2015-11-18 20:57 GMT+01:00 Josh Boyer <jwboyer@fedoraproject.org>:
On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 11:05 AM, Robert Mayr
<robyduck@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> 2015-11-18 16:26 GMT+01:00 Jan Kurik <jkurik@redhat.com>:
>>
>> Hi Council and Ambassadors,
>>
>> I was pointed by several people to the fact that FAmSCo is (or should
>> be) an inactive committee and I was questioned why we are organizing
>> elections for this committee.
>>
>> As I understand the situation, there is an aim to replace FAmSCo by
>> FOSCo & Council. However the current FAmSCo is securing some "level of
>> service" for Ambassadors, which is not yet covered by any other
>> group/team/governance body within the Fedora community. As such, I was
>> explicitly ask by Ambassadors to organize the elections for FAmSCo
>> team as well, to make sure FAmSCo will operate till the time we have a
>> full replacement for it.
>>
>> However, it seems like we do not have a full agreement on this topic
>> [1]. I would like to have a discussion here, to come up with a common
>> agreement whether we support the idea of having FAmSCo operational for
>> now or we have other solution.
>>
>> [1]
>> https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-2/2015-11-17/fedora-meeting-2.2015-11-17-17.03.log.html
>> - 17:23:27
> Thank you Jan for this open discussion, I'm adding here some more
> informations.
> First of all FAmSCo is not dead and never has been officially dismissed, but
> FAmSCo decided months ago to hand all its repsonibilities over to FOSCo,
> which was planned as an even bigger committee, and which should have
> included also the Ambassador's activities. Therefor we reduced the activity
> and after some meetings without reaching a quorum FAmSCo decided to act only
> through the Trac until new elections would happen or FOSCo will start its
> activity.
> Many thing happened in the meanwhile and we are going towards a new and
> hopefully better budgeting process (thanks to all who worked on it and who
> are discussing it), but as you said this is not the only responsibility
> FAmSCo actually has. Unfortunately FAmSCo missed some of its deadlines,
> there is for example the EMEA FAD planning, release parties, F23 media and
> other stuff (which in the end happened partially but not in a coordinated
> way as before).
>
> That's why I would welcome, unless we will not reach the minimum number of 7
> candidates, new elections. These new memebers could give continuity to
> FAmSCo's activities and the big ambassadors group, on the other hand they
> could actively help the integration of the actual FAmSCo responsibilities
> into the Council, FOSCo or whatever.
> Canceling the Ambassadors Steering Committee without replacing *all* its
> activities is not the best way if we don't want to loose some parts of the
> community, so IMO let's do elections and find the best solution to pass over
> all the stuff and try to represent _all_ regions in the body who will take
> over in the future the FAmSCo job.

Forgive me, but I have not followed the ambassador side of things for
a while.  If FAmSCo isn't actually meeting (per the IRC conversation)
and isn't technically a thing any longer, what is the elected body to
do?  Start meeting again?

Not only starting with meetings again, but with the whole FAmSCo activity.
 

I do not disagree with you at all that we need people performing the
tasks you highlight, but I'm not sure having an elected body to do
them is necessary.  Once they are elected, are we to restart FAmSCo,
or would they only serve until FOSCo actually exists?  Perhaps
volunteers would be better than elected members of a zombie
organization?

josh


Well, in my opinion there is no alternative body we have actually to perform the tasks FAmSCo was doing since now.
Ambassadors are used to have their Steering Committee, and regions, although they took many responsibilities, are still relying on FAmSCo inputs and guidelines.
I'm not saying we absolutely need FAmSCo and the rest is nonsense, I was and still am convinced FOSCo would be much better; it would have a larger contributor base, it would reach out more people and we probably would get more new contributors, just because we involve more teams. So, your question is exactly pointing to the core of the topic, but actually we have only one answer (my personal opinion): we need to give continuity to all the activities FAmSCo did, it's not important how long the elected body will serve, if for two full release cycles or not. It' much more important to work together with those people to make FOSCo happen soon, or if it has become an outdated project, then help the Council to be able to take over the tasks.
Actually Council has prevalent NA members, no one from LATAM, no one from APAC, I don't think this is an ideal composition when speaking about ambassador's activities. I'm not saying Council's composition is wrong, the Council has a very good composition for the tasks it is working on, but that's one of the points FAmSCo worked on when we decided to hand all the tasks over to the upcoming FOSCo. Sorry, I'm not able right now to link you to the discussion with the proposals, but we agreed having 7 members, 4 nominated (one per region) and 3 elected, because we wanted to cover the whole Fedora world.
Oh, and I wouldn't call FAmSCo a zombie organization, we spent much time to make all the things happen in the last years and so I think new people would do, even if they know they are going to hand over all the stuff to another body.
Your concept with volunteers sounds good, but is not doable IMHO. People running for FAmSCo normally are all volunteers, and giving them an official role in a Fedora body creates much more motivation than just asking them to work as volunteers.

--
Robert Mayr
(robyduck)