From Fedora Project Wiki
| inode0 | so who's here? | 20:55 |
|---|---|---|
| Action: ke4qqq is | 20:56 | |
| VileGent (n=nowayjos@fedora/Southern-Gentleman) joined #fedora-townhall. | 20:57 | |
| Action: inode0 will start collecting questions for ke4qqq shortly | 20:58 | |
| stickster | Just for the record, jwb said he might not be able to make it. | 20:58 |
| wariola_ (n=wariola@219.94.114.169) joined #fedora-townhall. | 20:58 | |
| marth (n=marth@c-76-17-250-218.hsd1.mn.comcast.net) joined #fedora-townhall. | 20:59 | |
| wariola_ (n=wariola@219.94.114.169) left irc: Client Quit | 20:59 | |
| stickster | I'm sure he'd be happy to take any questions by email | 20:59 |
| inode0 | I will mention that next door too | 20:59 |
| wariola (n=wariola@219.94.114.169) joined #fedora-townhall. | 20:59 | |
| inode0 | if he doesn't make it | 20:59 |
| jwb_ | i have arrived | 21:00 |
| inode0 | Time for us to begin this evening. Welcome candidates! | 21:01 |
| jwb_ | all 2 of us! | 21:01 |
| Action: ke4qqq thought mmcgrath was here too | 21:02 | |
| inode0 | While we collect questions from the public let's do some brief introductions | 21:02 |
| ke4qqq | Hi everyone, David Nalley here | 21:03 |
| jwb_ | Hello. Josh Boyer. Go Red Wings! | 21:03 |
| jwb_ | (NHL team for people that don't follow hockey) | 21:03 |
| inode0 | mmcgrath: ping | 21:04 |
| inode0 | spot ping | 21:04 |
| inode0 | dgilmore: ping | 21:04 |
| inode0 | we'll being with a question from marth | 21:05 |
| inode0 | Are you content with the sort of "walk in" approach to recruitment Fedora currently has, or should the project promote contributions more actively? | 21:05 |
| mmcgrath | pong | 21:05 |
| Action: mmcgrath was in wrong channel :) | 21:06 | |
| ke4qqq | [1] So traditionally we have trusted self-selection and at best some one on one recruitment among friends. That's worked OK for Fedora - as evidenced by the quality of work that's performed. I think self-selection is the only way to go personally as you need passionate people. That said one of the problems I see is that people don't know of the opportunity to participate, particularly if they have experience with another distro or some of the really | 21:07 |
| ke4qqq | [1] I don't think we'll get to the point where we go 'head hunting' or that it would even be successful for Fedora long term. | 21:07 |
| jwb_ | [1] i think it has served us well. i don't think we should be beating the streets for contributors, but we could try leveraging some of the people subscribed to our mailing lists that aren't contributing | 21:07 |
| tk009 (n=tk009@adsl-074-166-251-205.sip.bct.bellsouth.net) joined #fedora-townhall. | 21:08 | |
| mmcgrath | did I miss a question? | 21:08 |
| jwb_ | mmcgrath, possibly | 21:08 |
| Action: mmcgrath scrolls back. the first question he sees is "so who's here" | 21:08 | |
| inode0 | Are you content with the sort of "walk in" approach to recruitment Fedora currently has, or should the project promote contributions more actively? | 21:09 |
| mmcgrath | oh, I see it. Missed the [1] :) | 21:09 |
| mmcgrath | [1] I think sponsors and long-timers need to take more responsibility for identifying new people and brining them in. | 21:09 |
| mmcgrath | [1] I don't think training on how to work with volunteers would be a bad thing. | 21:09 |
| dgilmore | inode0: pong | 21:10 |
| mmcgrath | whats next :) | 21:11 |
| jwb_ | i have one | 21:11 |
| inode0 | Feel free jwb_ | 21:11 |
| jwb_ | do you all think the overall tone of the project has turned sour as of late? as evident by the fedora-devel-list and the new moderation proposal? if so, how do we turn that around? | 21:12 |
| jwb_ | (i'll note that i literally just thought of that, so i'm not stacking things in my favor) | 21:13 |
| sijis (n=sijis@adsl-70-131-122-68.dsl.emhril.sbcglobal.net) joined #fedora-townhall. | 21:13 | |
| mmcgrath | [1] I think there's a lot more going on besides fedora-devel-list. And while people hate more mailing lists, I think we need to let sub groups be sub groups. By that I mean, fedora-devel has become a place where too many people come to talk about too many things. | 21:13 |
| mmcgrath | [1] and we developer types aren't known for keeping silent about things that aren't that important to us. I myself am guilty of this from time to time. | 21:13 |
