I mentioned this causally on the Fedora Ambassadors list, and it seemed to get a few nods, so I'm going to suggest it formally.
With the new Fedora Council, some of the broader budget discussions are being brought up into a higher project level (basically, for the reasons outlined in Christoph Wickert's [https://plus.google.com/+ChristophWickert/posts/YdVkCAzyM2J 2012 presentation]), and at the same time, FAmSCo has successfully delegated other responsibilities down to the regional ambassadors' committees.
Meanwhile, the project really lacks coordination between various areas of outreach — Ambassadors, Marketing, Design Team (which is responsible for branding), and support efforts like Ask Fedora and even Documentation and Web. This may also include areas of the new Fedora.next Working Groups which touch on these areas — branding, marketing, conference attendance in support of a particular product, and etc.
The new Outreach Representative on the Council is meant to help with this, but: a) we'd like that person to be selected by an elected community body, and FAmSCo is the current closest match, even though it doesn't encompass everything, b) having a group with this shared responsibility reduces the workload on one single individual, c) having a committee connected into the various groups will help prevent cases where that person happens to have a blindspot due to their background in the project, and d) having a coordinated outreach group would be useful in itself.
If FAmSCo thinks it would be better to keep the body as it is, we might want to consider adding a separate FOSCo above it, but that seems like extra work and bureaucracy for not much gain.
Procedurally, this would work like this: FAmSCo thinks this is a good idea, discusses it with the other subprorojects and teams involved, they think it's a good idea, we write a new basic charter (it need not be any more complicated than [http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Ambassadors_Steering_Committee the current one]!), FAmSCo approves that, and then the Board or Council (whichever is active at the time) approves that.
(My thinking is that if approved, this would go into affect with the next election.)
I guess I kind of left out what the new committee would be from the text of the proposal. But I think it's basically clear from the name, and with the explanation of the various areas and activities meant to be included.
If FOSCo needs to be created, then it should replace FAmSCo. I don't think we need an additional committee and more bureaucracy.
I don't really have a strong opinion on this, but I tend to prefer creating FOSCo. We really need tighter coordination between ambassadors, marketing, and the design team. In the last two years, we've done quite a lot to make the regional communities of ambassadors more independent. Back then the governance model in the ambassadors program was very centrist and FAmSCo had to approve every single funding request. It's not like this any more and I don't think that ambassadors need a special committee and can't be governed and overseen by a committee with a broader area of focus.
I think it's also a question for other teams that should fall under FOSCo - marketing, design team, if they're interested and ready to participate in the common committee. Because if they're not, and FOSCo would be dominated by ambassadors, there is no point in doing it.
I think this idea is good and I support it.
When we have a broader committee like FOSCo, budget work, especially for other groups, say marketing, design teams, is much easier too.
I don't think FAmSCo and Ambassadors group would against this much. But we need to wait and see opinions from the other groups.
And the best time to form FOSCo up is at the next election (FAmSCo will be in charge of making it happened)
I am an outsider, a semi-technical Fedora Linux end-user.
There is a definite need for coordination between the various groups. Currently, I am a senior with 50 years of project implementation and as I see it (based on my experience and from the outside looking in), each group appears to have its own priority, and marches to it's own band. It is only when the next release deadline is missed that the groups start to march in step.
Furthermore, for the outreach role, that role must include some end-user wishes. Comments from the end-user community about effecting design or incorporating features are "End users have no input to design decisions". For some end-users, this disconnect defines Fedora as a hobby distribution.
For the next Fedora release, assign a PMP advisor with diplomatic clout to assist the project leader, also with diplomatic clout. That delicate "clout" encourage better planning and will go a long way to Fedora respecting initial calculated release dates.
The outreach position should include feedback from the field, with a priority ratio of 75% given to in-house requirements, and up to 25% from the field.
If the flow of information is outward only, Fedora cannot be a said to be RH community distribution. It is just using the community as a QA tool.
Yes for an outreach person and yes to posting roles and responsibilities for the needed position and include end-users (www.fedoraforum.org, and the foreign FedoraForums (eg. www.Fedora-fr.org) ).
Here is my idea of what FOSCo should look like:
The governance model of Fedora Ambassadors is now based on regions and most decision making is already done in the regions which is a good thing because they're closer to users and contributors.
To make sure every region has a representative in the new committee I think they should nominate their representatives for some period of time (they already have mechanisms to make decisions). So regions would fill 4 seats.
Other two teams - design and marketing - can nominate their own representatives which would make sure they also have a say in the new body. However, I'm not sure if they have any mechanisms for decision making. 2 seats.
