governance, fesco, board, etc.

[Axel Thimm]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 11:05:57AM +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Well, IMO, Fedora Extras had been a success, Core had largely been a
> continuation of RHEL.
> 
> To judge whether Fedora as whole had been a success, is up to the
> eye of the beholder. I don't see "overwhelming success" nor do I see
> "a Waterloo". No doubt, Fedora had been "quite usable", but I also
> think there can't be any doubt it could have been better.
> 
> With the merger, things have changed substantially. The merger is
> _the_ opportunity for RH to improve the overall situation. From a
> non-RH's point of view, the key points to change would be
> "leadership" and a better "Core".

OK, if you identify things that need improvement (there always are),
then you need to spell them out and see whether the lack of
improvement was due to this model. You may be right or not, but a
general "I think a different leadership would improve all" doesn't
count w/o that analysis.

> > > ATM, I am seeing to many "dark room" decisions taking effect,
> > > which are not in the community's interest.
> > 
> > Very true, but I don't think there is a difference between
> > community and RH here.

> There is a substantial difference: Community members first must
> propose something, [...]

I'm not talking theory, I talk out of experience. Prominent community
members have been doing (and still do) just as much backstage talking
as RH people. Anyway this is another story.

> ATM, I am seeing @RH's (esp. rel-eng) drawing arguable RH-centric
> decisions, which I consider to be spoiling large parts of the basis
> the former FE's success was based on.

There was a criticism to rel-eng and rel-eng is trying to improve. For
some weeks there are meeting logs, and Max' model sees rel-eng
attached to fesco, e.g. is reporting to fesco and fesco is going to be
authorititive over rel-eng. Also rel-eng is open for anyone to join
(with an RH lead, but still open).

So, criticism is OK, it leads to better structures. But this doesn't
mean that the whole structure is bad to start with.

> > You need a singular controlling instance in every scheme, be that a
> > Linux distribution, a company, a goverment, or even a gang.
> I disagree - keyword: division of powers.

division of powers is a different beast, even there you have the
legislative in one place (usually). And if you like Fedora has
division of powers:

o legislative: board
o excutive:    fesco
o judicative:  users ;)

> Or fedora centric: Too many ninjas around.

Well, you criticise concentration of powers and diversity of powers in
the same paragraph, which one is it? :)

> My initial points remain: I don't see any job left for FESCo and I am
> still seeing too much @RH.

Let's rewind and see what Fedora is: It was lifted from RHL with RH
resources and there was a unwritten "community contract" that RH would
continue to invest resources into Fedora, but would remain in ultimate
control of certain decisions. For example Fedora will not start
becoming incompatible to RHEL or drop important to RHEL
technology. This goes w/o saying since Fedora is the upstream for RHEL
4 and 5 and certainly 6 etc as well.

This is a contract that the current community gladly accepted. And RH
is trying to stay out of the radar, empowering the community to do the
right thing as far as possible.

This means that at the top of the decision making chain you will have
a majority that is RH, which is the 5/4 ratio in the board. Whatever
follows beneath is secondary and not relevant to the principal parts
of the "community contract".

There is lots to do for the new fesco (and its children groups): It
will just concentrate on solving technical issues, which is what is
was effectively doing anyway. The old fesco would not be able to
decide to include into Extras closed source parts, firmwares or patent
problematic parts. The new one cannot as well, but it is spelled out
now.

Or to rephrase it: What would you think is not possible anymore for
fesco to do, which formerly was?
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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