| jwb_ | [2] mmcgrath | 21:14 |
| jwb_ | we're on 2 | 21:14 |
| jwb_ | sorry | 21:14 |
| mmcgrath | ugh :) | 21:14 |
| mmcgrath | [2] Though overall I think things are going well. | 21:14 |
| jwb_ | [2] i think we have a tendency at times to focus on the problems, and that can certainly bring issues like this to the forefront | 21:14 |
| ke4qqq | [2]overall - not really- I still see the vast majority being very cordial. That said a very vocal minority has sparked a lot of ill behavior, and that spreads unfortunately. and when you look at the list and see a few 100+ message threads per week you can see it flaming up. That's really a small portion of what's going on. I think it does have some ill effects if left unchecked. | 21:15 |
| dgilmore | jwb_: i think we have some people who are having a negative influence. i think its part of growing. but it is something that needs to be adressed before things become toxic | 21:15 |
| jwb_ | [2] so i think we need a two fold approach. the first is the moderation. i think that will help with the outright abusive things. the second is to actually blog, email, IRC about the _positive_ aspects and achievements of fedora. a bit of a positive grassroots PR campaign if you will | 21:15 |
| jwb_ | dgilmore, indeed. i worry about toxicity in the long term | 21:16 |
| ke4qqq | [2] I also think that we aren't stopping threads when they reach the point of being toxic - which only makes things worse IMO. | 21:16 |
| mmcgrath | [2] I should clarify what I said earlier by "a lot more going on besides fedora-devel-list". My intention was that many of the other lists are very up beat, down to working and hopeful about Fedoras future. | 21:16 |
| VileGent (n=nowayjos@fedora/Southern-Gentleman) left irc: Client Quit | 21:16 | |
| jwb_ | mmcgrath, ah. yes. thanks for clarifying | 21:17 |
| inode0 | Ready for another public question? | 21:18 |
| jwb_ | sure | 21:18 |
| dgilmore | inode0: please | 21:18 |
| inode0 | G_work asks [3.12.4-2] What are your thoughts on the state of Fedora (as a whole) and where do we go from here? | 21:18 |
| mmcgrath | BRING IT! | 21:18 |
| mmcgrath | [3] I think the state of fedora's doing well. We're at a critical turning point in our industry and in Fedora. The linux market is growing considerably. | 21:18 |
| jwb_ | state of what? | 21:18 |
| jwb_ | the release, the project? | 21:19 |
| Action: inode0 notes that parenthetically it says as a whole, so yes | 21:19 | |
| dgilmore | [3.12.4-2] i think overall we are doing well. there is measurable growth. our releases are getting better, we are reaching out to communities that we have not done so well at in the past | 21:19 |
| mmcgrath | [3] I think Fedora's role in this newer market (IE: with ubuntu) is to be the upstream for as many distributions, organizations, and contributors as we can. | 21:20 |
| dgilmore | we are slowly seeing kde devs using fedora. i think thats a positive thing | 21:20 |
| mmcgrath | [3] We're positioned for dymanic growth. We've got some of the smartest contributors which makes us flexable and able to adapt to change, even massive changes. | 21:20 |
| ke4qqq | [3.12.4-2] I think we are starting to experience some growing pains (not that we haven't in the past, just that a new series is starting) I think we have largely settled into our current identity, though maybe that's not yet known by everyone outside fedora yet. we still carry the stigma of being 'the beta for rhel' in a lot of circles. | 21:20 |
| jwb_ | [3.12.4-2] as a project, i think we're chugging along well enough. though we do seem to be staring at our navel and contemplating an overall direction for Fedora. which is a good thing to do, particularly right now | 21:21 |
| dgilmore | mmcgrath: i think we handle massive change very well. much better than any other distro. i think its evidenced y other distros slowing down the rate of change | 21:21 |
| mmcgrath | [3] I'd love to see a future where people come to Fedora to try new things out, to be the first to present things to the end user. To get good at finding new technologies and good at finding failures. But at the end of the day, it comes here first. And I think that's something we can all be proud of. | 21:21 |
