Fedora Board election results

Michael Schwendt said the following on 06/24/2008 02:18 PM Pacific Time:

On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:02:04 -0400 (EDT), Max Spevack wrote:

What else would you like to see from Red Hat to prove that it takes
Fedora and community seriously? I'm not trolling, I really want to
konw, so that I can work on making it happen.


What I mean is that almost all Fedora related decisions come out of Red
Hat anyway. The few +1 from community seats during FPB meetings don't


Can you provide some examples where this happened in the last six
months? That would help me understand more where you are coming from.



matter, do they? They are just noise. It gets more interesting if a
community rep drives something forward. Or if there is disagreement
between Red Hat's FPB members and community reps or lobbyists. If
necessary, do the people on the community seats have the guts to represent
the community's interests? If they don't, what about accountability?


I think it would really help your case to put forth some specific
examples of when this has or has not happened recently.


Maybe I'm not following what you're saying, but it sounds like you are
suggesting that in all likelihood all non-Red Hat members get
steamrollered or bullied by the Red Hat members? Honestly I don't
recall ever seeing the leadership in Fedora (FESCo or Board) vote purely
along the lines of who employs them... if anything there is more
disagreement amongst the Red Hat folks themselves :-)


John

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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 15:42 -0700, John Poelstra wrote:
> Michael Schwendt said the following on 06/24/2008 02:18 PM Pacific Time:
> > On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:02:04 -0400 (EDT), Max Spevack wrote:
> >
> >> What else would you like to see from Red Hat to prove that it takes
> >> Fedora and community seriously? I'm not trolling, I really want to
> >> konw, so that I can work on making it happen.
> >
> > What I mean is that almost all Fedora related decisions come out of Red
> > Hat anyway. The few +1 from community seats during FPB meetings don't
>
> Can you provide some examples where this happened in the last six
> months? That would help me understand more where you are coming from.
>
> > matter, do they? They are just noise. It gets more interesting if a
> > community rep drives something forward. Or if there is disagreement
> > between Red Hat's FPB members and community reps or lobbyists. If
> > necessary, do the people on the community seats have the guts to represent
> > the community's interests? If they don't, what about accountability?
>
> I think it would really help your case to put forth some specific
> examples of when this has or has not happened recently.
>
> Maybe I'm not following what you're saying, but it sounds like you are
> suggesting that in all likelihood all non-Red Hat members get
> steamrollered or bullied by the Red Hat members? Honestly I don't
> recall ever seeing the leadership in Fedora (FESCo or Board) vote purely
> along the lines of who employs them... if anything there is more
> disagreement amongst the Red Hat folks themselves :-)

This was my experience as an inaugural Board member, and continues
today.

--
Paul W. Frields
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
http://paul.frields.org/ - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
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On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:42:38 -0700, John Poelstra wrote:

> Michael Schwendt said the following on 06/24/2008 02:18 PM Pacific Time:
> > On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:02:04 -0400 (EDT), Max Spevack wrote:
> >
> >> What else would you like to see from Red Hat to prove that it takes
> >> Fedora and community seriously? I'm not trolling, I really want to
> >> konw, so that I can work on making it happen.
> >
> > What I mean is that almost all Fedora related decisions come out of Red
> > Hat anyway. The few +1 from community seats during FPB meetings don't
>
> Can you provide some examples where this happened in the last six
> months? That would help me understand more where you are coming from.

The "Fedora Board Recap" minutes posted here, and not limited to the last
six months (and not limited to the FPB either). I don't think there is big
activity from the people who hold the community seats (with 1-2 exceptions
maybe), and it's uninteresting to see people nod something through.
If everyone's in agreement, does it matter who I vote for?

As I see it, the people employed by Red Hat [can] spend much more time on
these things than the elected community reps. Additional people from Red
Hat, who occupy other roles and don't hold seats in the FPB, are much more
present and active, too. The same names also appear in the longest threads
on mailing-lists, even if it's just about release codenames. Makes people
think "fine, let them run the show, especially if it's their job and if
they seem to have the time to do it". It's not as if the major activity
must come from within the community. It's not a community project, but a
Red Hat sponsored project trying to win community volunteers for some
areas. If the investment of the community into the project increases,
then elections (and quorum'n'stuff) get more interesting.

Do you remember any important decision where the FPB didn't reach quorum
because of strong disagreement between non-RH and RH members?

> > matter, do they? They are just noise. It gets more interesting if a
> > community rep drives something forward. Or if there is disagreement
> > between Red Hat's FPB members and community reps or lobbyists. If
> > necessary, do the people on the community seats have the guts to represent
> > the community's interests? If they don't, what about accountability?
>
> I think it would really help your case to put forth some specific
> examples of when this has or has not happened recently.
>
> Maybe I'm not following what you're saying,

Looks like you're biased and in "defensive mode" already. What I'm saying,
in other words, is that the election is rather uninteresting. So
uninteresting that loading the web page and taking the time to vote may be
considered a waste of time already. One can try little games like Greg
and vote for non-RH candidates only, but one could also throw dice and
pick random candidates.

