Review queue/FESCo after the merge

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On Fri, 2007-11-16 at 13:17 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> But that just change my comment much -- I still think if someone is
> interested in fixing/improving something in Fedora-land it should be
> much easier than it is now. Then people would again do something on
> their own instead of relying and waiting for committees to do that work.

My intent in shaping the Packaging Guidelines the way that they are is
not to make life difficult for contributors, but rather, to ensure
consistency.

Often, the FPC members disagree on the correct guidelines to implement.
If we were to open the Guidelines and make them editable to all, we
would see wiki wars on contentious issues, people adding their own rules
and corner cases, and possibly contradicting guidelines.

The FPC has a documented process (which is almost never followed) on how
to make a change to anything under Packaging/ (or to propose new
Guidelines):

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Committee#head-bc786fd8400956418c30ac87c30733f0c008b146

Sending a change request to the mailing list doesn't scale, as it gets
lost in the shuffle. Every single meeting, I open:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/GuidelinesTodo

(which embeds the DraftsTodo page), and I put all the new draft/change
requests in front of the FPC.

We try to do this as efficiently as possible. We are ALWAYS open to new
drafts and changes. We may not always approve them, but we will discuss
just about anything. We're also open to process improvements, and we're
actively seeking new members to serve on the FPC.

Thorsten, this is certainly not intended as a criticism for you, as I
continue to have great admiration for the work that you do in the Fedora
community, but rather, a call to action for specific improvements that
we can make to streamline the bureaucracy. :)

Thanks,

~spot