"What is the Fedora Project?"

[John Poelstra]

inode0 said the following on 10/08/2009 08:58 AM Pacific Time:
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Jeffrey Ollie <jeff at ocjtech.us> wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 9:40 AM, inode0 <inode0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I'm still struggling to understand what sorts of real problems are
>>> made easier to solve by the "What is Fedora?" framework.
>> Unless a clear mission and purpose is defined, Fedora will just kind
>> of float along pushed around by whatever currents are strongest at the
>> moment.  Maybe that sort of philosophy suits you, but I'd rather have
>> an idea of where we're headed.
> 
> The currents that push the strongest, those the contributors want to
> spend their time on, are the currents we will ultimately float along
> with. We can't force people to work on something they aren't
> interested in working on and have the sort of community we have today.
> 
> There is a strong hint in all of this that some people prefer a
> traditional hierarchical management structure to this project.
> Fundamentally that is what fills me with the trepidation I mentioned
> in my very first post on this thread.
> 
>>> Is it in the board's purview to "lead" the project by singling out
>>> technologies it wants to move along over the next few releases?
>> Yes.  Fedora has limited resources. That means that someone needs to
>> prioritize the use of those resources.  As a corollary to that it may
>> mean that some projects/ideas may be denied resources.
> 
> I thought I was asking a rhetorical question there. And I think the
> answer is no.
> 
>>> Are there structural problems within the project that this would help?
>> Fedora can't be everything to everyone, and if anyone in the project
>> thinks we can, I would call that a structural problem.
> 
> I think it is a problem if we exclude contributors who have a vision
> that nine board members don't understand yet. Let them do their work,
> make their case, and prove their point. We have mechanisms now for
> determining winners and losers among competing technologies.
> 

This is too "all or nothing."  There has been no discussion about 
excluding contributors who have a different vision than the board. 
Fedora provides a tremendous amount of flexibility and opportunity to do 
your own thing... including creating your own distro.  Even if the core 
direction Fedora is at odds with some contributors, nobody is saying 
they can't do what they want to, within reasonable bounds of course.

John