One seat would be elected in elections and candidates would need to be members of ambassador, design, or marketing team (or any other team that would fall under FOSCo). 1 seat.
That would make 7 seats which I think is ideal for such a body. More would not be practical.
6 members would be elected indirectly which I think is in accordance with the way the Council is put together.
Let's take this discussion to https://lists.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/outreach — people have to be logged in to see this ticket, which makes it not so searchable or easy to find.
I'm really late to this discussion. I intend to bring this up on the outreach list too.
So, the problem, as Matthew states in the ticket description is:
Meanwhile, the project really lacks coordination between various areas of outreach — Ambassadors, Marketing, Design Team (which is responsible for branding), and support efforts like Ask Fedora and even Documentation and Web. This may also include areas of the new Fedora.next Working Groups which touch on these areas — branding, marketing, conference attendance in support of a particular product, and etc. "
I'm slightly at a loss to see how a new body solves this issue - I've seen the activity on the various lists and tracs and it's not really clear to me that the goal of FOSCo is to improve the communication between teams.
For example, I just saw a ticket on the fosco trac that said "Arrange University install-fests" and another that said "Find pilot university for Fedora lab deployment" and another that said "FOSS Alternatives Resource Page". These really appear to be just normal ambassador team tasks, which they've been doing for quite a long time.
I mean, if you read the problem statement, a simple solution could be: - regular multi team meets - people from the various teams sit in, say what's happening, what team A needs from team B, what team C needs from team A and B and so on? - if necessary, representatives can be appointed in the various teams, or we can take turns and so on (this part can be handled by the teams themselves)
This still doesn't quite feel like it needs an official new body, with elections and so on. Each team has active contributors - ambassadors, which is the largest has famsco + regional leads to spread the word and co-ordinate them - other teams are much smaller and don't need this governance model - the simplest solution seems to be to get them to speak to each other and keep up with each others activities - and this can be done without major restructuring of famsco/fosco/ambassadors/other teams.
Also, in the name FOSCo, the word "Outreach" could possibly be misconstrued as increasing contributors/participation and so on (on the lines of the gnome outreach programme - https://www.gnome.org//opw/). Is this the function of FOSCo? It would explain why the fosco trac has tickets for install fests and so on it. But, this is completely different from increasing communication between teams (internal community outreach vs external outreach?). Even the e-mail that was sent out with the proposal said:
The idea is to transform FAmSCo into Fedora Outreach Steering Committee, representing and coordinating Ambassadors, Marketing, Design Team (which is responsible for branding), and support efforts like Ask Fedora and even Documentation and Web. It would also include areas of the new Fedora.next Working Groups which touch on these areas — branding, marketing, conference attendance in support of a particular product, and etc. (Not to rule them, but to coordinate and enable.)
which doesn't say anything about the gnome style outreach.
So, I guess what I'm wondering is: - what is the purpose of FOSCo - if it is indeed to increase communication/co-ordination between teams within the community, do we really need another body? - else, if the purpose of FOSCo isn't yet completely clear, we probably need to take a step back and figure it out before we start working on things?
What do you think?
Adding decause so he gets some background about this discussion.
Everyone: I would like to draw your attention as we need to move forward with this.
Should be brought again into discussion during this Wednesday's meeting.
The council has asked me for a status update, but unfortunately we did not manage to discuss this in the meeting today. I am supposed to give the council a presentation on this on 3 weeks, so we really should get moving.
For me, the most important thing is to get support from other outreach groups such as design and marketing. And in order to get them to buy in on the idea of FOSCo, we need to come up with a detailed proposal.
@FAmSCo members: Please make a proposal in this ticket. It should include 1. What are FOSCos functions, duties, and rights? 2. How is FOSCo composed (number of seats, from which groups etc)? 3. How is FOSCo constituted (elected vs. appointed members)?
Hi guys,
I'm gonna try to explain my thoughts about FOSCo:
functions: 1. primary channel of communication amongst groups (I'm considering it a bit different than commops function; commops is for "doing", FOSCo is for "think" IMHO). 2. propose budget and its allotment (in place of FAmSCo) 3. propose marketing strategies 4. propose engineering and system strategies 5. get in touch with local communities 6. document the state of the os 7. gather the community requests
Composition: 1. seat for FESCo (two?) 2. seat for Ambassador (one for each region) 3. seat for marketing (one for marketing and one for magazine) 4. seat for docs 5. seat for tranlations 6. seat for commops 7. seat for the release wrangler 8. seat for the SIGs representative (nominated by the SIGs members)
elections: 1. each FOSCo member have to be elected by its own group except the release wrangler (who is the person in charge for the release) and the SIGs representative (nominated as above explained).
