What is success for Fedora?

Tue Jul 1 15:23:21 UTC 2014

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On 07/01/2014 11:16 AM, Josh Boyer wrote:
> Something the Board has talked about recently is defining success
> for Fedora.  The project has often done this directly through our
> main deliverable, which is shipping another Fedora release.  We
> work hard to create, test, and deliver a high quality Linux
> distribution.  We look at feedback and try and correct mistakes or
> oversights in the next release.  These are all fine things, and
> things that should continue as we stride towards Fedora.next, but
> is that really defining success for the project as a whole?  Is
> Fedora simply a project to create a Linux distribution, or is it
> something larger?
> 
> Our Four Foundations speak to the bedrock that Fedora is built on
> and provide guidance in decision making for specific instances.
> Yet we seem to rarely stand back and evaluate how Fedora as a
> project is doing.  Are we achieving some manner of success in
> promoting those Foundations?  Should we be striving for that?  Is
> it even measurable? If so, how?
> 
> The Board is starting this thread to have an earnest discussion
> around what people see "success" being for the Fedora project.
> Hopefully the Board members will chime in with their own thoughts
> soon, but we want to get as many ideas around this as possible.
> Hopefully this discussion will help the Board, and the community as
> a whole, gather some insight as to where we think Fedora is, where
> it should be heading, and what we should be doing to get it there.
> 
> Thanks.

I've been defining "success for Fedora" for a while now this way:

Fedora is successful if a sizeable number (ideally a majority) of
developers and system administrators choose to use Fedora as the
platform from which they will build and/or deploy their applications.

Fedora should seek to accomplish this by being both the best and most
accessible platform choice while also holding to its core values that
open-source allows us to build better solutions faster with collaboration.