Stepping down as Documentation Project Leader

[John J. McDonough]

OK, now for the other shoe .....


I've been dragging my feet on sending this note because I didn't want to
drain the volunteer pool before Eric made his announcement.

For the Fedora 15 cycle, I won't be able to effectively lead the Release
Notes.  Unlike Eric, I should still be around a LOT.  The problem is,
between now and May I won't be able to be around predictably.

The Release Notes have become a lot easier over the past few releases.
The schedules now make sense, we seem to have a lot of contributors, and
a lot of the messy bits have become automated.

What the Release Notes mostly depends on is someone riding herd on the
schedule.  We need to be synched up with several other groups, and this
doesn't happen unless we meet our schedule.  Sometimes these other
groups drive adjustments in the schedule. But the major part of the job
is watching over the schedule.

Now, I'll still be around to help, and I hope to still be around a lot.
The problem is I can't count on being here exactly when I'm needed.

Many of you know that I'm involved in emergency communications, and that
typically takes the bulk of my time.  We have a large exercise coming up
in May, and a whole pile of drills and exercises to prepare for that.  I
will be working with Michigan's 23 State Agencies on the design of the
statewide exercise, and with my 2200 volunteers in Michigan, along with
my counterparts in other states, to design the preparatory drills, and
that means a lot of trips to Lansing at times and dates I can't control,
sometimes without a lot of warning.

Zach has been taking up a lot of the slack in the past couple weeks, but
with him taking on the Docs Czar job he will be pulled at a bit more.
Sure, between the two of us we probably could get the job done, but here
is another opportunity for someone to step up that might have some
newer, better ideas.  And it can be relatively painless, since I will
still be here to help (well, depending on your point of view maybe that
isn't such a good thing!)

So, are YOU ready to leave your fingerprints on Fedora perhaps a little
more visibly than you have in the past?

--McD