Of course FOSCo should nominate the one who'll be the link with Council.
General assumptions: Design should be similar to the Council * We want meritocracy, that's why we want want appointed representatives rather than elected members * we can still elect some seats though. Size * The bigger the number gets the, the harder decision making becomes. * We should use an uneven number to avoid standoffs Keep is simple! * Minimize overlap with other bodies (council, FESCo) Lazy consensus
Mission FOSCo is to lead and coordinate all outreach efforts. * mainly coordination between ambassadors, design team and marketing * coordination among the regions * Limit the scope strictly to outreach. Engineering is FESCo's business and the overall strategy is up to the council. Let's not get in their way. Manage the regional budget * the regional budget will still be managed by the regions, FOSCo is the POC for the council much in the way as FAmSCo is now.
Composition: Appointed members * Outreach and impact lead * FPL (only if necessary and he/she wants to) Representatives * 4 from the regions (appointed by the regional ambassadors communities) * 1 from the design team * 1 from marketing elected members * 2 elected seats (elected by the ambassadors, design and marketing groups) auxiliary members * 1 from docs * 1 from translations * other representatives as necessary, e.g. Fedora Magazine, WGs, SIGs (depending on the project we are working on)
This makes it a total of 9 seats + outreach and impact lead.
FOSCo mission is to be the gateway for outreach efforts, including all Fedora sub-projects and teams across all regions. This completes the trifecta between engineering (FESCo) and strategy (Council).
I think FOSCo should have 10 members max (as Christoph said, too many people too complex processes).
9 of the FOSCo members (fixed positions) would be elected by meritocracy: Fedora Project Leader Outreach Representative 4 representatives from regions (1 for each region) 1 representative from CommOps 1 representative from Design 1 representative from Marketing
The other member would be from the others sub-projects and SIGs.
FOSCo should have a platform where non-FOSCo members can make their requests and have follow-up of things (similar to the effort of https://budget.fedoraproject.org). Also using Trac and mailing-list. News from FOSCo should go to CommOps blog.
Regards!
Replying to [comment:13 cwickert]:
Composition: Appointed members * Outreach and impact lead * FPL (only if necessary and he/she wants to) Representatives * 4 from the regions (appointed by the regional ambassadors communities) * 1 from the design team * 1 from marketing elected members * 2 elected seats (elected by the ambassadors, design and marketing groups) auxiliary members * 1 from docs * 1 from translations * other representatives as necessary, e.g. Fedora Magazine, WGs, SIGs (depending on the project we are working on) This makes it a total of 9 seats + outreach and impact lead.
+1 for this proposal.
Just note that the number of representatives + elected members (above) = 8. + Outreach and impact lead = total 9 seats.
I am just curious if Docs, Translations and other non-engineer groups want to join? I prefer to give them permissions to nominate and vote for elected members.
In order to keep it simple, we could decide to give a preference to the active members in more than one group.
Mission * FOSCo is to lead and coordinate all outreach efforts. * mainly coordination between ambassadors, design team and marketing * coordination among the regions * Limit the scope strictly to outreach. Engineering is FESCo's business and the overall strategy is up to the council. Let's not get in their way.
It's not a question of overlapping, IMHO the FESCo member is required for keeping connection between technical area and outreach area. If necessary he could throw some proposals from engineering pov, not the reverse. A kind of watcher with proposal powers for the FESCo connection. Council cannot take care also of the smaller tasks of "FESCo outreach" IMHO.
Manage the regional budget the regional budget will still be managed by the regions, FOSCo is the POC for the council much in the way as FAmSCo is now. Composition: Appointed members * Outreach and impact lead * FPL (only if necessary and he/she wants to) Representatives * 4 from the regions (appointed by the regional ambassadors communities) * 1 from the design team * 1 from marketing elected members * 2 elected seats (elected by the ambassadors, design and marketing groups) auxiliary members * 1 from docs * 1 from translations * other representatives as necessary, e.g. Fedora Magazine, WGs, SIGs (depending on the project we are working on) This makes it a total of 9 seats + outreach and impact lead.
If the FESCo watcher proposal is accepted, +1 from me. Else we should set a way of communication with engineering area.
Just wondering if some know what meritocracy is and that this is then far from elections ;)
there are some holes
Replying to [comment:17 gnokii]:
What exactly is your point here?
How about some constructive criticism for a change? Instead of pointing out problems, I would like you to present suggestions how to solve them. Where is your proposal?
At the moment I have the ok from docs (zoglesby) and from marketing (jflory7) to be part of FOSCo. Please tell me if I have to ask also to G11n if they're interested (and their contact).
