[fab] New project formation is out of control

Tue Aug 8 13:14:44 UTC 2006

OK, here's my simplistic process overview:

1) Contributor suggests new project to a Steering Committee (talking 
generally here - devel, ambassadors, etc)
2) Committee discusses it first
    ok - project idea goes to "help needed" page
    not ok - standard and careful reply "... project idea is against 
Fedora's goals as you can see in fedoraproject.org/wiki...."
3) Once the project has at least 3 contributors, it can be named as 
"Fedora official", then have a dedicated wiki page

After all, we still have control over www.fedoraproject.org...

Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 18:22 -0500, Patrick W. Barnes wrote:
>   
>> I'm a little concerned by a recent chain of events.  Damien Durand recently 
>> decided that running interviews of Fedora contributors was a worthy project 
>> and began working, without support, to make it a reality.  This, in itself, 
>> is good.  We need people who take initiative.  The problem is the subsequent 
>> announcement and adoption without review, and this is just a symptom of a 
>> larger, standing issue.
>>
>> As soon as Damien put up a page and interviewed Chitlesh Goorah, he sent an 
>> announcement to fedora-marketing-list and made a post in his blog.  Then, 
>> Thomas included the announcement in the Fedora Weekly News report.  The 
>> problem is that this program has had no peer review and doesn't have any 
>> support within the Fedora Project.  I had instructed Damien to make a post to 
>> fedora-marketing-list to let the Marketing team know what he was working on 
>> and to ask for feedback, not to provide a formal announcement.
>>
>> My concern with this particular project is that it is doing something that is 
>> already being done and for which a new venue is not needed.  RHM already has 
>> a column that features contributor interviews, and assorted other sources 
>> already allow contributors to be introduced to the community.  Without the 
>> interest and resources going into Fedora Interview, I'm not sure it can 
>> really succeed.  If the Marketing team adopted the idea and decided to 
>> support it, then we could have given more consideration into what we would 
>> throw behind the program.  Another issue is the fact that Damien has not had 
>> the time to correct the issues that have already been pointed out.  Moving to 
>> a public announcement was premature.
>>
>> This really only highlights and underlying problem.  We have a number of new 
>> or inexperienced contributors who are in a hurry to start up their own 
>> initiatives.  We already have a significant number of projects that need more 
>> attention, not separation.  These new contributors take advantage of the 
>> freedom they are given to stake out grounds without peer support.  This is 
>> fracturing our community and leaving all kinds of loose and dead ends.
>>
>> Another fine example of this issue is Clair Shaw's Word of Mouth program.  
>> Many of these initiatives are popping up under Ambassadors and Marketing, 
>> simply because the Ambassadors have an immediate sense of involvement and 
>> power, but this problem spreads well beyond those projects.  We need to be 
>> flexible in allowing the formation of new programs, but allowing the creation 
>> and branding of new programs without any controls in place will soon dilute 
>> the standings of existing projects and will introduce confusion.
>>
>> With these small, unsupported programs popping up everywhere, projects are 
>> fracturing and initiatives are failing.  We need to work on tightening 
>> controls and focusing the contributor energy where it is needed.  It's time 
>> to consider establishing policies and practices for the formation of new 
>> projects and programs.  This needs to happen at two levels.  We need policies 
>> for the creation or promotion of projects at the top level, and individual 
>> projects need policies for the formation of sub-projects.  If we don't exert 
>> control now, we'll have a hard time regaining it in the future.
>>     
>
> Is it my imagination, or has this just happened again?
>
> http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2006-August/msg00006.html
> (and others)
>
> No mailing list discussions that I can find, 
> IIRC, The last discussion on this issue petered out with most of the
> discussion centering on whether "Project" should be "Program," or
> "Team," or "Collective," or "Arbeitgruppe," or whatever.  Two
> "coopetitive" views were put out, I think:
>
> 1.  The more the merrier, and let evolution weed 'em out.
> 2.  Contributors need to prove they have what it takes to carry the
> Fedora banner.
>
> No one has said much about Patrick's wiki page:
>
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DefiningProjects 
>
> I agreed to drive this project definition problem... My personal
> viewpoint is that, like logo usage, we want to be generous but
> protective about the Fedora name.  I prefer that the "Ideas" listed in
> this page be promoted to "SIGs" since not only do we have a couple, but
> "Ideas" sounds a little dismissive.  "SIG" gives the contributors an
> immediate feeling of group ownership.  Once a SIG has more plans they
> can be owned by an official subproject until they are ready to move on,
> if that's necessary.  Input please?
>
>   
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>
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>   
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