[Ambassadors] Re: [Fedora-marketing-list] Merging Fedora-Ambassadors-List and Fedora-Marketing-List

Sat Feb 10 16:34:16 UTC 2007

Le samedi 10 février 2007 à 11:41 +0100, Chitlesh GOORAH a écrit :
> On 2/9/07, Thomas Chung wrote:
> 
> Hello Thomas and everyone,
> 
> > There have been several discussions on merging Fedora-Ambassadors-List
> > and Fedora-Marketing-List.  Since there are two groups with two
> > different opinions on which list should be eliminated and which list
> > should be survived, I would like to propose a new Fedora Mailing List
> > with a new name which everyone can agree.
> >
> > Based on comparing other distros mailing lists and ours and some
> > comments made in the past, I would like to propose
> > "Fedora-Advocates-List"
> 
> Well, I guess you already know my opinion about it. Perhaps I should
> be directly in communicating my opinion about this.
> 
> And yes, we have already talked several times about it, but in the end
> we have come up with a "NO" for the merge. I don't see why we should
> keep on discussing this over again and again.
> 
> If core and extras are merging, this doesn't mean that we should be
> doing this here in the marketing world of fedora.
> 
> Core and Extras are merging because they are strong teams. In fact
> that merge will only be a success, because their contributors have
> signed CLA and understand that they have responsibilities towards the
> fedora project.
> 
> Now in the marketing world of fedora, we have ambassadors and people
> from the outside. Both aren't strong teams at all. To me fedora
> ambassadors project sounds like dying. Why ?
> 

That's the way I feel it as well.

> Lack of commitment!
> 
> I'm not saying lack of commitment of only FAMSCo, but also fedora ambassadors.
> 

Well, the one brings the other... If famsco doesn't feel concerned by
our work, it is not very motivated.

> We have now (today) from
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/MembershipService/Verification
> 161 CLA signed ambassadors.
> This 161 tells us that we have some ambassadors :
> - who are committed to the project and participate
> - who are new and are quite lost due to lack of orientation
> - who participates actively in other fedora projects but can't afford
> to spend time to fedora ambassadors project
> - who are "fedora name takers" people who wants to get the fedora status only.
> - [...]
> 
> And yes, you can also see some ambassadors on that list who haven't
> yet signed CLA. Lack of communication ???
> 
> And among this 161, I know about 50 of them. I just want to tell you
> here that we should rather stick in building a strong fedora
> ambassador team.
> - Helping new ambassadors by a mentoring project
> - Helping other ambassadors who are preparing a particular event/legal
> local fedora association
> - Preparing for the F7 release.
> - [...]
> 
> Example:
> Recently we have seen, some fedora ambassadors having difficulties
> with their particular events. What the fedora ambassador project has
> promised them during the preparation, they didn't receive it in time!
> And this, we have already talked about it before the previous FAMSCo
> election and we all agreed to some point. But have things changed
> since we last talked about it ? No. Then, we must solve internal
> problems/work first.
> 

I really feel concerned by this quote. It happened twice to us, during
an install party and then for the biggest French event about FOSS.
I really hesitated to do my planned conference at fosdem then, so as to
protest.
But I will do it, I think that demonstrating how motivated we are to the
american team will help us a lot.
We are also organizing ourselves to create a non-profit organisation for
fedora, which will sell fedora branded product at low local cost, bring
its own tshirt and create its own DVD.
During the last event in Paris, I could met Franz Meyer, Red Hat EMEA
leader, and we are going to have serious talking about how Red HaT
Europe could help us. We have very few needs. Without them, we wouldn't
have been able to give fedora DVDs to people, as they were highly
demanded. Red Hat Europe *found* about a 100 DVDs for us. Thanks to
them.

> Example2:
> If ThomasChung doesn't chair the weekly meeting, there is no meeting.
> Last thursday some of us on IRC didn't know when was the meeting, even
> me. Well is he the only one who is a Fedora Ambassadors ???
> 

Clearly lack of communication. Alex Maier used to remind every one about
a meeting every week. 
Every sunday when I wake up, the first email I sent to French Ambassador
is an email to remind them about the meeting. Not that difficult to do,
and we are always above the 50% of attendance.

