19:01:33 <nirik> #startmeeting Fedora Board Town Hall (2011-05-30)
19:01:33 <zodbot> Meeting started Mon May 30 19:01:33 2011 UTC.  The chair is nirik. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
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19:01:34 <nirik> #meetingname fedora board town hall
19:01:34 <nirik> #topic Introductions and process
19:01:34 <zodbot> The meeting name has been set to 'fedora_board_town_hall'
19:01:46 <nirik> #topic Introductions and process
19:01:52 <nirik> Welcome everyone.
19:02:08 <nirik> Today we will have a town hall were folks can ask questions of our candidates for the Fedora Board.
19:02:32 <nirik> Please think of and ask questions over in #fedora-townhall-public and I will transfer them over in order to our candidates to answer.
19:02:52 <nirik> First, if all our candidates could give a short intro on who they are and any intro remarks that would be great.
19:02:57 <nirik> then we can move on to questions. ;)
19:04:09 * jds2001 is Jon Stanley. Currently sitting board member (in an appointed seat) running for election for a second term. I work in Infrastructure, keeping the servers that keep Fedora running, well, um, running!
19:04:20 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> !Robert 'Bob' Jensen, Fedora User since FC1, Contributor sice FC2. Fedora Unity Founder.
19:04:21 * nirik thinks he has voiced all the candidates. Please let me know if I missed anyone.
19:04:46 * jds2001 is also a package maintainer, has held various QA roles, and has previously served on FESCo.
19:05:29 * jds2001 also does minor Ambassador things, including running the CPOSC booth for the last 3 years.
19:05:53 <averi> Hi, my name is Andrea Veri, my main contributions within the Fedora project can be summarized as it follows: Infrastructure Team, Insight Team and Translations for the italian language. A bit of my Open Source's background is available at http://people.gnome.org/~av/
19:06:25 * pbrobinson is Peter Robinson. I don't currently hold any major fedora positions. User of Fedora sine day 1, prior using RHL since 1995. I'm a package maintainer of around 130 packages, a spin maintainer and actively involved in the ARM secondary arch. My answers to the board questions can be found here http://nullr0ute.com/2011/05/fedora-board-questions/
19:06:53 <nirik> Excellent. Thanks for coming everyone... lets go ahead and dive into questions then...
19:07:07 <nirik> please prefix your answer with the question number you are answering...
19:07:11 <averi> and my questionnaire's answers as well: http://blogs.gnome.org/woody/2011/05/25/fedora-boards-questionnaire/
19:07:11 <nirik> 1. From DiscordianUK: What do you feel needs to be improved in the Fedora Community? How can you're being on the Board improve the Community?
19:08:21 <jds2001> 1. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I think that the discourse of the community, while it has improved lately, needs to be maintained at a very high level.
19:08:25 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 1) Two way communication between the board and the community.
19:09:05 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 1) this will help hopefully eliminate some of distrust and feeling left out.
19:09:16 <jds2001> 1. While that's an important goal, we also need to continue innovation, which sometimes involves disagreement.
19:09:40 <jds2001> 1. The goal of me on the Board is to get out of the way, and serve as an enabler.
19:10:25 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 1) Sticking to the foundations is Key to Fedora's Success not only as a community but also as an innovator for the larger Linux community.
19:10:54 <pbrobinson> 1) continue to be on the edge of innovation with in the open source community and a continue to act as a leader and show case of open software.
19:12:55 <jds2001> 1. A particular anti-goal of mine is to serve as any sort of a micromanager of community process.
19:13:31 * nirik waits a sec for averi. :)
19:14:03 <averi> 1. Very good question, the Fedora project is not actually behaving as a single team, the project is half broken and there are multiple people focusing on the wrong values. As I said in my candidacy, while on my daily routine contributions I got attacked by a few guys arguing my way of doing things was wrong cause their POV was different. This should never happen, we should respect each other and most important we should respect other's ideas. Fedora is
19:14:04 <averi> about innovation, and innovation is strictly related to new ideas, but if we don't respect someone proposing new ideas how can we pretend to talk about being innovative? if elected, I'll do my best to work on our CoC, I would like to re-think Board's role as well within our community, we should be the main reference point of everyone out there having a single problem or issue to discuss within the community, the Board and its members.
19:14:05 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 1) I on the other hand want's more involvement from the board in all areas of Fedora.
19:14:12 <pbrobinson> 1) I believe the board isn't there to run the day to day operations of the community. There's better teams and groups that deal with that.
19:14:54 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 1) the Board is the only representation that the entire community has, as such it should be responsible for all "departments"
19:14:59 <nirik> ok, next question:
19:14:59 <nirik> ties right into this...