Thanks.
G11N != L10N even some people might be the same working on both of this ;) you might ask pravins or/and jpetersen. They might be interested getting directly connected, they working on a setup of their own committee.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_G11N_Steering_Committee_Proposal
If you read it carefully, you find out where their problems are and that some might be solved connecting them directly to FOSCo
Thanks Sirko, I'll get in touch with the team asap. Gabri
PSA: We have a [https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-1/2016-05-23/fedora_council.2016-05-23-17.58.html deadline for submitting our proposal to the council] by July 1st latest. We need to hurry up!
jflory is with is for the marketing team. Not sure about the others though.
@gnokii: Please give us a status update about your efforts to include the design-team in this discussion.
@mailga: Anything from L10N?
Hi all, cwickert pointed me to this ticket again and I'd like to offer some ideas and thoughts based on some very recent discussion that we had in CommOps and an idea of my own. mailga has also nominated me for the time being to serve as the future FOSCo Marketing representative as well.
= Looking at the why =
The "what" of FOSCo is obviously a very important part of this discussion to help define what it is and what it will be responsible for (like mailga's [https://fedorahosted.org/famsco/ticket/373#comment:12 comment:12]. However, I also want to add in some more context of '''why''' a body like FOSCo is needed, as an example of something happening in the project right now where FOSCo could help and assist.
There was a very old ticket in the Marketing Trac ([https://fedorahosted.org/marketing-team/ticket/200 Ticket #200]) from an Ambassador about having "event box" resources for Ambassadors. In a short summary, the complaint was that it was very difficult for an Ambassador to know where to turn to quickly find the design resources used for printing or creating items that would go into the region event box(es). He was hoping to have a central place where anyone could quickly look to find these resources so they could get more things in their event box if they were running low.
The ticket was filed before CommOps formed, so I closed the ticket in the Marketing Trac and re-opened an updated version in the CommOps Trac ([https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-commops/ticket/71 Ticket #71]). After opening this ticket, we reached out to the Design Team with some thoughts about how we could try centralizing these resources and making them more accessible to Ambassadors and other Fedorans. However, we didn't want to ask the Design Team to change their workflow or way of operation in order to meet this request. That would obviously not be fair.
However, to our surprise, we learned two things from the Design Team.
So why not? The answer being that the Design Team has a strong preference to be contacted first for "consulting", of sorts, before taking something to a printing or production company. Depending on what region of the world you are from, there are innumerable differences between what type of format of an art asset is needed, or information needed to properly scale or color the Fedora logo (sometimes there is a limited color palette, and unless you are knowledgeable about how to work with these constraints, it can misrepresent the Fedora brand, like the purple DVD covers from many releases ago).
After hearing this explanation from the Design Team, the problem didn't seem to be the centralization of the design resources. Rather, it seems like there is a miscommunication between the Ambassadors, the Design team, and even Marketing about what we are supposed to do when we need to print or create resources for advocacy-related events. By improving how this is communicated across the regions, adding a more clear "order of operations", and then socializing the steps needed to request art assets, a lot of the frustration and difficulties of getting these resources for something like a regional event box could be resolved.
There were also some "wish items" that the Design Team wished those requesting resources would follow too, which also fits into the miscommunication between the sub-projects.
This isn't something adding to the actual formation / construction of FOSCo, but I feel like this example of something happening right now is a good example of the type of places FOSCo would be able to help and adds context to why we're discussing or trying to implement any of this in the first place.
= Election process for auxiliary seat =
First, a disclaimer about using the word "auxiliary", but this can be changed and I'm only using it for the context of the suggestion if this name presents a problem.
There are some sub-projects that have been designated as having a definite part of FOSCo, but it's unclear about some of the other sub-projects or if this might be something that is a good fit / of best interest to their work. Perhaps the best way to ensure proper representation for these seats is to hold a traditional Fedora election for some seats on FOSCo to give the contributor community a voice in who is representing Fedora on FOSCo outside of the teams that have a seat guaranteed (e.g. regional Ambassadors, elected Marketing lead, etc.).
This might be a middle ground approach to including the "right" voices without compromising productivity by having a FOSCo that is too large to accomplish anything meaningful. This is an idea that came to mind after reading some other comments and the discussion at today's meeting. I would be interested to hear some other thoughts on this as well.
= Note about CommOps =
One thing I think worth noting too is that CommOps is a sub-project that was founded after the initial proposal for a FOSCo in the first place. However, there is a lot of overlap between CommOps and FOSCo (but not enough to justify "one or the other" sort of situation). I think including CommOps on FOSCo is a useful and beneficial way to help make incorporate a wide perspective in FOSCo, and help share and communicate the discussions happening in FOSCo in other areas of the project (e.g. through the Community Blog).
