Opening Red Hat Magazine

[Jonathan Roberts]

2008/9/25 Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta at gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 8:35 AM, Jonathan Roberts
> <jonrob at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>> Jef, if you'd been following discussions about news.fp.o over the last
>> year you'd have seen that this is exactly the kind of thing that I've
>> been pursuing, arguing for a writer/editor work flow to ensure
>> quality, and making many suggestions for different kinds of Fedora
>> related content.
> I follow a little.
>
>> Much of this I've attempted before, asking for recording equipment at
>> FUDCon, which sadly never materialised, and as I've been explaining
>> before, frequently arguing for a central location to bring together
>> Fedora content that is already being created. All the while, over the
>> last many months I've worked with a number of people to try and make
>> this vision a reality, and while it's taken us a long time, we're
>> almost there with it.


>
> I'm not suggesting that a RHM "takeover" of the work you are doing.
> But, maybe an opening of RHM means an opportunity to access to
> additional resources that can help specifically with the things that
> are most frustrating.  So its good to know exactly what has been
> frustrating your efforts. But in opening RHM means discovering new
> resources, or better allocating existing resources, to help
> specifically with the most frustrating aspects of the community
> vision, then that would be a good thing right? Subverting corporate
> assets for community benefit is a beautiful thing.

I agree completely, and throughout this thread I've said that I would
love the assistance of the RH pros, and I think it's one of the most
important parts of this idea.

>>
>> I'm sorry if this sounds frustrated, angry or exasperated, but I've
>> been trying to pull this together for months, making many of these
>> points repeatedly, but without any response. Then, to have people come
>> along only repeating what I've said, with apparently zero knowledge of
>> what I've said before is frustrating.
>
> Let me assure you, I'm not trying to take credit or trump you or
> suggest that what you are doing is wrong. It's not wrong, and you get
> full credit.  But at the same time I can't speak for you either.  My
> main concern is just trying to make sure that key ideas as to where
> help is needed are expressed in the context of this conversation
> because new people maybe listening with new ears where they had not
> been paying attention before.  If it turns out that people hear me for
> the first time where they haven't heard you before.... shame on them.
> If it turns out people are turned off by me...shame on me.  If it
> turns out that I've reinforced what you've been saying all
> along...great!

I'm not worried about credit (for myself at least, I've done very
little actual work), I just feel a little frustrated that this exact
same conversation could have been had 6 months ago, and I wondered
where everyone was then. In fact, 6 months ago we had a test instance
of Lyceum set up on Fedora's infrastructure that could have been
turned into a production instance, but there were not enough willing
testers.

I feel for Bret and Frank and all the work they've both put in, and I
don't like the idea of that being wasted or ignored. My role has been
minimal, just prodding these two along to keep the technical side
moving, and trying to drum up interest here and on news.fp.o -
somethign I've apparently failed at.

> I'm not overtly enthusiastic, I am cautiously wary.  I can't speak to
> the timing of this conversation on RHM opening up. If RHM does decide
> to open up, we can't really stop them from doing that.  My main
> concern is having them open up in a way that does not compete with
> community effort.  So if they do open up. I want to know what they
> think they bring to the table, and what specific problems we need
> solved and see if there's a good fit for a combined community effort.

OK, and I like this thinking.

Once again, I apologise for the angry sounding post, and it certainly
wasn't directed specifically at you... just something in your tone in
that post pushed me to explain some of my frustrations over the past
few months!

Jon

/me goes to make cups of tea.