19:15:02 <nirik> 2. From adamw: Do you think that too many issues in Fedora are referred directly to the Board, and if so, how would you like to see this improved?
19:15:45 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 2) I would like to see the board actually do something about issues rather than passing the buck on everything.
19:15:58 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> *nearly everything
19:16:04 <jds2001> 2. I think that in the past there have been issues that are directly attirbuatable to the board attempting to get involved in issues that we are not qualified to address.
19:17:31 <jds2001> 2. I personally apologize for that, and this "passing the buck" that EvilBob-Vote4Me refers to is actually an attempt to find the best solution.
19:17:45 <jds2001> 2. We are not experts in every area of Fedora, nor can we be expected to be.
19:18:18 <pbrobinson> 2) I've personally not seen too much stuff referred to the Board. I believe the board should be about strategy and directions rather than day to day decisions. I think the general community should be empowered to deal with the day to day issues. The recent working group for bad behavior is a good example of this
19:19:08 <averi> 2. I think yes, many things should be discussed within the Board but this isnt happening, many contributors are fighting each other, multiple localized teams are in the middle of a war to get them recognized as the *only* official team of a specific $lang, ambassadors are not acting as a team (the situation in italy is really dramatic)
19:19:14 <jds2001> 2. Note that by "we" I mean the Board, those past, present, and future, and am referring to no particular term or person.
19:20:20 <averi> 2. I am not here to judge past Board's work, but, we need a change, right now, new ideas, fresh blood, innovation which is what Fedora is for
19:20:33 <nirik> ok, on to question 3
19:20:36 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 2) based on the issues that have been publicly by the board, I don't see how they are overworked that they need to be creating more layers to the onion
19:20:57 <nirik> 3. From nirik: Tell us something about what you like doing that isn't computer or fedora related. What do you like doing for fun?
19:22:16 <pbrobinson> 3) That's easy! Sailing. I sail a an amateur racer both inshore round the cans racing and multi day offshore racing. We even occasionally win :-P
19:22:26 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 3) I am a Ham Radio operator, I am a single full time father to a 6 year old boy. I have been a hobbyist mechanic most of my life, rods and customs have always been a part of my life.
19:23:13 <jds2001> 3. I'm a huge theater buff (live theater), I drink a lot of craft (microbrew) beer as well.
19:23:24 <pbrobinson> 3) I also come from a farming background in Australia so I like all sorts of outdoor pursuits like horse riding, hiking, camping etc
19:23:57 <averi> 3. my main activity during the day is law, so going around to follow universities lessons and studying really *big* books takes a lot of my time! Apart from that, I love going around with my motorbike, meeting up with friends and train at the local gym!
19:24:10 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 3) before my back problems there were many more things that I did, sadly they are behind me now
19:24:17 <nirik> question 4: 4. From j_dulaney: What do you plan to do about the issues of polish?  Specifically, shipping with minor issues that with recent releases have been hurting the Fedora name.
19:25:01 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> I'm going to address j_dulaney's other questions at the same time If I may.
19:25:46 <jds2001> 4. That is really up to the QA team to decide. However, I think that over the last few cycles, the QA team has done an excellent job of coming up with objective, measurable release criteria. If they aren't met, we don't release. End of story.
19:25:59 <jds2001> 4. Patches to those criteria are also accepted :)
19:26:39 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 4) Fedora is about Innovation, "First" in our foundations, this means sometimes it is going to be broken and may lack the polish of Distros that follow behind us finding and fixing the bugs before they even see the software
19:27:12 <pbrobinson> 4) I don't believe that's an issue for the board. Both FESCo and QA should be empowered to deal with those problems if they aren't already
19:27:36 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 4) Sticking to the "First" foundation means that Fedora is not for everyone and may never be a leader in any market
19:27:53 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> Desktop or otherwise
19:28:53 <nirik> 5. From j_dulaney What are the plans for mobile devices, such as phones, tablets, 'pads', etc.?  What are the chances of working on a 'spin' for such emerging technologies?
19:29:01 <pbrobinson> 4) the empowerment of those teams is the job of the board. But an aside to this I'm really excited about the autoqa project and I believe that initiative will help detect some of the regular issues before they become a problem
19:29:06 <averi> 4. releasing every six months can take in multiple problems, and one of those are minor issues at $release-date. The point is: is it OK to do a release every six months that can take in some minor issues or not? should we change this requirement and start making a release once an year? I am actually for the first option, Fedora is about innovation and I simply love seeing a release coming out every 6 months. I'm sure that time by time, step by step, we
19:29:06 <averi> will improve our QA and things will be different.
