[Ambassadors] emea thoughts

[Max Spevack]

All of the bitterness around the Fedora EMEA non-profit is really 
causing me a lot of sadness.

I want all of you to stop for a moment and think about the series of 
events that have gotten us to where we are today:

(1) The Fedora community in Europe -- guys like Gerold, Sandro, Robert, 
Christoph, Jeroen, Joerg, Pawel, Dimitris, etc. etc. (I'm sorry if I 
left your name out) established itself as the most proactive & 
resourceful regional community that we had in Fedora.

(2) Recognizing the need to increase that support, we (temporarily) 
relocated me to Europe so that we could ensure that there was an even 
stronger connection between our EMEA community leaders and Red Hat, and 
so that when I eventually move back to the US, the personal connections 
that we all formed back at FOSDEM in 2007 and LinuxTag 2007 have carried 
through from a year of us seeing each other at smaller events, spending 
FAD together, starting a process by which we have a FUDCon in EMEA each 
year, etc.

When I head back to the US, it is *critically important* to me that the 
community in EMEA will continue to thrive.  I believe that the 
non-profit is an important piece of this, because it will make the local 
creation and distribution of materials and swag an easier process than 
it was in the past.

(3) The non-profit, I repeat again, is a LEGAL TOOL that helps make it 
easier for Red Hat to spend money for Fedora in Europe.

Can we all at least agree that these three things are true, and that our 
collective goal is to continue to strengthen our community in the 
region, as well as the personal relationships that we have all formed?

============

I am convinced that as soon as possible, the non-profit should eliminate 
the idea of "members" all together, and have its official size be 
exactly the minimum needed to maintain its legal status so that it can 
continue in its primary mission, which is as a trusted place for Fedora 
resources to be held.

Similarly, if there are *any* concerns about the transparency of 
Fedora's spending, I encourage you to *ask me directly*.  I can tell you 
exactly how much money was spent at each event we have held that came 
out of the Fedora budget.

Finally, as I said yesterday, anyone who would like their 128 EUR 
membership fee back simply needs to ask, and we will refund it, no hard 
feelings.

============

There is a lot of good work to be done promoting Fedora and open source 
in Europe.  I continue to be proud of the community that we have built 
here, both in terms of what it achieves, but also because when I see 
everyone together at events, it really feels like a group of friends.

I hate to see people pulled apart, arguing about something (the 
non-profit) that is simply meant to be a tool to make all of our lives 
easier.

So please, let's focus on what is positive, and important.

We all recognize that we need to change the "membership" structure of 
Fedora EMEA e.V., and we will do so.

But unless there are other major problems with the way things are being 
handled across Europe, let's put this to rest and all move on, and 
remember what brings us together.

We've had a large number of events in multiple countries.  We continue 
to expand into new areas -- see the latest reports today about Fedora in 
Kyrgyzstan thanks to Joerg Simon and Mirlan.

We had an incredible FUDCon in Brno, and we've started planning next 
year's FUDCon.
 	https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon/FUDConEMEA2009

And we have a brand new Fedora release, which is excellent, that we 
should be focusing on.

Thank you for your time.

--Max