> If we are definitely going to merge these 2 lists, it will only
> - make the above statements harder to realise
> - bring chaos with the booth/event organisation with respect to trust.
> - [...(things I can't recall for now).....]
> 
> Well for the """Since there are two groups with two different opinions
> on which list should be eliminated and which list should be
> survived,""":
> 
> the 2 groups don't have different opinions, afterall we all converge
> to marketing fedora and spread the fedora word. Where the two groups
> differ is in the organisation of the ambassador project in REAL WORLD.
> 
> If we merge the 2 mailing lists:
>      ambassador ML + marketing ML = ONE ML
> then
>      ambassador project + marketing project = marketing project
> since ambassador project is a subset of the marketing project.
> 
> Ok, now let's ask do we need fedora ambassador project after all ?
> Fedora Ambassadors will lose their fedora ambassador status.
> 

Actually, there is a bigger question to ask... what does it mean to be a
Fedora Ambassador ?
French are asking the question. What is the point of being Ambassadors
if we do everything on our own and if we don't have any contact or
support from Famsco ? I don't have any answer to the question, but we
already lost one of our most motivated french ambassador. He told me "it
doesn't change anything to be a fedora ambassador".

> This implies we(the fedora project) are losing something which is
> unique to fedora. This uniqueness has unknowingly solved many local
> fedora problems. Since, Fedora Ambassador Project what else it does,
> it:
> 1- makes every local marketing agent of fedora to meet other local
> marketing agents of that particular country.
> 2- makes all local marketing agents of a particular country
> talk/discuss with other local marketing agents of different countries.
> (IRC meetings at #fedora-mktg and fedora ambassador mailing list,
> Fedora Ambassadors Day)
> 3- makes all these local marketing agents solve problem together FOR
> the SOLE fedora interest.(Fedora Ambassadors Day, FUDCons)
> 
> You see now that local marketing agents are what we call Fedora
> Ambassadors. With this Fedora Ambassador Infrastructure, we are NOT
> creating internal fights between Fedora Ambassadors of a particular
> country for an event for example.
> 
> Example:
> Those fedora ambassadors who prepared some events before, may have
> noticed that in the Ubuntu Community (the what so called largest linux
> community), 2 or more local Ubuntu teams apply for that particular
> event. You can even see something during the early stages of the event
> preparation, the organizers send those local Ubuntu teams emails that
> to tell them that there is in fact more than one Ubuntu booth
> registered. And very often those local teams doesn't like each other.
> I have see some :) and I'm happy it isn't the case till now in the
> Fedora World.
> What can we concluded?:
> - lack of organization
> - contributors don't converge to the same objectives
> - [...]
> While in the Fedora World, we inform the fedora ambassador list for
> the event preparation. And generally work on that ML rather than local
> MLs. I hope you see the "Upstream benefit" that Fedora keeps on
> saying. We had great local fedora communities popping up from that
> _Fedora Ambassador Infrastructure_: French, German, Indian,
> Brazillian. We are seeing right now brilliant Belgium Fedora
> Ambassadors in action.

I strongly agree about this example with the ubuntu community. During
Linux Solutions in Paris last week, I talked to a ubuntu booth man, and
they were two on the booth, with a lot of people asking question, with
no cds at all.
We were behind them, more than 7 on the booth, and less people came to
see us (quite normal, we are not as popular). I asked him why they were
not as organised as we are, it was really surprising. We shouldn't lose
this kind of organisation.

> 
> Ok, enough blabla, if not you won't read all of them. :)
> 
> All these should now be telling you that we shouldn't destroy the
> wheel when we are the first to create one. But rather put on our
> effort to ENHANCE the wheel.
> 
> Fedora Ambassador Project brings QUALITY to the Fedora Marketing.
> Fedora Marketing Project brings new Fedora Ambassadors in.
> 
> And yes, -1 for the merge.
> 

You have my vote Chitlesh.

Regards,

Thomas
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