[IAEP] Funding

[Greg Dekoenigsberg]

On Tue, 27 May 2008, David Farning wrote:

>> The types of things that need to be worked on (by someone) include
>> support for different distributions (and operating systems?), hardware
>> platforms, localization, maintenance of existing activities, support
>> for new activities, QA, documentation, evaluation, storytelling, etc.
>> Some of these things require bootstrapping; some may require dedicated
>> resources.
>
> We need to grow the community!  All of these things can be done by
> community members. A good community is like a good financial investment,
> once the initial made they grow by themselves.
>
> Redhat, encountered one of the most dangerous pitfalls when launching
> Fedora.  Redhat created, or at least allowed, the perception that
> decisions were being make in house and the community was just there to
> save on labor costs.  This is a very easy trap to fall into.  I can be
> as innocently talking in the hallway and coming to an agreement.  Thus,
> it can appear to the community that decisions are made in secret.  Once
> Redhat created the culture on the fedora side of the house, that even
> decision among friends should happen in public.  The community started
> to flourish.
>
> Ubuntu seemed to figure this out early.  I believe that is why all paid
> developers at Ubuntu telecommute.  All decisions are made on mailing
> lists of public IRC.  As a result Ubuntu has one of the most loyal
> communities around.

A +1 to this.  Hallway conversations kill, and the key Red Hat members of 
the Fedora community all telecommute for this exact reason.  The biggest 
problem at 1CC, from my perspective, was the inability to internalize this 
reality.

But it's important to have a strong core of *permanent, volunteer-minded 
staff* who can lead key efforts in a community way.  Wade was exactly 
right on this point.

--g