18:02:09 #startmeeting Fedora Board Meeting 18:02:09 Meeting started Thu Apr 11 18:02:09 2013 UTC. The chair is rbergeron. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 18:02:09 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 18:02:17 #meetingname Fedora Board Meeting 18:02:17 The meeting name has been set to 'fedora_board_meeting' 18:02:48 #topic Who's here? 18:03:15 yo 18:03:17 #chair sparks misc jreznik rdieter 18:03:17 Current chairs: jreznik misc rbergeron rdieter sparks 18:03:54 * jreznik is here 18:04:32 * Sparks is here 18:04:45 * misc is here 18:05:21 * rdieter fetches beverage 18:05:34 oh, i need beverage. badly 18:05:44 * rbergeron just hailed people 18:05:52 #chair rackerhacker gholms 18:05:52 Current chairs: gholms jreznik misc rackerhacker rbergeron rdieter sparks 18:06:01 * rackerhacker waves 18:06:04 o/ 18:06:20 AM I MISSING ANYONE as far as handing them a chair? 18:06:29 just don't throw the chair 18:06:39 rackerhacker: I heard you open-sourced the cloud 18:06:40 * Sparks perfers stools 18:06:42 * rbergeron grins 18:06:48 sparks: you have a baby 18:06:49 :D 18:06:50 * rackerhacker giggles at sparks 18:06:59 rbergeron: cannot confirm or deny 18:07:16 okay, that was wrong 18:07:31 one of these days we ought to try a google hangout thingy 18:07:50 * rackerhacker has a hard stop in 23 minutes :( (meeting with legal and they don't take kindly to people being late) 18:07:50 alrighty, let's move onwards. A few things from th email I just sent re: agenda/format 18:08:10 rdieter: yes, not today, my makeup isn't done... err... 18:08:13 #topic Agenda & Format 18:08:23 Real quick: 18:08:28 Last week was pretty chaotic. 18:08:52 And I'd liek to feel like we got something done, so we'll follow this for today: 18:09:35 Rather than having another channel (unless people want to go form one?) - I figured we'd just invite folks to do "meeting protocol" stuff (?, !, that kind of business), just try and keep it short and brief. 18:09:50 If it seems quiet perhaps we'll get lax, but we'll go from there, unless anyone violently objects. 18:10:01 no objection here 18:10:14 Also board folks can just speak, so it's clear, just not having 40 people at once :) 18:11:02 I thought we'd use the time to go through a few things, mostly around gaining consensus on existing problems, current user base composition, etc. 18:11:03 some people liked the chaotic approach, but i guess that's clear that we can use different approach at different time and different meeting, so ok for me 18:11:16 * pbrobinson is here 18:11:27 * inode0 here now 18:11:28 If we can't agree on current issues, or *where we are now*, it's hard to move forward and get agreement later. 18:11:34 #chair pbrobinson inode0 18:11:34 Current chairs: gholms inode0 jreznik misc pbrobinson rackerhacker rbergeron rdieter sparks 18:11:51 * Sparks needs to step away for a few minutes 18:12:05 misc: agreed, I think we can go back and forth, or ebb and flow with the appraent number of onlookers 18:12:37 And then put the contents/agreements of discussion on the wiki, so we have a reference point for our thinking. 18:12:50 And unless anyone has questsions or comments, I'll just plow forth. 18:13:00 sounds good 18:13:00 * rbergeron is teh exhausteds today 18:13:04 plow it 18:13:07 Do it! 18:13:33 #topic Discussion topic #1: ** What are the problems we would try to solve by changing our user base, and why do we think they are problems? 18:14:30 Poorly worded. I think I'm looking for bsaically: Not problems that are like, "the alpha didn't ship," but "feel like we aren't gaining $whatever," "clear decline in $blah," or other things. 18:14:41 My goal anyway is to enable more cool stuff rather than solve a particular problem. 18:15:00 we might be able to delight with cool stuff while solving problems 18:15:06 If you want to elaborate on why you think it's a problem, you're welcome to do that. 18:15:18 If we want a problem our current configuration limits certain areas where I'd like to see more. 18:15:50 meta problem: current user base neither accurately reflects where we are or where we want to go 18:16:14 I think by being focused primarily on a primary desktop we lose people that don't realise all the other cool stuff they can do whether it be open/cloud stack, kde, sugar or what ever 18:16:45 (I'll throw in eucalyptus there for gholms. Because I'm nice like that.) 18:17:21 i agree with pbrobinson -- focus on the desktop is great, but quite a few folks run Fedora in a headless server environment, especially