[Request for Comments] Governance change for Fedora Project

[Ben Cotton]

On Sun, Aug 17, 2014 at 11:56 AM, Haïkel <hguemar at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> I think that the board shied away from strategic planning
> because it couldn't do much and we don't want to force things upon our
> fellow contributors. By having a council made of doers and leaders, we
> may be able to overcome this hurdle.

This is where I have an issue with the proposed changes. "A council
made of doers and leaders" suggests that the current and past Board
members have not been. That's not a problem with the Board structure,
per se, but with whom the community selects. If we switch from
at-large to group-based selection, there's nothing that suggests we
won't end up in the same place. If the board is shying away from
action because it "couldn't do much", that's a structural issue that
we need to change. It doesn't necessarily require dissolving the
current board. The proposal is mostly focused on how we select the
Board members and does little to address how we empower the Board to
*do* something. (S)electing "doers and leaders" does not give the
Board authority on its own.

I'm willing to grant that we've been putting the wrong people on the
Board (I don't know enough to offer an opinion either way). However
this proposal seems to be more along the lines of "if we change how we
select board members, they'll magically address the root issue." I do
like the proposed changes to how the Board is composed, but I'd really
like to see concrete proposals on how this will address the
(perceived?) lack of authority.


-- 
Ben Cotton