This is all my 2¢. Thanks!
Hello guys,
I sent an e-mail to Noriko from the G11n team, and she's really happy to get a seat for the team. At the moment (due to my delay to get in touch with them) we can consider Noriko as the representative of her Team.
Gabri
Please take notes that:
Feel free to change anything you think is not accurate in the pages above.
Some of my ideas and thoughts come from the [https://flock2016.sched.org/event/76ok/meet-your-famsco Meet Your FAmSCo!] session at Flock. There will be some minutes available in a little bit that I transcribed, but I didn't do that great of a job at the transcription. The one thing that I was hoping more for from this session were definitive action items for the problems and ideas behind this ticket. By the end, we sort of came up with a few. I'd like to offer some of my own thoughts to this ticket that I didn't get to express during the workshop.
= Immediate takeaway =
In the Flock session, my thoughts are summed up as repetitive. A good portion of the final hour of the discussion was focusing about the bureaucratic composure of FOSCo. To me, this felt like a mirror of the FOSCo status meeting that happened a few weeks ago. I think that given the proposals available for FOSCo, and that most of these have existed for over seven weeks or longer, the time for discussing the composure needs to be converted into action. I think we're running circles by spending time focusing on how the committee would be composed and I don't feel like we made any significant progress in moving forward with FOSCo other than what we've been working on with months.
I'm more partial towards moving forward with a proposal based on the feedback we have and coming to a proposal so we can get to the real work of creating a solution to an outreach and communication problem that we're having in the project right now. I think this was some of the partial consensus during the session, but I really would like to see something like this happen, pending the discussion of the next point I want to say.
= Duplicating efforts =
This part of the discussion started when I was outside of the room, but I believe there was a moment of discussion about the existence of CommOps and how some of the work between FOSCo seemed to overlap. CommOps came into existence well after this ticket was originally created and the idea was discussed. One of the frustrations about CommOps was that it came to be without much consultation of other older members of the community. I wasn't around for the conception of CommOps, but as the team lead now, but I think we should look closer at the relationship between both.
One of my lingering concerns with FOSCo is that we'll have two bodies doing very, very similar types of work. I don't want us to waste time duplicating work or having two bodies doing the same type of thing. One thing that I've been wanting is to see more assistance with CommOps from other members of the project. The work we're doing has shown great promise and I'm excited about the direction, but some more hands would be helpful. I look at something like FOSCo and it feels like there's people interested in seeing something like internal community outreach be an active, project-wide focus, but I'm not seeing any of this activity or interest in CommOps.
I see two solutions to this concern:
I don't like either of these solutions right now, because the first is obviously an extremely controversial idea and the second (to me) is perpetuating the bureaucracy / composition discussion that has persisted for months. I'll definitely be taking more time to think about this, but while I'm here with these ideas in my head and it's on my mind, I wanted to do my own braindump of ideas and put them out there so we can move towards a working solution that is solving real problems that are existing in the project ''right now''.
= Regional representatives =
An idea that mattdm threw out about this too at the very end that I wanted to add in to the ticket is the idea of regional representatives that focus on the well-being of an entire region. This would include Ambassadors, Globalization / Localization, and other regional-specific topics. We didn't really discuss it much, but I wanted to write it somewhere where it won't be forgotten about in a little time.
I may have some other ideas to leave about this specifically, but I'm running out of time to type this all and I wanted to place it all somewhere visible. If anything comes to mind, I'll be sure to add it into this ticket. Also, extra pardons if any ideas or thoughts come off as rough around the edges, I'm running off a little less sleep than I normally am… will be interested to see what the rest of you think about all of this. May have missed some discussion at the end about this ticket because I was typing this a bit during the end of the talk.
My opinion is to follow the mattdm proposal. It makes sense to me, but there are at least a couple of issues we should fix: 1) not each group is splitted in regions 2) for the groups not in a regional organisation, do we have to choose a representative for the fosco? (e.g. as far as docomentation is not in separate regions, what the right regional FOSCo member can do to communicate with that groups?)
Of course I think this is the best option to get the FOSCo. It will maintain a low number of members, less non-sense discussions and so on.
Replying to [comment:29 mailga]:
My opinion is to follow the mattdm proposal. It makes sense to me, but there are at least a couple of issues we should fix: not each group is splitted in regions for the groups not in a regional organisation, do we have to choose a representative for the fosco? (e.g. as far as docomentation is not in separate regions, what the right regional FOSCo member can do to communicate with that groups?)