as a Xen platform 18:17:23 inode0: basically i see it as, if we are changing it, what's the reason for changing - perhaps it's not always a problem 18:17:45 pbrobinson: in fairness/honesty, it was clearly focussed on fedora's "default offering" 18:18:05 rbergeron: wasn't meant to be an exclusive list.... I'd be here for weeks ;-) 18:18:30 and (correct me if I'm wrong), that's too narrowing for *the project as a whole*, imho 18:18:42 rackerhacker: do you know these people? :) 18:18:55 I use exactly one of my dozens of Fedora devices as a desktop. The rest are servers, virt platforms, arm devices, XO devices, media centres etc 18:19:05 rbergeron: many of these people :) 18:19:24 so the problem is that we are not communicating clearly the diversity of Fedora to the rest of the world ? 18:19:26 what else? 18:19:33 and, of course too, anyone not fitting the "userbase", doesn't mean that the project isn't for you either 18:19:36 i'd argue that the current server experience for fedora is quite good, though -- maybe not advertised well enough 18:19:51 Is slightly declining downloads over time concerning? (though those numbers waffle back and forth) 18:19:57 rbergeron: I think the current reliance on 1 single big sponsor is limiting ourself 18:20:05 Is ZOMG desktop shipments dropped like a rock as reported yesterday concerning? 18:20:10 rbergeron: maybe, though metrics are hard(tm) 18:20:12 Is it good for disposable systems? Embedded systems? 18:20:29 ok, more than maybe 18:20:49 rdieter: yes, but because we specify a default two things happens, we scare away potential consumers/contributors that think that's all it is, and we focus always on that so if the "default offering" wants something it gets forced through often to the detriment of other users 18:20:50 * gholms tries to come up with a more general description of a problem 18:20:51 rackerhacker: +1 (big) 18:21:02 someone said it a couple of meetings ago about basing metrics on the activity of the community rather than the quantity of downloads 18:21:23 #info focus ( or perceived focus ) on the desktop is a issue 18:21:24 misc: perhaps, but I think if we want to get into that war we have to provide a meaningful reason for othres to want to sponsor us :) 18:21:50 misc: that may be a lot perception too I think 18:21:56 misc: I don't see that the single sponsor is limiting ourself at all, proof of that is all the competing desktops and cloud platforms from other competitors to the primary sponsor are there. 18:21:58 or presumption 18:22:04 rackerhacker: +1 18:22:10 there's a perception that linux on the desktop is Ubuntu or OpenSUSE 18:22:14 Ubuntu is beating Fedora as a desktop, and we aren't getting any better, despite a great deal of focus. 18:22:31 pbrobinson: this is limiting in the sense we could have more sponsors, and this would scale better 18:22:44 one might argue that Red Hat's loss of focus on RH workstation could have hurt fedora on the desktop a bit 18:22:46 pbrobinson: and reduce the idea of "fedora is test bed for RHEL" 18:23:10 misc: there's tax and all sorts of other implications that would impact that which I don't think we as community would want or need to deal with that 18:23:11 * jreznik read an article today about decline of PC - it's worst than I thought... -14% last year, for many people tablet is the first computer, once someone starts using tablet, it means 25% down for PC use... maybe we just copy this 18:23:41 pbrobinson: by sponsor, i was more thinking about "people paid to work on fedora" than direct money 18:23:42 gholms: I don't know that ubuntu is beating fedora as a desktop becuase it's better, I suspect there may be an element of "can use to deploy same environment as a server with long term support 18:23:46 rackerhacker: what RH does with their products isn't really part of this conversation 18:23:48 " 18:23:48 jreznik: big problem. that hardware on the way out is open and supportable. this newer stuff, not... yet. 18:23:59 that's out of our control though, largely 18:24:05 misc: there's a lot of companies out there that pay people to work on Fedora 18:24:13 rbergeron: I'm not trying to say why. Just that it is. 18:24:16 pbrobinson: but we do not advertise them :/ 18:24:16 pbrobinson: true, but i feel like it has some kind of effect (whether that can be controlled by this group or not) 18:24:16 Regardless of who is beating who we shouldn't fixate on 1 or 2% of the market 18:24:24 misc: we just don't talk to them. 18:24:26 inode0: i agree 18:24:48 misc: I don't see that it matter 18:24:57 pbrobinson: well one question will be - are we willing (and have "balls") to set our target audience in the way we would loose our main sponsor? 