[fab] New project formation is out of control

[Jeremy Katz]

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.

FWIW, I'm somewhat concerned about this as well.  There's a fine line to
be walked between contributor empowerment and ensuring that new
initiatives are started with appropriate review/support.

[snip the details as they're illustrative rather than the crux here]

> 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.

So the question becomes how do we help to get new contributors working
within established frameworks and not feeling that they have to go off
and start something on their own?  Because while the suggestions for
additional control are sensible and reasonable (IMHO), it will still
occur as long as we don't have good avenues for people to get started.
Perhaps one route would be to have a defined, easy, low-barrier way for
people to start something on their own and have it clearly be incubatory
or a pilot to gauge interest until officially adopted either as a
top-level project or as a subproject?

Also, note that with the announcement of the "Red Hat Open Testing
Project to get a name in the future" that there's some desire to see
under the Fedora umbrella, there is some thought going into what's going
to be needed for a "new project".  I expect that to not be a short
process to figure out or get through, though.

Jeremy