My opinion is to follow the mattdm proposal.
It makes sense to me, but there are at least a couple of issues we should fix:
I think it would only make the most sense to include groups that already have a "natural" inclination for being sorted by region. Ambassadors and Globalization (inc. Localization + Internationalization) are the only ones it would make sense to combine together for me. Splitting groups unnecessarily by region when it's not normally a division doesn't make sense to me.
Yes, makes sense as well. But in that way we can't lead FOSCo anywhere, marketing and other groups are not splitted by regions (and also G11n is more complicated than Amby, they have countries groups, not regional).
With that context, it may be better to avoid regional representatives. I think trying to define what that position is will block us from going forward. I think it would be better to start with the basics, and if it becomes evident that a regional representative would be a better option, that could be decided and changed in the future. But the more I think about it, I feel like this would not be the case. Thoughts?
Ok, checking pros and cons I think we should move forward with one of the proposals on the table yet. Even if I still think that a regional handling wuould be the best solution (but all the Project structure would be changed).
Please, let's move forward asap. We need to start to do something.
Thanks
I think starting the vote while some of FAmSCo are at Flock might be best, but that's my own thoughts, and I'm also not a voting member of FAmSCo.
These discussions have been ongoing for several months, however not much progress has been made. We have to be agile. Otherwise we risk dropping the ball. So, basically, what I proposed during the FOSCo brainstorm meeting was to start with a bare minimum. We can expand the committee later on, if necessary.
Logs: https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-council/2016-07-18/fosco.2016-07-18-13.00.log.html
FOSCo = Ambassadors + Marketing + Design + CommOps
We need to keep this simple.
This has also been brought up during the "Meet your FAmSCo!" session during Flock where, as far as I can remember, three FAmSCo members (cwicket, giannisk, mailga) agreed.
I ask everybody, especially the rest FAmSCo members, to state their opinions.
It is said that FOSCo mission is to be the gateway for outreach efforts. Then why not G11N? I like to emphasize the inclusion of G11N to FOSCo. G11N covers all non-English speaking people and area. L10N (part of G11N) supports over 81 languages with approx 900 registered contributors, and we are growing. It is much appreciated that the inclusion of G11N to be considered.
Replying to [comment:36 noriko]:
It is said that FOSCo mission is to be the gateway for outreach efforts. Then why not G11N? I like to emphasize the inclusion of G11N to FOSCo. G11N covers all non-English speaking people and area. L10N (part of G11N) supports over 81 languages with approx 900 registered contributors, and we are growing. It is much appreciated that the inclusion of G11N to be considered. All sub-projects are very important noriko and all the work that every single person does within this project should be more than appreciated. I have no doubt that you have been doing an incredible job at g11n/l10n.
Docs, websites for example as well as many other sub-projects are doing great work like you do. And they could certainly fit into FOSCo. My concern is, that if we do try to begin with a broad FOSCo, we might end up dropping the ball. Effective communication should not be taken for granted. Even right now, we struggle with FAmSCo several times.
Let's start with a bare minimum and if FOSCo turns out to be effective, we will be certainly more than willing to add other sub-projects, too. That's my proposal.
Thanks!
In the [https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-council/2016-07-18/fosco.2016-07-18-13.00.log.html FOSCo brainstorm meeting 4 weeks ago], giannisk brought up the idea of starting with FOSCo as a joint venture of the ambassadors, design, marketing and CommOps and expanding it as necessary later. Many of the participants liked that idea, so we [https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-flock-picasso/2016-08-04/meet_your_famsco%21_-_gnokii,_giannisk,_mailga,_cwickert.2016-08-04-08.05.log.html discussed it again in the 'Meet your FAmSCo session' at FLOCK]. Most of us support it (mailga, cwickert, giannisk), only gnokii was opposed.
Please cast your votes in this ticket not later than 2016-08-24 15:00 UTC. +1 means, we should go ahead with FAmSCo, design, marketing and Commops, -1 means we should not. If you are -1, please don't forget to outline your concerns.
+1
+1 to start with a group with Ambassadors, Design, Commops and Marketing on board. It's the only solution to avoid the plan get stuck. But I hope we are able to bring on board the other groups soon. We should work in this way also.
+1.
So far I count +4, means we will move on no matter what. If anybody wants us to delay further progress, he needs ''really'' convincing reasons.
+1. That's fine enough.
mailga has put together proposal at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User_talk:Mailga
Please read it and provide feedback by next week's FAmSco meeting (2016-09-14 14:00 UTC), either here or on FAmSCo mailing list.
In the meeting we held today, bexelbie and me will work for tuning the proposal (to keep the upcoming body agile and productive). We'd like to have a quick settlement of the FOSCo.