18:25:04 Yeah, I agree with inode0. We don't need to focus so much on desktop to the exclusion of other things, at least as much as we have. 18:25:13 Problem: We don't have relationships with other major downstream users of Fedora (aside from OLPC, RHEL) 18:25:20 jreznik: not a required choice 18:25:29 Problem: Too much focus on desktop, to the degree of excuding other obvious target use cases 18:25:35 rbergeron: good point on the relationships 18:25:46 rackerhacker: arista networks is always my poster child here :) 18:25:58 jreznik: is there any indication that would happen, our main sponsor has no focus on a desktop product and that's our default offering 18:26:08 rbergeron: lots of fedora users in my neck of the woods as well 18:26:24 pbrobinson: my point is fighting the idea that Fedora is RH owned, as i see this is causing division in the community, but I am likely biased for reason that take time to explain here :) 18:26:27 pbrobinson: well, may perceive it as a problem... 18:26:50 Problem: Fedora is perceived as RH-owned/dominated, perhaps causes division in community 18:27:02 * gholms gives rbergeron a basket of #info tags 18:27:09 * rbergeron will capture as many as she can and throw them on a wiki, unless someone else wants ot help 18:27:12 gholms: yeah 18:27:13 that. 18:27:17 #info Problem: Too much focus on desktop, to the degree of excuding other obvious target use cases 18:27:25 #info Problem: We don't have relationships with other major downstream users of Fedora (aside from OLPC and RHEL) 18:27:25 * rbergeron sighs 18:27:30 #info Problem: Fedora is perceived as RH-owned/dominated, perhaps causes division in community 18:28:00 * jreznik speaks for himself but would not be against splitting out fedora to own foundation - could help both rh and fedora (if made correctly) - see other community project, where red hat took a lead role 18:28:20 I'd like to take that short list, post it as a blog/mail, and see if others elaborate with ohter suggestions. 18:28:25 * inode0 thinks division in the community is really a separate question 18:28:36 rbergeron: +1, reasonable start 18:28:48 Uh - so we'd split out and then Red Hat would... join and be the #1 contributor? 18:29:05 (Until IBM came and steamrolled them? heh) 18:29:12 Okay, Going to move to second question: 18:29:14 it just muddies waters that will be difficult enough to navigate without that 18:29:21 rbergeron: sounds like what the openstack foundation did 18:29:22 let's stick with problems, and avoid "solutins" for now. that's a whole different conversation (isn't it?) 18:29:32 #action rbergeron to put that list of problems in a blog/mail and ask for other suggestions 18:29:33 yep 18:29:55 #topic Discussion question: What do we think our existing user base looks like, or attracts them to fedora? 18:30:04 Heck, what attracts *you* to fedora 18:30:16 RHEL :) 18:30:24 ARM 18:30:30 wait... no! 18:30:34 :-P 18:30:42 rbergeron: i hit my hard stop -- i'm off to the land of attorneys 18:30:44 It acts like RHEL, but with better hardware support (laptops, ARM) 18:30:44 I mean, we have a user base definition, but I mean what do the *actual* users... come here for 18:30:51 rackerhacker: ack. see you next week? 18:30:58 contributing, making spins, attracting/mentoring other contributors 18:31:02 definitely, sorry for cutting out early 18:31:06 rackerhacker: my sympathies 18:31:11 Enjoy, rackerhacker :( 18:31:15 Freedom 18:31:17 Largely the philosophy is what made me stay - it has nothing to do with desktops or servers 18:31:23 rackerhacker: I will be pestering you about those xen users 18:31:31 #info attracted to philosophy 18:31:39 free and open culture (not only free/open software) 18:31:47 inode0: around free software or around ability to recreate or ? 18:32:03 #info specifically free and open culture, not just free/open software 18:32:10 #info contributing, making spins, attracting/mentoring other contributors 18:32:20 * rdieter missed the forest for the trees, jreznik/inode +1, indeed 18:32:41 Do we think we are largely packagers? Sysadmins? Developers? 