Q's for senior fedora/redhat admins

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 11:37:53AM +0100, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> laura at ausics.net wrote:
> > Thank you for your reply, you're the only @fedora poster I see so I only
> > read and respond to you,as you represent officialness,
> 
> Paul W. Frields is the *Fedora Project Leader*, you idiot!

Well, no need to call names.

> > so to avoid getting into long rantings with trolls
> 
> Pot calling the kettle black.

It's obvious to me at this point that the OP wasn't interested in an
honest dialogue, but had already made up her mind to some extent on
the issues.

In one sense that's unfortunate, because everywhere I've gone and
spoken about these issues with other people -- many of them users of
various Linux distributions other than Fedora -- I've been able to
achieve a really clear understanding with tham as to how these issues
work.  Maybe it's that email isn't as good a communication vehicle as
we'd like (or think?), but that's neither here nor there.  But I do
know that on many occasions -- not just a few -- those people have
walked away with a far better appreciation for how Fedora works, and
not just in the sense of legal, licensing, or maintenance issues.
That makes me feel very confident in our model and community strength.

Now in another sense it's not all that unfortunate, because people who
aren't even willing to listen critically and discuss constructively
frankly don't make very effective community members.  That's not to
say that disagreement is bad!  If we never disagreed with each other
in the Fedora community, Fedora would quickly wither and die.  A
substantial amount of our progress comes from disagreement --
*constructive* disagreement -- and then discussion, consensus, a plan
of action, and follow-through to address it.  And being strong-minded
is fine too -- as long as one balances that with openness to change in
the event that one is wrong.  People who aren't willing to be
open-minded in their thinking, and their interactions with other
community members, don't tend to be good at contributing.  So if
someone without the inclination to engage in constructive dialogue
doesn't want to continue in our community, they're free to pursue
their own idea of greener pastures, and we welcome them back when
their worldview has blossomed a bit.

Free and open source software are built on open dialogue, vigorous
collaboration, and critical (but cordial!) review of ideas, code, and
content.  In my experience, Fedora leads the pack when it comes to
building on those cornerstones of FOSS.  Our continued, shared success
in empowering a huge, diverse, and energetic community of contributors
to FOSS -- not just consumers -- isn't just some marketing hype; it's
a testament to the power of these ideas.

(By the way, I'm also pfrields at fedoraproject.org, but for now I prefer
to use the same email address I've been using for 5.5 years of
contributing to FOSS through the Fedora Project.)

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://redhat.com/   -  -  -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
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