governance, fesco, board, etc.

[Josh Boyer]

On Tue, 2007-06-12 at 14:03 -0400, Max Spevack wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Jun 2007, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> 
> > Or differently:
> > * If FESCo had decided to allow "non-free firmware", they would have
> > been shot by the community and/or RH, like the community/RH did on
> > similar occasions.
> 
> I think if any group of people within Fedora decided they wanted to 
> drastically revers the "freedom" stance of the distribution, they would 
> find themselves shot down by the Fedora Board, and it wouldn't be some 
> sort of 5-4 RH/community split vote.
> 
> > * FESCo can't decide on legal/patent matters, because they lack the
> > knowledge. One escape would have been RH to provide them with legal
> > advisors, or some volunteers to appear, but ... neither happened :(
> 
> Legal issues are one of the places where Red Hat's sponsorship of Fedora 
> comes in.  Red Hat's lawyers are Fedora's lawyers.  There are plusses 
> and minuses to that arrangement.  Part of the nature of the legal work 
> requires a lot of the interaction to flow through Red Hat people, since 
> the lawyers need to be very careful about what they say on public 
> mailing lists.
> 
> > * FESCo can decide on "packaging matters" despite they lack the detailed
> > knowledge, because FPC provides them with "recommendations".
> 
> And who's on the packaging committee?  Looks to me like it's 4 RH folks 
> and 5 community folks, and that's only because Toshio just got hired by 
> Red Hat.  The packaging committee is given significant autonomy.  I 
> can't remember an example of the Fedora Board meddling, changing, or 
> telling the Packaging Committee what to do.  Maybe Fesco has a more 
> contentious relationship with the Packaging committee that I'm not aware 
> of.

Not at all.  The FESCo/FPC relationship is hardly contentious.

josh