Fedora Social Contract

[Yaakov Nemoy]

On 7/28/07, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> Yaakov Nemoy wrote:
> > Hey guys,
> >
> > I've been doing a little bit of pondering over some of the crazier
> > discussions and events this week, and I came up with a Funny Idea.
> > How do you feel about the idea of a Fedora Social Contract?
>
> Can you explain shortly what the end goal is? I don't see how it will
> change any growth pains.
>
> Rahul

I'm still a little new to the Fedora world, but I keep seeing this
theme of Fedora used to be Red Hat, and controlled entirely by Red
Hat.  Now it's a community effort that Red Hat has a controlling
interest in.  Red Hat certainly wants this to be a community distro,
and just five minutes of browsing shows me about 20 different ways I
can join the community to help out.  If i'm Joe Skeptic though, what
guarantee is there that I'm really helping the community, and not Red
Hat?  What sets Fedora apart from Red Hat.  What is the 'community'
that these Red Hat engineers are talking about?  These are the growing
pains I refer to.  There are many other of course, but I can't solve
them all :P

A social contract would be a document that we are all bound to.  It
would define this community in no uncertain terms.  It might be a
while before it's accepted widely, but it could go a long way to help
people understand the relationship between Fedora and Red Hat better.