| jwb_ | [3.12.4-2] from a technical point of view, i think we are making great progress. we tend to live on the leading (bleeding) edge at times, but i continue to be impressed | 21:21 |
| inode0 | marth asks [4] Do you believe Fedora's supported release cycle would be better for developers if it was shorter or longer? How about for maintainers? End users? | 21:23 |
| KageSenshi (n=kagesens@fedora/KageSenshi) joined #fedora-townhall. | 21:23 | |
| mmcgrath | [4] I think Fedora's release cycle is about right for our developers, for our maintainers and for our end users. I'd say the same isn't true for other distro's users, etc. | 21:24 |
| jwb_ | [4] shorter would be crazy. as for longer, i haven't heard anyone screaming lately for an extension. i think if we had a really hard technical item or particular goal that required a longer cycle, we could do it on a per release basis. but overall, it seems to work out well enough | 21:24 |
| mmcgrath | [4] Releasing often allows us to take HUGE risks that other distros can't (and shouldn't... we do it for them). The worst case scenario, we re-do everything in 6 months. | 21:24 |
| Cheshirc__ (n=Josh@unaffiliated/cheshirc) joined #fedora-townhall. | 21:25 | |
| ke4qqq | [4]I think that largely it wouldn't matter - we'll never mesh perfectly with everyone. our ~6 month cycle seems to be a nice middle ground between insane and and never getting it done. 6 months is a reasonable time period to bring a feature in, though occasionally that turns into two releases, but still - a year to bring a change like openchange into a distribution isn't a bad timetable. | 21:25 |
| dgilmore | [4] any shorter and we will overwhelm everyone with new releases that change little | 21:26 |
| dgilmore | [4] we could maybe go for longer. but i feel 6 months is good for everyone | 21:26 |
| Action: inode0 adds that the only requests for longer that he hears come from users who don't like to upgrade so often | 21:26 | |
| dgilmore | inode0: for those people we have RHEL and CentOS | 21:27 |
| cebbert (n=cebbert@fedora/cebbert) joined #fedora-townhall. | 21:27 | |
| inode0 | as a followup on that | 21:27 |
| dgilmore | fedora is not for everyone or every use case | 21:27 |
| inode0 | RHEL and CentOS can't really replace Fedora to these users | 21:28 |
| jwb_ | i'll note that the 'support' cycle is longer than the development cycle as well | 21:28 |
| jwb_ | F9 is still active | 21:28 |
| dgilmore | jwb_: right | 21:28 |
| jwb_ | it will be for another 5 weeks or so | 21:28 |
| mmcgrath | inode0: you can't have new forever. | 21:28 |
| mmcgrath | inode0: unless you want rawhide. | 21:28 |
| dgilmore | no new packages will be accepted for F-9 in one week | 21:29 |
| mmcgrath | Someone who doesn't want to upgrade regularly is someone but still wants the latest and greatest isn't being realistic | 21:29 |
| dgilmore | mmcgrath: correct its not possible to not upgrade and have the latest, those two things cotradict each other | 21:29 |
| inode0 | ok, next question is from mdomsch and is directed to ke4qqq (for reasons that will become clear) | 21:29 |
| inode0 | Since you haven't been as visible to some in the project as the other candidates could we hear more about what you've done for Fedora as an Ambassador and in other parts of the project? | 21:31 |
| inode0 | How do these experiences relate to Board activities? | 21:31 |
| skvidal (n=nskvidal@fedora/skvidal) joined #fedora-townhall. | 21:32 | |
| #fedora-townhall: mode change '+v skvidal' by ChanServ!ChanServ@services. | 21:32 | |
| ke4qqq | so I have been around, comparatively a short amount of time, joining fedora in early 2006. I initially worked in the Ambassadors and to a slightly lesser degree in marketing | 21:32 |
| ke4qqq | honestly the NA Ambassadors suffered because we essentially relied on RH to do everything for us, which meant we did precious little | 21:33 |
| jwb_ | i would like to say that ke4qqq and the Ambassador's group are both made of awesome | 21:33 |
| ke4qqq | we relied on people like Max and Greg to do all of the speaking, we relied on people like Alex Maier to do our swag - and we provided a nice cheering section | 21:33 |
