We have a schedule for the election of the two at-large members for the
Fedora Council. Any Fedora contributor is eligible to run, and all are
eligible to vote. Two seats are currently open. (See the charter at
<https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Council> for details of the new Council
structure.)
These positions are of strategic importance, with a full voice in the
Council's consensus process. The primary function of the Council is to
identify community goals and to organize and enable the project to
achieve them. (See my Fedora Magazine article on planning at
<http://fedoramagazine.org/lets-talk-about-fedora-project-objectives/>.)
These elected positions are an important avenue for direct community
input into this process, and the selection of good representatives is
essential.
The Council will be an active leadership body and all members will have
significant impact, and are expected to participate actively — to keep
up with current community issues, communicate regularly, and be able to
respond within a reasonable timeframe. We recognize that this level of
commitment is difficult for many community members with full-time jobs
not directly related to Fedora, and the intent is not to exclude those
contributors. At the same time, these positions will require a
meaningful commitment of time and responsiveness. If your other
obligations make this impossible, please consider suggesting candidacy
to other community members who you feel would be able to bring your
voice to the table.
Anyway, the schedule:
November 4-10: Nomination period open.
You may self-nominate. If you wish to nominate someone else,
please consult with that person ahead of time. If you know
someone who would be a good candidate, now is a great time
to make sure they're thinking about it.
November 11-17: "Campaign" period.
Candidates are highly encouraged to make blog, mailing
lists, and social media posts about their plans. We will
also conduct an e-mail-based interview with each candidate,
with all answers published on Fedora Magazine simultaneously
on the 17th.
We will not be holding IRC town halls this time around.
November 18-25: Voting open.
Voting will close at 00:00 UTC on the 26th. Run
date -d '2014-11-26 00:00 UTC'
to see the deadline in your timezone, if you are planning on
cutting things close.
November 26th: Results announcement and new Council will be in effect.
Details are available at <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Elections>,
and there will be a further announcement when the nomination period
opens.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
Hello everyone! Very shortly, the Fedora Council will replace the
Fedora Project Board as Fedora’s top-level leadership and governance
body, with the particular aim of having more engaged and effective
whole-project coordination and planning.
A friend recently reminded me that the word “governance” is a great way
to make everyone’s eyes glaze over, and that “leadership” can be kind
of vague and empty-sounding. I can’t promise that there won’t be some
boring stuff (“With great power, comes… administration!”), but the
governance part means an opportunity to help decide where Fedora’s
project-level resources are used, and the leadership part means that
we’ll work with the community to identify specific important objectives
— and then empower community leaders to achieve each one.
The council structure <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Council> includes
meritocratic representative positions appointed by long-standed Fedora
bodies. The Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) and Fedora
Ambassadors Steering Committee (FAmSCo) are working on selecting those
right now.
Additionally, after those appointments are made, we will hold elections
for two “at-large” representative seats. Any Fedora contributor is
eligible to run, and all are eligible to vote. Because the new Council
will be consensus-based rather than each seat being one vote out of
ten, each of these positions carries a lot of weight. Fedora is an
amazing collaborative community, and I’d like to ask all active members
to think about what you might be able to bring to such a role, and
about who you want to represent you.
(As we get closer, we’ll post a full election schedule and more
details. No action needs to be taken yet, although if you’re involved
in either the engineering or outreach aspects of the project, do please
help contribute to FESCo and FAmSCo’s selection of those
representatives.)
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
The Fedora Board has unanimously approved[1] the new governance
proposal[2] with all nine Board members voting in support. The Board
would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this process over
the many months it has been under consideration. A lot of work went
into crafting this proposal and in the spirit of the new Council we
worked hard to reach a consensus.
The current Board will continue to perform its duties while it
oversees an orderly transition. The Board will work with FESCo and
FAmSCo to determine the Engineering and Outreach representatives for
the new Council and will hold elections in the near future to
determine the initial two Elected representatives. Once those four
Council members are determined they will join the Fedora Project
Leader and the Fedora Program Manager to form the initial Council. At
that point the Council will take over the governance and leadership
responsibilities for the Fedora Project.
Red Hat will fill the Fedora Community Action and Impact Coordinator
position at some point in the future and the Council will fill the
rest of the positions within the Council as part of its duty.
I'd like to also thank the current and former members of the Fedora
Board for all their service to the Fedora community over the years.
And I'd like to wish the new Fedora Council all the best. You have an
exciting opportunity. Seize it and make the most of it.
John
[1] https://fedorahosted.org/board/ticket/13
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MatthewMiller/council-draft
