governance, fesco, board, etc.

[Max Spevack]

Hi Ralf,

A few of my thoughts:

> Reality check - What has changed with the merger?
>
> * Before: Core packages were maintained by @RH
>  Now: With very few exceptions, Core packages are maintained by @RH

My view of now: infrastructure is in place that allows, over time, for 
more and more old "Core" packages to be maintained by non-RH.  What we 
should do is find out how much access to old Core packages has been 
granted as of TODAY, so that we can compare that number 6 months from 
now and actually PROVE whether or not any progress has been made.

> * Before: FE was open, everybody could fix other packages.
>  Now: ACLs are in effect.

My view of now: all packages are treated as the same.  ACLs aren't a 
problem.  If ACLs are *abused* then it becomes a problem.  This is an 
area for FESCO to watch, and if there are problems, either FESCO or the 
Board will have to address them.  But abusing ACLs to me seems like it 
would be a problem with PEOPLE and not with TOOLS.

> * Before: Fedora consisted of free-OSS packages.
>  Now: Non-free packages have been introduced.

Please explain.

> * Before: Fedora was controlled by FAB and FESCO
>  Now: Fedora is still controlled by FAB and FESCO.

I would say that Fedora is controlled by each individual person who 
chooses to contribute.  Fedora Board, Fedora Advisory Board, FESCO are 
all various levels of organization that attempt to give guidance and 
direction to a large number of contributors.  But "control" is a loaded 
word that means different things to different people.  In a 
volunteer-driven community, control is a misnomer.  You can have leaders 
that exert something that *feels like* control, but it is only as 
effective as the trust the community puts in the leadership.  Break the 
trust -- be a malevolent, as opposed to benevolent, dictator, and your 
ability to influence a free software project drops to zero.

> * Before: Core+Extras was released by RH's rel-eng
>  Now: Core+Extras was released by a rel-eng.

Now: every rel-eng tools is open.  A rel-eng team within Fedora has been 
doing good work in public, and anyone in the world can be their own 
release engineer if they want to.

> * Before: FE had a functional work-flow, functional simple reviews,
>  functional bugzilla, some bureaucracy, non-functional QA.
>  Now: koji, bodhi, flagged-reviews, broken bugzilla, more bureaucracy,
>  still non-functional QA.

First off, I wouldn't term our QA "non-functional" -- I think that's 
quite an extreme statement to make once, certainly twice in quick 
succession.

But your general litany of complaints -- this will all improve over 
time.  And it will improve organically from within the community, not 
because a SINGLE PERSON @RH insists that it be done in a certain way.

We wanted a single repository of Fedora packages.  We have it.  There's 
some issues around it that need to be cleaned up.  But give it some 
time, man.  You can't lose sight of the larger achievement, which is 
represented (albeit with a few rough spots) in Fedora 7's new 
"developer/packager infrastructure".  Fedora 8's development cycle is a 
good chance for us to sort out, clean up, and simplify these problems. 
So either offer some constructive advice in the appropriate places for 
each of your concerns, or if you don't have any, then sit quietly for a 
while and let the people who work on those areas every day do their 
thing, and make improvements.

-- 
Max Spevack
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