| ke4qqq | along with several others (our moderator included) we worked on an aggressive plan to essentially start taking control of a lot of that. | 21:34 |
| dgilmore | ke4qqq: that has been visable :) | 21:34 |
| ke4qqq | and within 6 month we made all of our own swag, we represent fedora at a ton of more conferences - our conference count is averaging double to triple what it was when we were cheerleaders. | 21:35 |
| ke4qqq | really it exemplifies, what I think we want for all of Fedora- which is a place that people can come in, do work, take ownership and hopefully make it awesome. | 21:35 |
| Action: stickster notes that ke4qqq appears prominently in the FUDCon Boston 2009 video | 21:36 | |
| ke4qqq | I also maintain a few packages and try and help with documentation. | 21:36 |
| jwb_ | ke4qqq, did you and herlo work the session videos for FUDCon as well? | 21:36 |
| ke4qqq | I think that having represented Fedora to the outside world it's been eye opening to see the effect we have and some of the misgivings that are still present and I hope that experience is helpful to the board. | 21:37 |
| ke4qqq | jwb - herlo did some audio - ctyler did video - and ianweller and I made a video of herlo dancing :) | 21:37 |
| ke4qqq | with photos from mo | 21:37 |
| jwb_ | oh yes. the dancing herlo video. that in itself is awesome | 21:37 |
| inode0 | the next question is from marth [7] It seems to be up to individuals/groups what updates are pushed and when. Does individual judgment create too many inconsistencies because each maintainer has different criteria? Is this level of independence one of Fedora's strengths? | 21:39 |
| jwb_ | oh man. that one hits home for me | 21:39 |
| dgilmore | [7] the independance plays into fedora's core values, however i do feel that we push too many updates during a release. i would like to encourage not pushing new release to all releases | 21:40 |
| jwb_ | [7] so i get impacted by this daily now, since i decided to be crazy and do the actual updates pushes. for a while, i thought we were doing too many, too often, and for no really good reason other than 'higher numbers' | 21:40 |
| mmcgrath | [7] Updates are now, finally, pushed by a small group of people instead of individuals. And that's awesome. As for what updates go out and when, I think becoming a packager makes one responsible for that package. And they can do with it as they want, as long as it meets our guidelines. | 21:40 |
| dgilmore | [7] but allow a release to slow down its updates during the second half of its life cycle | 21:41 |
| mmcgrath | [7] I do generally think there should be a push to send fewer updates, but at the end of the day, its up to the packager and the packagers judgement what to do. You have to empower them to make the decisions they feel are best. | 21:41 |
| jwb_ | [7] but that isn't really true. lots of the updates are entirely new packages. sometimes they are bugfixes in the form of new upstream versions. so i think we have package maintainers for a reason, and we have to trust their judgement | 21:42 |
| ke4qqq | [7] the level of independence is a strength I think, I'll admit frustration when a package lags for several releases, but there is much that I probably don't know going on with that packager and the package. I didn't sign up as a comaintainer so it's hard to complain when I am not doing the work. | 21:42 |
| jwb_ | [7] my only request would be to think a bit harder sometimes :) | 21:42 |
| dgilmore | jwb_: agreed | 21:42 |
| ke4qqq | [7] I think a more active use of updates-testing could alleviate some of the update flood - but it's hard to get people to participate | 21:42 |
| jwb_ | ke4qqq, yes and no. it would help end users i think | 21:43 |
| ke4qqq | jwb_: yes it would help end users - and stop some of the massive bandwidth complaints, though I am excited to see what people think of presto and deltarpms.....that may be enough | 21:43 |
| jwb_ | ke4qqq, that helps users greatly. unfortunately, i makes getting updates out take much longer | 21:44 |
| jwb_ | i still think it's a win | 21:44 |
| ke4qqq | right - and thats a big growing pain | 21:44 |
| ke4qqq | it's still a win for end users - for those having to push updates maybe not so much | 21:44 |
