Fedora and the world

[Jonathan Roberts]

2008/5/15 Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta at gmail.com>:
> On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 10:55 AM, Jonathan Roberts
> <jonrob at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>> I agree that it would strengthen the Fedora brand, but that shouldn't
>> be the only reason we would do something like this. IMHO, it's the
>> right thing to do, and some steps that we could take might be as
>> simple as thinking carefully about some of the things I suggested in
>> my first e-mail.
>
> Let me suggest that there are an infinite number of 'right' things we
> could do with Fedora's brand capital.  And I don't think we are in a
> position to sustain an effort to do something like crush poverty in
> Africa at the moment, because we aren't Bono. We aren't.. we just
> aren't. We really don't have the name recognition to be a force that
> impacts perception across all possible large scale social issues. Hell
> we aren't even in a position of strength to champion women's equality
> in the development world as a mechanism towards economic and political
> stablization..because we don't have equitable numbers of female
> contributors ourselves.

I'm not asking us to take a stand that's going to change the status
quo throughout the world based on our brand. I'm not even asking us to
take a stand that's going to reflect positively on our brand - as far
as I'm concerned we could do some simple things, particularly on
energy conservation, that would have a positive impact and tell no-one
about it.

> If and when we stand up for something, we are essentially trading on
> our brand in an effort to bring attention to the issue.   We need to
> be clever about which social issues we do champion such that when we
> so that over time it adds to our ability to continue doing it.

I would agree that we should be clever about which issues we actively
link ourselves with, but that doesn't mean to say that we should just
ignore the other issues!

> Now energy consumption, we could definitely take a stand on...because
> everything we do as part of this project is essentially working
> against the goals of energy conservation at the moment..as is all open
> collaborative work being done primarily via the internet. Getting out
> in front and taking a stand there, would make some sense...

Well, I for one think it would be a positive step in the right
direction if we began by looking at what we could do about our energy
consumption. And yes, it would reflect positively on Fedora's brand.

Does anyone else on the list have an opinion?