An introduction of the new cheerleader...

Jef Spaleta jspaleta at princeton.edu
Mon Jan 26 03:47:42 UTC 2004


Rik van Riel wrote:
> but I think that
> the community goals really should be determined by the
> community and not prescribed by Red Hat ;)

I disagree...i think Red Hat as the managing entity needs to
to lay out some initial focus for community development. Red Hat needs
to define where they are going to 'allow' community to work on. Wouldn't
it suck...if community people...in a group...started working on things
in good faith only to be told 4 months later that Red Hat wasn't really
interested in their work?  

Hell, community can't even do effective outreach or PR right now,very
basic non-technical things, without checking with Red Hat about how to
use the trademarks on supplement materials. The trademark guidelines...
as written cover pretty much ONLY usage of the trademarks in association
with the install images. And the people from Red Hat who have been
actively engaging community in public forums are NOT the people who can
answer some of the harder questions, about trademarks. Where's Red Hat's
in house community outreach people? Where is Red Hat legal's interface
with the community. Fedora...as a community...missed its chance to have
a strong presence at LWCE in NYC because we as a community had NO clear
direction from Red Hat as to what was ALLOWED in terms of preparing
supplemental materials using the Fedora trademarks outside of the
installable fedora cd's themselves. If you want community to take more
control..and to set goals...Red Hat has to relinquish a measure of
control themselves.   

Look at the definition of the steering committee in the draft of the
leadership page right now:
  *The Steering Committee has authority over the content of the web site
  and the core distribution, and responsibility for considering Red
  Hat's requirements and the community's needs of the project.
  *The steering committee is also responsible for overall project
   leadership; in particular, conflict resolution within the project,
   coordinating with other open source projects, and setting overall
   goals and guidelines
  *As a body expressing Red Hat's political requirements, it will
  consist  of Red Hat employees.

It's nice to THINK that community should be setting the goals...but as
it stands...right now.... ALL the power to set goals and guidelines sits
with the STEERING COMMITTEE.  

From my community point of view, Red Hat's insistence on keeping full
editorial control on Fedora and not creating a separate non-profit
organization to manage fedora, DRASTICALLY affects what the Fedora
community can look like.  If Red Hat is going to keep the last word on
all issues, Red Hat needs to step up and define...with specificity...
exactly what their interests are. The steering committee has the
authority to set overall goals and policies..... no point in arguing
with that...Red Hat has full editorial control. 

But its not just editorial control, the objective page talks about Red
Hat 'managing' the project. I see no reason to think that 'management'
applies only to the technical bits and the infrastructure capital. Red
Hat should be putting forward resources to 'manage' the human capital in
the community as well. Either start defining the role of community and
the processes by which volunteers can be recruited and nurtured...or
turn Fedora into a non-profit so community can become steering
committee/board members and have the authority to set goals and policies
themselves.  

-jef"free the serfs"spaleta


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