18:32:55 philosophy around free software that largely is consistent with my philosophy about the rest of life 18:32:56 split a lot 18:33:00 I guess user base is definitely not packagers (though perhaps for their own environments) 18:33:44 who said RHEL earlier? lol 18:33:51 * inode0 waves 18:34:16 Fedora clearly matters to a lot of RHEL users 18:34:26 I know a lot of users that are developers for other environments (Firefox OS) that use Fedora because it fits their devel needs nicely 18:34:41 fedora users/contributors are all of the personas on http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Join (way more than just packagers), but not sure if that is too broad for our purposes here 18:34:45 inode0: I'm not sure, otherwise we would see more contribution from people who cares about RHEL 18:35:05 I think we certainly get a lot of usage from RHEL users 18:35:17 perhaps we're not telling the story well enough for them to understand why to contribute 18:35:25 jreznik: not necessarily, they are busy people too - but they do want a glimpse at their future and they get that from Fedora 18:35:32 rbergeron: +1 18:35:42 but the fact that EPEL is 2-3x the recipient of yum connections on a daily bsais 18:35:50 when it was equal only a few years ago 18:35:52 we need to embrace it 18:35:56 rbergeron: we got but less contribution and you know - Fedora is easiest way how to steer what's in RHEL - we should attract these people too... these should be valuable contributors 18:36:20 let me be frank: We dont tell the story *at all* 18:36:22 rdieter: yes and today, nobody cares about epel 18:36:24 We say we are the upstream for RHEL 18:36:30 and that is about it. 18:36:42 #info EPEL has 2-3x the machines using it than Fedora. They were equal a few years ago. 18:36:46 it's worse, and we go out of our way to say "we are not rhel beta" 18:36:47 rbergeron: and I think, we should try to tell that story 18:36:55 We dont do outreach around that, or around EPEL, or anything else. 18:37:00 which is a sad spin to take 18:37:01 jreznik: i agree 18:37:20 "the ciiiiircle of life" 18:37:20 fear of being tied to Red Hat has also limited us 18:37:22 From being on site dealing with RHEL customers on a daily basis I know a lot of customers use EPEL constantly but don't understand where it actually comes from and how to get involved. It's a discussion I have with EL users on a weekly basis 18:37:51 pbrobinson: do they find it amazingly useful or just "it's a tool and i use it" ? 18:38:13 #info We have lots of EPEL users, disconnections on how to contribute, why to contribute to Fedora. 18:38:39 pbrobinson: great to have such feedback! 18:38:41 rbergeron: amazingly useful, it's amazing the number of customers that deploy packages from it on all their servers by default 18:38:57 they even sync it in their satellite platforms 18:39:00 many admins will find EPEL helpful, I don't see any connection there really between them being special candidates for becoming a new contributor 18:39:29 and I've even sponsored a couple of users for packaging so they can package up things for Fedora/EPEL that they use 18:39:51 that is one good angle for pulling people in though 18:39:52 I think they might be slightly more likely than $anyperson 18:40:16 inode0: I think if they understood more where it comes from there would be more contributors. Maybe not a lot but at least they understand the community 18:40:38 some didn't even know they could reports bugs in RHBZ against those packages if they were having issues 18:40:45 okay, other points of interest here? 18:40:48 or search BZ to see if others were having issues 18:41:04 Developer users? Any preferences in this group? 18:41:05 wanting to be part of an organization goes deeper than finding what the organization produces useful 18:41:27 they like everyone else needs a reason to care about Fedora as a project 18:41:38 inode0: yes, I think thre's eventually a point where you have to offer more than usefulness - sense of belonging, a passionate call to action 18:41:47 yes 18:42:15 and, having in interest in help steer the direction of stuff you use 18:42:22 an interest in... 18:42:49 * gholms joined to share a package he had built for himself with the world 18:42:58 :) 18:42:59 that might motivate someone to dump a package in EPEL, but when they change jobs and don't use RHEL what happens to them? 18:43:41 I think I like the flow in the other direction - from Fedora to work :) 18:43:43 life happens sometimes 18:43:49 rbergeron: that's the problem - say developers and it's like saying sport fans 18:44:25 inode0: that's no different to Fedora either, there's 100s of unmaintained or not well maintained packages 18:44:29 yes, life happens, and for a lot of contributors changing jobs is only a momentary disruption to their continuing Fedora contribution 18:45:04 yes, that's why i'm seeing if there are preferences in this group - are we mostly C folks, java folks, ruby folks, application developers, web developers, OS developers, ?? 