Succession planning change proposal

[inode0]

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 9:09 AM, Paul W. Frields <stickster at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 06:36:08PM -0500, inode0 wrote:
>> In the Composition section it says "All seats are occupied by Fedora
>> community members." This is correct and this is the language I prefer.
>> So could we also say that in the blue box at the top of the page
>> rather than "The Fedora Project Board is made up of a mix of Red Hat
>> employees and Fedora community contributors?"
>
> Actually, I think of Red Hat employees as *part* of the Fedora
> community, so really it's made up of a mix of Red Hat employees and
> either a group called "other Fedora community contributors," or called
> "volunteer contributors."  I would lean toward the former, because I
> would bet there are some people out there who contribute to Fedora in
> part not as volunteers but paid by some non-Red Hat entity, like a
> hypothetical employer who pays for someone to spend 15% of his or her
> time on Fedora.

Red Hat employees who serve on the board *are* part of the Fedora
community. Singling them out for special mention as Red Hat employees
in this context emphasizes the distinction that I would like to see
de-emphasized on the board.

Red Hat seats and community seats did make a certain sense. There are
seats appointed by a Red Hat employee and there are seats elected by
the community. However, calling them that in light of who gets
appointed and who gets elected highlights the wrong thing.

Can we find a way to acknowledge Red Hat's contribution without
splitting the description of the board into Red Hat employees and
those other contributors? Any construction that begins with "Red Hat
employees" and ends with some other generic group of contributors does
not sound like a unified community to me.

That will be my last two cents on this one.

John