Any idea is welcome and progresses will be reported here.
Sorry for the late feedback and sorry this one is getting a little long.
Overall, I like mailga's proposal ''very'' much. I'm afraid however that it's too ambitious. We should not put too much work on FOSCo's shoulders, because we don't want FOSCo to interfere/overlap with other bodies/groups/positions such as the council, FESCo or the program manager. we want things bottom-up instead of top-down. FOSCo is to coordinates the efforts among groups but not to limit their decision making. Once FOSCo is established, we can still add more stuff (back) to FOSCo's agenda if we feel confident.
Here is my detailed feedback. I'll fist quote your draft and then add my thoughts inline.
== Functions ==
Primary channel of communication amongst groups
change to "amongst outreach-oriented groups", among all groups would be too ambitious.[[BR]] [[BR]]
proposes marketing strategies keeps contacts with the press; nominates the regional responsive for the press.
I think this is up to the marketing team. If we want FAMSCo to propose strategies, we should at least leave the lower level activities to them.[[BR]] [[BR]]
plans the strategies for the growth of Fedora; long term actions to be undertaken; set points to be reached in a medium period (a couple of releases);
This is clearly council's business.[[BR]] [[BR]]
manages swag production; decides which kind of swag will be product; analyze the estimates cost of production. nominates the regional logistician delegate responsive for the swag; improves the rules for the swag requests;
If we remove 'propose marketing strategies', this needs to be removed, too. Move it to the "Ambassadors strategies" section where it belongs. No need to elaborate it that detailed. KISS-principle! [[BR]] [[BR]]
proposes documentation strategies evaluates the documentation to be ready at new Fedora release; organizes efforts to be done for being ready. plans the common strategies to bring new people; monitors the state of documentation. proposes design strategies organize the Design FAD for the long term strategies; improves the design guidelines; get in touch with the Design team for the over groups requests.
proposes documentation strategies evaluates the documentation to be ready at new Fedora release; organizes efforts to be done for being ready. plans the common strategies to bring new people; monitors the state of documentation.
proposes design strategies
organize the Design FAD for the long term strategies; improves the design guidelines; get in touch with the Design team for the over groups requests.
See marketing strategies above. We should not interfere with design and documentation, we don't even have commitment from the documentation folks yet. And even if we want FOSCo to propose strategies, we should remove the secondary bullet points and leave the implementation to the groups. E. g. I see no reason why FOSCo should organize the design FAD.[[BR]] [[BR]]
requires and analyze metrics for the outreach activities selects which metrics are needed to track the work flow; gets the people aware of the results of the metrics; reports the results of the activity to the Council; nominates the Council representative; documents the state of the OS; establishes which tools are helpful to reach this goal; keeps updated the results by period.
requires and analyze metrics for the outreach activities
selects which metrics are needed to track the work flow; gets the people aware of the results of the metrics; reports the results of the activity to the Council; nominates the Council representative; documents the state of the OS; establishes which tools are helpful to reach this goal; keeps updated the results by period.
All of this is up to CommOps.[[BR]] [[BR]]
brings up engineering strategies (Engineering is FESCo's business and the overall strategy is up to the council) keeps the groups updated about the Engineering strategies and plans. get regulars report from FESCo and Council about the Engineering part of the Project; nominates the wrangler.
brings up engineering strategies (Engineering is FESCo's business and the overall strategy is up to the council)
keeps the groups updated about the Engineering strategies and plans. get regulars report from FESCo and Council about the Engineering part of the Project; nominates the wrangler.
This is FESCo's and the FPC's business and AFAICS it's working fine. No reason to change anything.[[BR]] [[BR]]
keeps updated, clear and simple all the groups policies checks and keeps updated policies of all the groups; acts towards the harmonization of the policies.
keeps updated, clear and simple all the groups policies
checks and keeps updated policies of all the groups; acts towards the harmonization of the policies.
I think policies should still be up to the groups. Harmonization is nice to have, but different groups have different requirements.[[BR]] [[BR]]
== Composition ==
Appointed members Fedora Community Action and Impact Coordinator Fedora Project Leader (only if necessary and he/she wants to)
Appointed members
Fedora Community Action and Impact Coordinator Fedora Project Leader (only if necessary and he/she wants to)
Let's leave the FPL out, he is already too busy. We have the Outreach and Impact Lead, who works closely with the FPL and is part of the council, too. Any coordination between FPL and FOSCo would go through the Outreach and Impact Lead.[[BR]] [[BR]]
== Constitution ==
The first committee (only this time nominated by FAmSCo)
This sounds misleading, because above you write that the regional representatives are "appointed by the regional ambassadors communities". I agree appointing the representatives is up to the regions. The same goes for the other groups, they are to nominate, so in the end, FAmSCo is not nominating anybody.[[BR]] [[BR]]
is composed by few groups with the task of fixing the starting issue and getting ready to integrate other groups (at first G11n and Websites at first which signed up already) spreading the invitation in the Mailing Lists and following the discussions will ensue.