18:45:29 At the end of the day if we want contributors who stay engaged with Fedora we need to give them something more than EPEL - all I'm trying to say 18:45:51 I don't think you can categorise it by language there's a lot of all of the above 18:46:03 (as far as the portion of fedora folks who use it for that purpose) 18:46:10 pbrobinson: fair enough - I'm just poking the tires here :) 18:46:23 * Sparks returns 18:46:51 Do we as a group tend to fit the "freedom, friends, features, first" set of values pretty well? 18:47:08 I guess I"m diving too far into contributors here 18:47:38 it is hard for a group of 10 people to answer for a group of more than 1000 people :) 18:47:43 I still think the four Fs fit very well as a base overview 18:47:46 I hope it's more than 1000 :) 18:47:52 for users 18:48:05 if not we have some serious statistics-capturing issues 18:48:17 * jreznik thinks we are all selfish - we create an os for us :) open source is (or was?) about it 18:48:28 I think we could do better at times but the 4Fs are largely believed in by contributors I know 18:48:30 scratching your own itch :) 18:49:45 okay - next question? I was thinking maybe having a lis tof what we think are use cases might be helpful. Like, as it is used *now* 18:49:54 even including peter's bus stop signs and the whole nine yards 18:50:22 thoughts? 18:50:26 Sort of the who/what/where thing. 18:50:28 why. 18:50:29 :) 18:51:21 Silence? 18:51:22 Lag? 18:51:55 silence 18:52:09 * gholms ponders 18:52:13 thinking... can you hear the grinding gears? 18:52:15 well, I do not understand the qestion I think 18:52:40 #topic use Cases (for the heck of it) 18:52:42 Okay: 18:52:44 yeah, I think I understand the question but I don't really know where this list is supposed to take us 18:52:44 So: 18:52:56 Are we coming up with use cases to figure out what our user base is? 18:53:07 inode0: to the end of the meeting? :) We can scratch it. 18:53:09 What are we trying to solve with such a list? 18:53:12 it seemed reasonable for a moment. 18:53:15 Heh 18:53:16 gholms: exactly. 18:53:45 so we want to have "current" use cas,e or prospective use case ? 18:53:48 Okay, so I think we have two lists to share out there. 18:54:02 * inode0 thinks our user base should be those who use the shit our contributor base produces to be blunt 18:54:39 I don't know who they are now, I don't presume to know who they should be tomorrow. 18:55:28 * gholms nods 18:55:44 To be frank, if we want a list of use cases we should be asking people, "How do you use Fedora?" 18:55:48 I think it was mostly around "what all we're producing today and how people currently use it" 18:55:49 We talked about that last week. 18:55:52 yep. 18:55:56 * rbergeron looks around for herlo 18:56:06 * gholms needs to depart in 4 minutes 18:56:07 gholms: do you want to be blog master? 18:56:16 gholms: a lot of us do 18:56:20 #topic Wrap-up 18:56:21 I don't even know what that means. :) 18:56:41 gholms: would ou like to solicit answers to that question in a public fashion? :) 18:57:05 If I wasn't swamped with work I'd happily volunteer, but I don't want to run the risk of dropping the ball on something that important. 18:57:24 would like to through out some (hopefully) obvious use-cases: spins, dirivative distros (rhel) 18:57:24 #action rbergeron to consolidate and put notes on wiki, think about action plan for next week / in-between 18:58:01 #info hopefully obvious use-cases: spins, derivative distributions (RHEL) 18:58:28 anyone want ot start hte "how do you GSD with Fedora?" :) 18:58:43 thread or blog post or twitter dialogue or ... take an ad out in the paper 18:58:58 (gsd = get siht done) 18:59:00 it seems we are all on the same page but we don't know what to do with it :) 18:59:00 aka use 18:59:09 * rbergeron thinks we may be suffering from lag 18:59:32 okay, I'll beep on-list. Time to go to release readiness meeting 18:59:49 MOAR MEETINGS 18:59:51 time flies when you're having fun 18:59:53 Thanks for coming guys. 18:59:57 I'll do that if I can. Just don't rely on my being the *only* person do to it. 19:00:01 rbergeron: enjoy! 19:00:02 rdieter: I need foooooood so bad 19:00:06 Sorry, everyone. :( 19:00:20 gholms: no worries. Things ebb and flow :) 19:00:20 rbergeron: me too, I'm about to go scavenging 19:00:23 #endmeeting