19:29:20 <jds2001> 5. That's a question for pbrobinson :)
19:29:50 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 5) I am not qualified to speak on this topic, will defer to pbrobinson and will look to him for input if elected to the board
19:29:51 <jds2001> 5. Seriously, the ARM secondary arch i think is going well, which is a huge enabler for Fedora on mobile devices.
19:30:18 <jds2001> 5, Not to mention the X
19:30:32 <jds2001> 5. Oops, XO-1.75 ARM based OLPC
19:30:55 <jds2001> 5 . But the work is understandably slow.
19:31:26 <jds2001> 5. When it takes 3 days to build gcc instead of an hour, there's some time lag :)
19:32:03 <pbrobinson> 5) Definitely one for me. Its one of the primary reasons I've thrown my hat in the ring for the Board. I strongly believe that "Mobility" devices such as phones, tablets, smartbooks, TVs etc is where linux is going to be very persuasive (its arguable that it already is) and we should be continuing our "First" policy to those devices. I'm one of the team that is actively pushing ARM forward on Fedora.
19:33:08 <nirik> 6. From rbergeron The board has discussed working on "goals" over the next term. (a) do you think these goals should be focused on helping "us" (people already in the community) or our "target audience"? (b) what goals would you like to see fedora achieve?
19:33:31 * jds2001 brb
19:33:58 <pbrobinson> 5) I'm working directly with OLPC with their needs on the ARM project. It will be the first commercially available ARM device running Fedora. I've also got contacts and the FPL and I are trying to work with the ARM device manufactures to ensure as good ARM support as possible
19:34:02 <averi> 5. I received a similar questions a few days ago for the upcoming GNOME elections, and I think you hit a very interesting point. Neither GNOME nor Fedora did focus on developing mobiles OSs (GNOME hired some companies to work on the mobile market share, but we never got any good result). We definitely need more resources and paid developers to work on that area, just think that Apple and Google are our competitors at the moment and if we'll ever decide
19:34:02 <averi> to set up a Fedora mobile OS, we'll have to make it really rock to gain some space on the current mobile area.
19:34:41 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 6) I think a lot of the "target audience" discussion has missed our Foundations.
19:35:14 <pbrobinson> 5) the ARM SIG is planning in the not too distant future to have ARM shadowing rawhide with the plans of having as near as possible sequential release to mainline
19:36:48 <averi> 5. I think this discussion should be delayed for a bit, let's focus on the Fedora Desktop's OS and make it even greater, when we'll hit a stable and trusted point (this is the first release shipping GNOME3/gnome-shell, so let's wait a bit for it to become more robust and strong) we can start focusing on the mobile area.
19:38:36 <pbrobinson> averi: there's no reason things like that can't happen in parallel. There's 100s (even 1000s) of people working on different areas of the project.
19:38:57 * nirik waits for more 6 answers before moving on to question 7.
19:38:59 <averi> pbrobinson, mobile areas are peculiar
19:39:11 * jds2001 back, sorry
19:39:21 <averi> pbrobinson, a lot of resources and experienced developers are needed to work on the mobile area
19:41:33 <jds2001> 6. I think that a lot of the goals were centered around making the community more inviting, better collaboration, etc.
19:42:05 <jds2001> 6. While I think that those goals are laudable, I also think that we should be working to make Fedora better for the "target" audience.
19:42:44 <pbrobinson> 6) I believe the board should be an "enabler" to provide the tools required for "us" to reach "the goals". Its only by doing that we'll reach our "target audience". If there's no us working towards the goals to reach the target audience there is no Fedora Project. The problem with target audiences is that everyone has a different opinion of it. Red Hat would likely answer that its RHEL developers and customers looking what is next. The gn
19:42:50 <jds2001> 6. I think that the definition of the target audience was a translation of the Foundations into the type of person that would likely uphold those.
19:43:32 <nirik> 7. From inode0 Is anyone in favor the board doing more of its business in public view? I mean like all of it that actually can be?
19:43:49 <jds2001> 6. However, everything is always up for debate. As I have to be reminded frequently in Board meetings, we're defintely open to change.
19:44:18 <jds2001> 7. There's a tight balance to be struck here, and it's *really* hard.
19:44:20 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 7) that openness is of vital important and where the two way communication I am advocating comes in to play
19:44:39 <averi> 6. I think our goals should be focused to help our community at first, as I said before there are many problems and issues within our community, a strong community can make *great* things but if we keep fighting each other we will never get out of the current situation. Most of all, we should focus on how localized teams work and act within the community. For a small resume of my personal goals I would like to give you a link: http://fedoraproject.org/w
19:44:39 <averi> iki/F16_elections_questionnaire#What_are_your_top_three_priorities_as_a_board_member.3F
19:44:42 <jds2001> 7. On the Board calls, I can say from personal experience that they are extremely high bandwidth and very productive.