I don't think G11n or websites or docs have ever really committed to FOSCo, they only had one person volunteering to show up in out FOSCo brainstorm meeting. I am not aware of any discussion or resolution from any of these groups to be part of FOSCo in long term. Please correct me if I'm wrong and point me to the relevant discussion on their mailing lists.[[BR]] [[BR]]
Following elections are held following the FAmSCo elections rules as part of the larger Fedora Project elections rules.
AFAICS all members in your proposal are appointed, so why would we need elections? To clarify: Elections: A person is elected by all Fedora members or eligible groups as part of a general election. Appointment: A person is appointed by a group. This can happen at any point in time. I think for the sake of flexibility and agility, we want a purely appointed body. We can appoint people as we need them.[[BR]] [[BR]]
== Governance ==
While I generally like the ideas you lay out, I think it is on the FOSCo members to work out a governance charter. They will have to work with it, not we. The council and the different working groups (desktop, server, ...) have all worked out their own governance charters.
== Tasks ==
Nominates a Chair and a vice-chair as regulated in the FAmSCo rules;
Makes sense, but I don't know if we need a chair and would let FOSCo decide if/how they want to elect one.[[BR]] [[BR]]
nominates its representative to get in touch with FESCo;
I doubt we need a FESCo representative. So far we have no commitment from FESCo at all and I doubt that we don't have to work with them regularly. Communication could happen through the council, the program manager or the outreach and impact lead.[[BR]] [[BR]]
Bring other goups on board;
... given that they want[[BR]] [[BR]]
use the channel #fedora-outreach for the IRC communications; opens a ticket in infra for its own Mailing list and ticketing system; meets each week and makes aware of the logs
Seems reasonable, but I suggest we let FOSCo decide how they can work best.[[BR]] [[BR]]
== My personal summary == Overall, I really like the proposal, but I really think we need to focus, bottom-up and make sure to not interfere with other groups. Let us focus on getting FOSCo bootstrapped and let them do the rest. Leave power and decision making in the groups. * Start small and grow once we are confident. We can add more groups and tasks and give FOSCo more power later.
Replying to [comment:49 cwickert]:
I must have misunderstood what FOSCo was intended for. In that case is really strange that a constitution of a body that have to do quite nothing, needs a year of work.
14 December meeting - https://fedorahosted.org/famsco/ticket/408
Today in the meeting, 2 FAmSCo members (cwickert and mailga) agreed to the following statement.
Ask Council to consider whether FOSCo is needed or not and to drive it if they think it is. FAmSCo will focus on retooling itself for the new world of post-lugs/fests and hold elections with the goal of empowering the new FAmSCo to do whatever it takes to get there, including changing everything.
All other FAmSCo members: Please read [https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-2/2016-12-14/famsco.2016-12-14-14.02.log.html the meeting log] and cast your vote here by next week 15:00 CET.
Replying to [comment:52 cwickert]:
For what it's worth: while this was not my original idea, and while this isn't my vote, as FPL I endorse the statement above. I think it's the best way to make progress, both on the FOSCo idea and on a more effective and exciting Ambassadors subproject.
Today in the meeting, 2 FAmSCo members (cwickert and mailga) agreed to the following statement. Ask Council to consider whether FOSCo is needed or not and to drive it if they think it is. FAmSCo will focus on retooling itself for the new world of post-lugs/fests and hold elections with the goal of empowering the new FAmSCo to do whatever it takes to get there, including changing everything. All other FAmSCo members: Please read [https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-2/2016-12-14/famsco.2016-12-14-14.02.log.html the meeting log] and cast your vote here by next week 15:00 CET.
I read the logs. Very productive discussion. +1 for the statement. Regards!
+1 from me.
Metadata Update from @robyduck: - Issue close_status updated to: None - Issue private status set to: False (was: True)
Metadata Update from @jflory7: - Issue priority set to: 30 - Issue set to the milestone: Future releases - Issue tagged with: general
I'm closing this as a wontfix, because FOSCo will never happen as initially planned. The Council set mindshare as an objective, which will take care of all the activity done in the last years and develop it further.
Metadata Update from @robyduck: - Issue close_status updated to: Wontfix - Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)
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