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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 22:54 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> But three of those four elected are Red Hat employees for whom working
> and contributing to Fedora is part of their job (afaik; but is it the
> case for Seth? not completely sure, sorry. But he is well known in
> Fedora though Yum, so that might be and important factor);


This is not an unfair point. Being able to spend all your time on
something does make it more likely you'll be well known. I mentioned
this before but I'd be in favor of consecutive term limits for being on
the fedora board for rh employees tasked with working on fedora full
time.

so, for example, I could not run for another term, but I could sit out a
couple of terms and come back if I wished to run for election, again.

What would you think about that?

-sv


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On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 4:45 PM, seth vidal <skvidal@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> This is not an unfair point. Being able to spend all your time on
> something does make it more likely you'll be well known. I mentioned
> this before but I'd be in favor of consecutive term limits for being on
> the fedora board for rh employees tasked with working on fedora full
> time.
>
> so, for example, I could not run for another term, but I could sit out a
> couple of terms and come back if I wished to run for election, again.
>
> What would you think about that?

I'd be happy to have a term limit even as a non-rh employee.

-jef

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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 16:51 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 4:45 PM, seth vidal <skvidal@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> > This is not an unfair point. Being able to spend all your time on
> > something does make it more likely you'll be well known. I mentioned
> > this before but I'd be in favor of consecutive term limits for being on
> > the fedora board for rh employees tasked with working on fedora full
> > time.
> >
> > so, for example, I could not run for another term, but I could sit out a
> > couple of terms and come back if I wished to run for election, again.
> >
> > What would you think about that?
>
> I'd be happy to have a term limit even as a non-rh employee.

Agreed.

Now that you are both on the Board (again), just vote that into the
bylaws.

josh

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On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 3:17 PM, inode0 <inode0@gmail.com> wrote:
> Range voting is another aspect of the process I find discouraging in
> general.

I was happy to see range voting this election. I've seen this style
of voting on other areas of the net, more specifically a non-technical
forum that uses it for community voted product awards. I know when I
first saw the new voting method I was against it - mainly because I
had the same initial first reaction you did - "uh, how do I vote." I
went off and did some reading about different voting methods and found
that range voting really did seem like a good way to go for voting.

Rather than discount range voting, which I do think works well for
many elections Fedora holds, maybe we could work on making sure people
are informed about range voting and how it works. That way people are
informed and not as apt to be put off by different, but effective
voting system. A few mailing list posts and blog posts should help
inform people on this front.

~Jeffrey

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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 20:45 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 22:54 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>
> > But three of those four elected are Red Hat employees for whom working
> > and contributing to Fedora is part of their job (afaik; but is it the
> > case for Seth? not completely sure, sorry. But he is well known in
> > Fedora though Yum, so that might be and important factor);
>
>
> This is not an unfair point. Being able to spend all your time on
> something does make it more likely you'll be well known.

It's only unfair in one aspect; it targets Red Hat without targeting
other employers. What if someone at Dell were paid to work full time on
Fedora? They would obviously reap the same visibility benefits as a Red
Hat employee working on Fedora.

It is becoming more and more common for companies to invest man hours
into open source projects. I do not see this trend changing drastically
in the near future, so it's something projects such as Fedora are going
to have to come to terms with in some form.

Fedora has come a long way since Seth was building packages for Extras
by hand. Our build system, compose tools, updates tools, build
machines, CVS repository, etc have all had significant monetary and man
hour investment from Red Hat. I sincerely _hope_ that as Fedora grows,
we get similar contributions from other companies or community members
because none of this is cheap and without it our growth would not have
been as rapid or successful.

josh

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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 21:06 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:

> It's only unfair in one aspect; it targets Red Hat without targeting
> other employers. What if someone at Dell were paid to work full time on
> Fedora? They would obviously reap the same visibility benefits as a Red
> Hat employee working on Fedora.

If our biggest problem is companies other than red hat paying their
employees full time to work on fedora then WOW we have fantastic
problems.

I'd be happy for a general consecutive term limit for all board members
and/or for anyone employed (by anyone) to work on fedora full time.

-sv


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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 21:16 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 21:06 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
>
> > It's only unfair in one aspect; it targets Red Hat without targeting
> > other employers. What if someone at Dell were paid to work full time on
> > Fedora? They would obviously reap the same visibility benefits as a Red
> > Hat employee working on Fedora.
>
> If our biggest problem is companies other than red hat paying their
> employees full time to work on fedora then WOW we have fantastic
> problems.

We can always dream. Sometimes if you work hard enough, those turn into
reality.

josh

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