| ke4qqq | :) | 21:44 |
| jwb_ | yeah. i'm ok griping about my own little world being harder if it's going to help a bunch more people | 21:45 |
| comraderaikov (n=sseierse@pool-173-64-93-105.bltmmd.fios.verizon.net) joined #fedora-townhall. | 21:45 | |
| inode0 | wariola asks [8] how do you grow fedora out of the active region and reaching more into the passive region e.g. APAC? | 21:46 |
| ke4qqq | those types of challenges are going to be interesting to see in the next year - our scale continues to increase and making that manageable will be a big challenge. | 21:46 |
| jwb_ | [8] that was asked last election. do i have time to lookup what i answered with? | 21:46 |
| jwb_ | :) | 21:46 |
| jwb_ | [8] so personally, i dont think i can make a lot of impact there myself. the best way to grow a market is to get people from that market involved, and grow the ambassador pool there | 21:48 |
| mmcgrath | [8] You start by finding active users in those regions. | 21:48 |
| mmcgrath | [8] Then empowering them and providing resources for them to spread. | 21:48 |
| ke4qqq | [8] A lot is already going on in APAC in some ways - but like other regional Fedora communities there are barriers to communication that stop us from knowing everything that's going on. APAC is also very large and varied, and we haven't even tapped users in many ways there yet. | 21:48 |
| jwb_ | [8] that is a bit of a chicken/egg scenario, but it's true. world domination is an end goal, but you can't achieve that without participants from all over the world | 21:49 |
| dgilmore | [8] since im originally from APAC i try to keep an eye on things. im actively invloved in humbug a users group in Australia. I think we can do better to help grow things in the region | 21:49 |
| ke4qqq | but mmcgrath is right - we need to start findign the active users, and empowering them. Fedora specifically has me as a contributor because they it's crazy enough to let me package software, and write documentation and run my mouth about the project. Take away that empowerment and it's a lot less interesting, and that will make it interesting for users regardless of where they are on the globe - we just need to show the opportunity. | 21:50 |
| Cheshirc_ (n=Josh@unaffiliated/cheshirc) left irc: Read error: 110 (Connection timed out) | 21:51 | |
| dgilmore | for large parts of APAC language is a barrier to participating in the regular fedora community. some of them are quite active but only in there small corner. im not sure how we can bridge that gap | 21:52 |
| Action: inode0 follows this up with a related question | 21:52 | |
| inode0 | Fedora has a marketing message, does trying to "make the sale" in the same way worldwide work? | 21:53 |
| inode0 | Or are their regions where the things that hit home in EMEA maybe don't register so strongly? | 21:53 |
| mmcgrath | Fedora has "make the sale" as a marketing message? | 21:53 |
| jwb_ | confused | 21:53 |
| dgilmore | [9] it does not cutural differences in differentparts of the world mean we need to take different approaches | 21:53 |
| dgilmore | im assuming by "make the sale" meaning getting user uptake | 21:54 |
| ke4qqq | [8+1] The tactics used to communicate assuredly change, the 'message' of software freedom, innovation, and empowerment do not. | 21:55 |
| inode0 | For example, we can stress freedom in places where that deeply resonates. In other places it might not so much. | 21:55 |
| jwb_ | i see | 21:55 |
| jwb_ | what ke4qqq said | 21:55 |
| jwb_ | i cant answer it much better | 21:55 |
| dgilmore | indeed ke4qqq said it very well | 21:55 |
| inode0 | followup from wariola: what kind of assistance will be provided to grow the passive region? | 21:56 |
| Action: mmcgrath can't speak on what will be provided. | 21:56 | |
| dgilmore | [10] it really depends on what would work whats available, and finding people to help us in the regions | 21:57 |
| jwb_ | do we have contributors with requests? | 21:57 |
| mmcgrath | but what could/should be provided includes support for marketing, anything grass roots (the ambassadors are masters at this) to put a great feel together for what Fedora is. | 21:57 |
