[fab] New project formation is out of control
David Barzilay
barzilay at redhat.com
Tue Aug 8 13:14:44 UTC 2006
OK, here's my simplistic process overview:
1) Contributor suggests new project to a Steering Committee (talking
generally here - devel, ambassadors, etc)
2) Committee discusses it first
ok - project idea goes to "help needed" page
not ok - standard and careful reply "... project idea is against
Fedora's goals as you can see in fedoraproject.org/wiki...."
3) Once the project has at least 3 contributors, it can be named as
"Fedora official", then have a dedicated wiki page
After all, we still have control over www.fedoraproject.org...
Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 18:22 -0500, Patrick W. Barnes wrote:
>
>> I'm a little concerned by a recent chain of events. Damien Durand recently
>> decided that running interviews of Fedora contributors was a worthy project
>> and began working, without support, to make it a reality. This, in itself,
>> is good. We need people who take initiative. The problem is the subsequent
>> announcement and adoption without review, and this is just a symptom of a
>> larger, standing issue.
>>
>> As soon as Damien put up a page and interviewed Chitlesh Goorah, he sent an
>> announcement to fedora-marketing-list and made a post in his blog. Then,
>> Thomas included the announcement in the Fedora Weekly News report. The
>> problem is that this program has had no peer review and doesn't have any
>> support within the Fedora Project. I had instructed Damien to make a post to
>> fedora-marketing-list to let the Marketing team know what he was working on
>> and to ask for feedback, not to provide a formal announcement.
>>
>> My concern with this particular project is that it is doing something that is
>> already being done and for which a new venue is not needed. RHM already has
>> a column that features contributor interviews, and assorted other sources
>> already allow contributors to be introduced to the community. Without the
>> interest and resources going into Fedora Interview, I'm not sure it can
>> really succeed. If the Marketing team adopted the idea and decided to
>> support it, then we could have given more consideration into what we would
>> throw behind the program. Another issue is the fact that Damien has not had
>> the time to correct the issues that have already been pointed out. Moving to
>> a public announcement was premature.
>>
>> This really only highlights and underlying problem. We have a number of new
>> or inexperienced contributors who are in a hurry to start up their own
>> initiatives. We already have a significant number of projects that need more
>> attention, not separation. These new contributors take advantage of the
>> freedom they are given to stake out grounds without peer support. This is
>> fracturing our community and leaving all kinds of loose and dead ends.
>>
>> Another fine example of this issue is Clair Shaw's Word of Mouth program.
>> Many of these initiatives are popping up under Ambassadors and Marketing,
>> simply because the Ambassadors have an immediate sense of involvement and
>> power, but this problem spreads well beyond those projects. We need to be
>> flexible in allowing the formation of new programs, but allowing the creation
>> and branding of new programs without any controls in place will soon dilute
>> the standings of existing projects and will introduce confusion.
>>
>> With these small, unsupported programs popping up everywhere, projects are
>> fracturing and initiatives are failing. We need to work on tightening
>> controls and focusing the contributor energy where it is needed. It's time
>> to consider establishing policies and practices for the formation of new
>> projects and programs. This needs to happen at two levels. We need policies
>> for the creation or promotion of projects at the top level, and individual
>> projects need policies for the formation of sub-projects. If we don't exert
>> control now, we'll have a hard time regaining it in the future.
>>
>
> Is it my imagination, or has this just happened again?
>
> http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2006-August/msg00006.html
> (and others)
>
> No mailing list discussions that I can find,
> IIRC, The last discussion on this issue petered out with most of the
> discussion centering on whether "Project" should be "Program," or
> "Team," or "Collective," or "Arbeitgruppe," or whatever. Two
> "coopetitive" views were put out, I think:
>
> 1. The more the merrier, and let evolution weed 'em out.
> 2. Contributors need to prove they have what it takes to carry the
> Fedora banner.
>
> No one has said much about Patrick's wiki page:
>
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DefiningProjects
>
> I agreed to drive this project definition problem... My personal
> viewpoint is that, like logo usage, we want to be generous but
> protective about the Fedora name. I prefer that the "Ideas" listed in
> this page be promoted to "SIGs" since not only do we have a couple, but
> "Ideas" sounds a little dismissive. "SIG" gives the contributors an
> immediate feeling of group ownership. Once a SIG has more plans they
> can be owned by an official subproject until they are ready to move on,
> if that's necessary. Input please?
>
>
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