19:45:02 <pbrobinson> 7) I'm not really able to answer that question as I've only ever seen the public side and hence aren't aware of what goes on behind the scenes in the closed part of the job.
19:45:25 <jds2001> 7. Transparency is also a big thing, and the Board would very much like to increase it.
19:45:25 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> pbrobinson: +1
19:46:02 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 7) Only people that are or have been on the board know where the line is
19:46:28 <jds2001> 7. But on the Board calls, we're free to pretty much say what we want - and that's what makes the Board productive. I think that over the past year, we've done an *exceptional* job with the notes from our calls.
19:47:03 <nirik> 8. From mathezula 1. What do you plan to do to address operator abuse in #fedora? 2. What penalties will there be for operators when it's deemed that they are abusing their authority or swaying from Fedora's values?
19:47:27 <jds2001> 7. I personally am in favor of releasing (partly redacted - only sensitive parts) recordings of those calls
19:47:51 <averi> 7. I would love to see the Board being more transparent, I would love seeing votes (+1/-1) being made public and available to everyone but this is not alwais possible since many things should be kept private for multiple reasons. I am new candidate, so I can't fully answer to this question as I would like to.
19:49:20 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 8) I refuse to answer this question, it's from a stalker with a vendetta against me personally. I've been threatened by him so it will not be the last you hear about it.
19:50:17 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 8) I refuse to give in to his demands so he has started a campaign to find every instance he disagrees with something I have said in #fedora.
19:51:01 <jds2001> 8. I think that the IRC support SIG should be engaged on this matter. If the answer there is not satisfactory, then it should be brought to the CWG or Board - that exact mechanism is still being fleshed out.
19:52:05 <jds2001> 8. But I'm unaware of any particularly egregious instances of operator abuse. These guys are saints for all that they put up with, really :)
19:52:13 <averi> 8. this is actually a new role I would like to throw at the Board, if there is an abuse, contributors should take it directly to the Board, they should provide logs and the Board should address these kind of issues. If an operator really abuse his autority and the logs prove that, we can definitely act upon and remove his operator status for a certain period of time if really needed. As I said before the Board should be the main reference point for cont
19:52:13 <averi> ributors from the smaller to the bigger problem, so we'll address these specific issues as well if needed.
19:53:16 * averi is not a #fedora channel user and looking at the other channel I'm in everything is usually going great apart a few examples :)
19:53:20 <nirik> 9. From j_dulaney Another question:  What can be done to bring Fedora to lead market share amonsgt Linux desktops? What can be done to take market share from Microsoft Windows?
19:54:11 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 9) I answered this earlier
19:54:12 <pbrobinson> 8) I'm not aware of the happenings in #fedora so I'm not at liberty to comment but I would hope that everyone, and the ops especially, would adhere to the "be excellent to each other" policy. There is now a working group coming into existence to deal with these sorts of issues where problematic people can be reported and dealt with.
19:55:01 <jds2001> 9. I think that if we do other things correctly, then that will just come. It's not a goal to aim for in and of itself.
19:55:05 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 8) pbrobinson it's worth noting that the CWG and such have no power over #fedora as I understand it because it does not use Fedora Project resources.
19:55:37 <jds2001> 9. And as EvilBob-Vote4Me noted earlier, sometimes the First foundation interferes with having dominant market share.
19:57:28 <nirik> 10. From inode0: How do you measure the success of the Fedora Project as a whole?
19:57:32 <pbrobinson> 9) I believe Fedora is already a leader in desktop linux...... there's 2.2+ millions OLPC XOs out there all running Fedora. All run the sugar desktop, and a lot now have the ability to run the gnome desktop as well. I'm not aware of any other linux desktop that has those sort of numbers
19:57:37 * nirik notes we are getting near the end of the hour.
19:58:10 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> nirik: how many more questions at this point?
19:58:29 <nirik> we have 10, 11, 12
19:58:31 <averi> 9. Fedora was one of the first distributions out there shipping GNOME3 and many users switched to our beloved distribution to test it out and stick with it! Providing an easy to use but at the same time innovative desktop environment is, and will be a success.
19:58:47 <nirik> I can paste them in and you folks can answer as your time permits?
19:59:04 <averi> nirik, I can stay here for some more minutes if needed :)
19:59:09 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 10) I think we can count Fedora as success if other distros that follow us are a success. I think this sounds like an odd way to put it but I think it sums it up well.
