[Fedora-marketing-list] Re: Big decisions loom for Fedora

[chasd]

> From: Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org>

>> Slap down a digital voice recorder next to the phone speaker and  
>> post an
>> OGG later.
>
> See
> https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2006-November/ 
> msg00206.html

Is the IRC "transcript" available anywhere ?
Not that I am interested, but that is an advantage of a digital audio  
file of conference call procedings, it can be referenced at any time,  
sort of a historical record. IRC does open up the live conversation  
to those that aren't on the conference call. Unless that IRC session  
is saved and posted, it can't be referenced as time passes. An IRC  
log is possibly more easily skimmed through than an audio file, but  
does not contain the "body language" of inflection, etc.

> This worked out pretty well for the summit itself and I
> think we will continue that process for the future board meetings too.

Good.

>  It would be good to hear what progress you think we have made
> though.

The transparency into the organization seems to be getting much  
better. I also think Fedora is out of the "incubation" period. Every  
startup faces a problem of establishing a brand. Part of establishing  
a brand is establishing trust. Because of the way the birth of Fedora  
happened ( which we can't change ), it started not at zero, but  
somewhere in minus land as far as trust in the eyes of many in the  
open source community. As the download/update access numbers for FC6  
attest, I think a turning point has been reached. Branding is more  
than establishing what you _are_, it is also establishing what you  
are _not_. Consistently. The recent MS-Novell dealings have turned  
the light bulbs on over many heads as the consistency of the message  
of a free as in speech distribution finally kicked in. And it was  
good that RH backed that. As much as Fedora is not RHEL, there is a  
relationship.

Somehow we need to find how to differentiate Fedora from Ubuntu in a  
simple, understandable way that does not knock or put down Ubuntu.

As well as the transparency of the organization is progressing ( work  
still to be done, eh ? ), the transparency into certain engineering  
decisions could improve. Similar to how XGL was dropped on the world,  
sometimes I see an entry in the rawhide report on f-d-l and think "  
How'd they decide that ? ". If you so choose, now you can follow the  
decision process of organizational issues, because the Fedora  
organization is now almost completely outside the RH fence line. The  
decision process on engineering issues is not that transparent, and I  
expect the merging of Core "into" Extras will help that.

An example could be the decision to stick with Firefox 1.5 in FC6. It  
got mentioned in several reviews, particularly in comparison with  
Ubuntu. If you followed f-d-l you would have read the Firefox  
maintainer's understandable position. If reviewers would have seen  
this quote:

> Let me state it plainly for everyone: There is nothing
> extremely compelling about Firefox 2.0.  Firefox 3.0 on the other hand
> will be very compelling for both features, linux support, and  
> embedding
> support.  I am seriously considering pushing 3.0 into FC6 and even  
> FC5,
> and have been making noises for a while about that being the next  
> upgrade.

then I think the 1.5 vs. 2.0 issue would have not been a negative,  
possibly with a positive spin. Bonus points for considering 2.0 not  
"new" enough. It would have also added to the consistency of the  
"upstream, upstream" mantra Fedora is/should be known for.

Another related issue is if I am new to Fedora and I want to know "  
Where is Fedora heading ? " , how do I get that info ?
What list do I subscribe to ?
What URLs/sites should I monitor ? What blogs ?
That isn't particularly clear, until after you've sampled a bit of  
every channel and discarded the ones you feel don't apply. The hardy  
soul that does that is uncommon. Fedora Weekly News does bring  
together some of the different channels in one place.

I think some of the mismatch between reality and the perception of  
the Fedora project is rooted in the channels used to expose the  
activities of the Fedora project. If you subscribe to and follow a  
decent subset of the mail lists, I think you come away with a good  
idea of where Fedora is and where it is going. You can't cruise in,  
surf a few forums and poke at the list archives and come away with  
the same impression.

It isn't a Fedora-specific problem. For my company, I also need to  
keep on top of proprietary software vendors such as Adobe, Apple, and  
Microsoft. You can't get a clear picture of those organizations in a  
couple days of cruising their web sites either. I don't think I'll  
ever get as good a picture of those organizations compared to Fedora,  
but if I spend time reading blogs and mail lists from those  
companies, I get a much clearer picture.

OK, this turned out much longer than it should have been, sorry.

Charles Dostale