Requests for Advice from the Board

[David Nalley]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 3:59 PM, Max Spevack <mspevack at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
<snip>

> If the Board wants to delegate a matter to another part of the Fedora
> community, that's fine.  But in making that delegation, a few sentences
> about why the Board wants to delegate the issue should always be given, as
> well as (optionally) any general thoughts or comments that the Board or
> Board members have on the issue that they'd like to see considered.
>

<snip>
> This has the positive result of continuing to push decision making and
> authority to the edges of the community, but it also has the benefit of
> establishing an institutional memory of why things happen the way they do,
> and can be instructive to future Board members who get a bit more insight
> into how decisions are made.


Hi Max,

I find myself in the strange and rare position of disagreeing with you :)

So you mention delegating authority or power, and I think that the
Board actually possesses very little authority inherently, and I think
that is a good thing. (But it really makes delegating hard when you
have nothing to delegate) The real power and authority is with the
people who are doing the work, so there is nothing to delegate in the
first place. Yes, as a community we've worked out a number of groups
(like FESCo, FAmSCo, FPC, etc) that organize and effectively act as
coordinators, but there's still precious little authority from a
traditional view point.

In my opinion, individuals who are doing the work have the ultimate
authority in Fedora. They make the decisions, and they are getting
things done.

What the board, and other groups hopefully do is inspire and lead by
consensus. They certainly have no compulsory power. However, weighing
in on every decision, or even informing folks we've decided not to
issue a writ of certiorari belies the real situation - and that is
that the folks doing the work should almost always be the ones making
the decisions, and (hopefully this always remains true in Fedora) that
we trust that those spending their time, most of them donating their
time, to Fedora can make good decisions.

I personally think that most of the requests (that aren't trademark
related) and to which the Board says 'this is none of our business'
fall into one of several categories:

1. People who think they need permission - this is rarely the case -
yes you might need to be a packager, or have access to some resource
that infrastructure might need to provision, but VERY rarely do folks
actually need permission from the board.

2. People really think that the board is really in charge in a
traditional sense - and they seek to have something about/within
Fedora changed, and so they have effectively bypassed all of the folks
doing the work, and show up on the footsteps of the board asking for
some change, a change we are often not in place to mandate.


I realize that I am preaching to the choir (and to someone with far
more experience re the Fedora Board), but I personally see the Board
as minders of the trademarks, and hopefully present to unblock people
who are trying to get things done, and that is the responsibility
we've decided to take on. Perhaps, as a board we'll also help direct
Fedora's future, I think we certainly have the obligation to look out
for the future of Fedora, but I don't think that having a Board seat
is a prerequisite for that type of leadership, as a matter of fact,
I'd argue that anyone can do so.

--David