19:59:13 <nirik> 11. From lmacken: Q: Recently we've seen an influx in new users with questions as well as new volunteers with skills (and no idea where to make use of them). What should we do to better facilitate community engagement?
19:59:13 <nirik> 12. From xaphir Q:  How do the candidates feel that they are viewed by the general population of new Fedora users as representatives of Fedora, and do they set an example of model behavior?  If so how?
20:00:27 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 10) if Fedora is adhering to the Foundations we can and have been a success
20:00:35 <jds2001> 10. I think that the Fedora Project is successful in it's goals if we have evidence of fulfilling the four foundations.
20:01:02 <jds2001> 10. As the first distro shipping GNOME3, i see that as a *huge* success.
20:01:11 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> jds2001: +1
20:01:18 <jds2001> 10. And kudos to everyone involved in that effort.
20:01:21 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> jds2001: Ready or not, here it comes
20:01:21 <averi> 10. success is measured by how many results a distro gains over the time. Being the first distribution shipping GNOME3 is actually what I call a *big* success.
20:01:52 <pbrobinson> 10) its hard to define success. We get a good release out pretty close to the 6 month schedule. That's a success. Others try to imitate us. Success. Others use us and base their releases off us. linpus is an example of this, olpc another, RHEL another. That's a success. There's other things that aren't quite so successful but hey its an evolving project.
20:03:18 <jds2001> 11. I think that we need a mentorship program in order to help the contributors with new skills find places to put them to use. That's something that we're seriously lacking right now, and could be improved.
20:04:00 <averi> 10. Releasing every six months providing the brand new software around is another great success, and most of all seeing how amazing our community can be organizing events and meetings around multiple countries spreading the word and Fedora's passion is definitely another huge success :)
20:04:17 <jds2001> 11. We also need to provide some mechanism for users that are seeking help to easily get it.
20:05:16 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 11) getting people involved in a constructive way is always going to be a challenge. When there is not enough for everyone to do, this at times results in work being "found" to be done and is in some cases done in a hasty or unsupervised way.
20:06:34 * nirik will keep the meeting open for additional answers for a bit.
20:06:43 <jds2001> 12. While I sadly do not have the time to get involved in ways that most new Fedora users would see me (say users@lists.fp.o or #fedora), I occasionally do.
20:06:49 <averi> 11. What's actually missing is a well done and organized mentorship program together with the needed documentation to help new contributors to learn their way within our community. Every single internal project should be organized to welcome new contributors and give them the needed tools to start contributing in the best way.
20:06:59 <nirik> I'd like to thank all of our candidates and question askers. Remember to VOTE! :)
20:07:31 <pbrobinson> 11) That's a hard one. I find it hard to engage new users. People come along with skills and want to help, you provide them details of stuff that needs work and contacts to ask for help and you never hear from them. It would be cool to have things like the "gnome love" style bugs and places for people to get stuck in at all levels
20:07:54 <jds2001> 12. And I think that when I do, I'm seen as "just another guy" - I don't use my posistion for anything, most folks would have no clue they're talking to someone on the Board. But I think that people would consider me a role model of behavior, yes.
20:08:09 <averi> 11. if elected, I would like to work on it and provide the resources and the infrastructure (docs, mentors etc) to make it possible. Thanks for the great question!
20:08:29 <EvilBob-Vote4Me> 12) How people represent Fedora can contained in many layers of an onion, mailing lists, support forums, LUGs, contributions to Fedora and to upstream projects.
20:10:24 <pbrobinson> 12) I believe I'm viewed quite well within the community. I've certainly been involved in some flame wars on devel@ but I always ensure that I reply to the discussion being flamed and not react personally to the flamer. Fedora is a very large community, its impossible to be involved in all parts of it especially as I'm a volunteer and I do  Fedora in my own time
20:13:30 <nirik> ok. I think thats everyone?
20:13:40 <nirik> any closing/final statements before I close out the meeting?
20:13:58 <averi> sec, last question for me and I'm OK!
20:13:59 <jds2001> I'd like everyone to make sure they *go vote*!
20:14:23 <jds2001> and tell all your friends to as well :)
20:15:54 <averi> 12. I am a community guy and I've been alwais recognized by others like a 'getthingsdone guy'. I alwais try to do my best while contributing, I try to be as nice as I can, I respect others and their ideas and this is actually the way to go for a successfull community.
20:16:27 <averi> thanks for all the nice questions!
20:17:35 <nirik> thanks again everyone!
20:17:38 <nirik> #endmeeting