where the top body is drawn from the major areas of Fedora
to work together doesn't explicitly solve any of those problems. But it a
creates an environment more conducive to solving them. A leadership group
that draws from all areas makes it easier to agree on a particular direction
and disseminate down. It makes it easier to find people in all necessary
roles to do something. It makes it easier for people to stay connected to
the whole project.

Bill