| dgilmore | there really is no way to know for sure | 21:57 |
| inode0 | Do you think this is more for FAmSCo to initiate? | 21:57 |
| mmcgrath | yes | 21:58 |
| jwb_ | probably as a start, yes | 21:58 |
| ke4qqq | I don't know that it's a board issue per se....probably famsco since they dole out the kind of resources for growing communities globally already. and my answer would be to ask wariola to show us a plan of what he wants to do (someone has to do the work, right?) and then let famsco or commarch provide the resources. | 21:58 |
| ke4qqq | I'll be honest and tell you I don't know what resources will provide results.....but I'd be happy to provide resources for someone on the ground who has a plan to try and get results. | 21:59 |
| inode0 | last question from marth [10] What do you think has gone right with F11 as development draws to a close? What lessons can we learn from it? | 21:59 |
| jwb_ | 10) that sometimes progress is one step back, two steps forward | 22:00 |
| jwb_ | 10) the anaconda changes were huge, but i think people are giving that team too much of a bad wrap for them | 22:00 |
| dgilmore | [10] i think at this point its not so much a board issue. but a fesco issue. the reasons for the slipage are technical. but we certainly seem to be doing a good job of getting the message that fedora 11 is coming out there | 22:01 |
| mmcgrath | [10] Freeze sooner, always have plans to revert if a commit / feature doesn't work out right. We've gotten much better about holding people responsible for their changes. I think we need to move a bit farther. | 22:01 |
| dgilmore | jwb_: from a technical side i think we need to have the anaconda team land there bits much earlier in the release cycle | 22:01 |
| jwb_ | 10) aside from that, i think F11 went really smoothly. we did a whole gcc 4.4 upgrade, changed to i586, and really the impact of that was fairly well containable | 22:01 |
| mmcgrath | [10] Slips hold up not only the OS but all the teams that work around it. Delays release parties that have been planned, Infrastructure and the web team will have been frozen for a month when F11 ships. | 22:01 |
| jwb_ | dgilmore, possibly. | 22:02 |
| ke4qqq | I think the QA process did well in catching critical bugs - hopefully all of them. Sure we'd have liked to see it sooner, but better when it occurred. A LOT of things (Anaconda, gcc, sound, etc) changed in F11 and most of that went relatively smoothly for the scale of change. | 22:02 |
| mmcgrath | [10] I agree with dgilmore critical pieces of our OS need to be in much sooner, and need to have a fallback plan if X isn't done by Y. | 22:02 |
| mmcgrath | s/need/should/ | 22:03 |
| ke4qqq | while I agree with mmcgrath, I think it's a fesco issue..... I'd personally like to see a tighter reversion policy with hard dates for features. | 22:03 |
| Action: mmcgrath agrees, this is a fesco issue. | 22:03 | |
| dgilmore | ke4qqq: it is a fesco issue | 22:03 |
| mmcgrath | but I do have an opinion on it :) | 22:04 |
| ke4qqq | so do I :) and it mirrors your and dgilmores | 22:04 |
| inode0 | Anything further or is this a good time to adjourn? | 22:05 |
| Action: mmcgrath can stay as long as people have questions | 22:05 | |
| jwb_ | sooo sleepy | 22:05 |
| jwb_ | and grumpy. the Red Wings lost | 22:05 |
| Action: dgilmore is always avaiable for questions | 22:05 | |
| jwb_ | :) | 22:05 |
| inode0 | I'd like to take a moment to thank all the candidates tonight who participated in this town hall | 22:05 |
| jwb_ | i really do have to drop though. i'd be happy to answer questions via email or irc later if people are curious | 22:06 |
| inode0 | I'd also like to thank everyone at the event earlier today and the FESCo town halls yesterday | 22:06 |
| skvidal (n=nskvidal@fedora/skvidal) left #fedora-townhall ("Ex-Chat"). | 22:06 | |
| inode0 | These have really been valuable to me and I hope to many others. | 22:06 |
| inode0 | We are adjourned | 22:07 |
| Action: inode0 bangs the gavel | 22:07 | |
| ke4qqq | thanks inode0 | 22:07 |
| mmcgrath | Thanks all | 22:07 |
| jwb_ | thanks | 22:08 |
| inode0 | jwb_: we get to see 2 or 3 more is all :) | 22:08 |
| jwb_ | inode0, exciting hockey is good with me :) | 22:08 |
| Action: jwb_ sleeps | 22:08 | |