Meeting:Board meeting 2009-01-13

Fedora Project Board Meeting :: Tuesday 2009-01-13

Roll Call

Attendees: John Poelstra, Paul Frields, Seth Vidal, Matt Domsch, Chris Aillon, Spot Callaway, Dimitris Glezos, Bill Nottingham, Harald Hoyer, Chris Tyler, and Jesse Keating

Welcome New Board Memebers

• Chris Aillon
• Dimitris Glezos
• Reminder that as much business as possible should be conducted on the fedora-advisory-board@redhat.com mailing list
• fedora-board-list@redhat.com should be used for confidential matters that cannot be discussed publicly
• Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are not required for non-Red Hat members and the board would like to keep it this way
  • Ask that issues confidential and legal issues which cannot be discussed publicly remain confidential

Net Neutrality hearings in Canada

• Chris Tyler may be participating in hearings and using Fedora as an example of an open source project
  • may request a letter from Fedora
• Paul Frields also working to provide resources from Red Hat
• ACTIONS:
  • Check back with Paul to see that information has been provided

FUDCon Fedora 11

Things That Went Well

• No conflict with the Red Hat Summit like last time
• Lots of talks at barcamp
• Audio and video streaming very helpful for people not physically present
• Hotel and venue close to T (public transpiration) was fantastic!

Observations and Possible Changes

• Some participants felt that the overall conference was poorly organized
  • Hard to know how to get involved or what was going on when they showed up at Friday's hackfest
  • Examine structure of FUDCon and order of sessions--have barcamp on day #1 followed by two days of hackfest
  • Move to a Saturday, Sunday, Monday schedule?
• Some barcamp sessions were not presented or organized very well
• What if we required a slide deck prepared a week before FUDCon?
  • Doing pitches online could add more time to the barcamp day itself
  • Move last-minute topics or shorter topics to a "lightning talk" slots
• Some sessions consumed a lot of time while presenter tried to get their demo to be functional
• Could we message better what happens on each day and what people can expect?
• Tension between between making conference more organized and stifling flexibility
• Can we survey past attendees to identify other areas that were deficient?
• Only five time slots for barcamp presentations
  • Lots of presentations which resulted in 45 total sessions
  • Resulted in too many conflicts
• Some sessions were the "same old people" where the information being presented was already known by a majority of the audience
• FUDPub worked well in the shared environment where it wasn't just a private party
• By the third day a lot of people seem tired and less engaged
• What about encapsulating the event and lodging in one location (hotel)?
• Wireless connections were unreliable at MIT
• Having FUDCon Boston in the heart of winter does not make a lot of sense
• Extend barcamp day to have talks after dinner break
• Break up days by having barcamp in morning, hackfest in afternoons across multiple days

Future FUDCons

• Moving to Fedora Activity Day (FAD) structure
• Will not be holding FUDCon in conjunction with Red Hat Summit in Chicago, September 2009
• Funding for FUDCon in Boston in 2010 looks unlikely at this point
  • Would be a great time/location for a Fedora Activity Day
• Why can't someone write a barcamp application do the counting, room scheduling, and conflict resolution?
  • Could this be a Google summer of code project?
  • Barcamps are happening everywhere--seems like there could be a lot of uptake from conferences

Xuropa

• https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2009-January/msg00016.html
• FEL/OEM requests for trademark clearance:
  • At first glance, TM guidelines appear to allow use of the trademark to show support for FEL/Fedora, provided other requirements are met
  • Is the revenue stream worth pursuing?
  • Transparency of accounting issues:
    • Max could track funds, which helps
    • Donors would need to know up front what fraction supports Fedora
    • Not sure this minor revenue stream is required or desirable