FESCo elections

[Josh Boyer]

On Thu, 2007-06-21 at 13:47 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-06-21 at 06:10 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> > On Thu, 2007-06-21 at 09:35 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 02:33:18PM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> 
> > > So FESCo doesn't really represent the community, because it doesn't 
> > > really have a political role, but having the technical leaders elected
> > > nevertheless means that the community is represented in the technical
> > > decision body.
> >
> > Yes, it represents the community in technical matters at the least.
> 
> IMO, an elected organ is a bad choice to provide leadership on technical
> matters, because one can not expect an elected member of an organ to be
> technically competent. The domain of "elected organs" is "strategic and
> political decisions", not details.

Personally, I think that depends on the pool of candidates that are
allowed for such and election.

> >   But
> > you still didn't give me an example of something you feel is "political"
> > in nature, so I have no idea if FESCo would be involved in those things
> > or not.
> 
> Some random examples:
> 
> * Pat's static libs issue: This is not a mere technical issue, it's a
> distribution policy issue.

This is being handled at the FESCo level.  There have been a fairly low
number of cases to my knowledge.  However, if a higher level decree of
whether static libs are allowable or not is required, it can always be
brought to the Board.

> * Decisions on "matter of taste", e.g. decisions on when to exclude a
> package because of its contents (E.g. US folks tend to get nervous about
> matters of "depiction of nudity", Europeans tend to get nervous
> "glorification of violence" (games!), members of non-Western cultures
> might find other topics offensive).

To my knowledge, we've never excluded a package based on content unless
that content was non-free.

> * Decisions on "freedom of software". E.g. when to allow non-free
> software and when not (c.f. the non-free firmware case).

Sure, but that is a higher level issue to be handled by the Board.  For
example, it was not a specific debate about whether "firmware for the
frobbitz device" is to be allowed.  It was a decision at a higher level
of including firmware in general.  And it very much involved legal-ish
discussion, which is sort of a flag that it needs to head up to the
Board.

> * Decisions on when and how to enforce the "rules of the game".

You mean adherence to guidelines?  Yes, FESCo will do this.

I used an analogy on IRC the other day that might sum up some of the
Board/FESCo interaction.  It's not complete, but it paints a fairly
decent picture of how things should work.  The Board decides the higher
level direction of Fedora, and FESCo takes that and implements it.  If
the Board were to say "Fedora should be on cell phones", FESCo would
then oversee the adaptations and implementation of that idea.

josh