On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 5:54 PM Gary Buhrmaster <gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 8:58 PM Justin W. Flory (he/him) <jwf@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> The elections are now scheduled to start on Monday, 29 May and end on Sunday, 11 June. Documentation and schedules are being updated.
>
> On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 6:55 AM Josh Boyer <jwboyer@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, May 24, 2023 at 9:34 PM Gary Buhrmaster
>> <gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > I do understand why RedHat itself will not announce
>> > who got laid off, but the Council members should have
>> > been informed (I hope!) at the time, and should have
>> > worked on an announcement to the community, even
>> > if all they could say was "stay tuned, we are working
>> > it out".
>>
>> The Council members were not informed in advance.  They found out
>> about the layoffs at the same time the public did, and also found out
>> about Ben's specific role only after he informed others he was
>> impacted.
>
>
> This isn't incorrect but I do want to clarify the timeline because it is what I would have wanted to know as a community member and there are events that may appear to be conflicting in the timeline (e.g. Ben's blog and my LinkedIn recommendation for him). We did have some advance notice before the general public. Ben mentioned the Red Hat reductions were announced in the US on 24 April and that was when we found out. We knew Ben's last day was 12 May. That was as much advance notice that we had.
>
> The week of 24 April was not productive. It was a shocking week for nearly everyone. But we did start transitioning Ben's work before his final day and his blog post, which is why you are seeing incredibly helpful Fedorans who are stepping up right now and picking up the slack in Ben's absence (thank you folks!). There are going to be gaps. Some things will fall through the cracks. But we will get through this. Calling out slippage as Fedora Council tickets is likely the most effective way for (1) problems to be identified and noticed, and (2) for Fedora leadership to take steps at resolving those problems.

And, while I can understand that the days
after April 24th may not have been comfortable,
and taking advantage of access to Ben while
he was still available was a good thing, I do
believe some member of the Council should
have started working on the note to the
Community to be sent on (or about) May 15th
with something of the form that RH's staff
redundancies have resulted in the elimination
of the position of Fedora Program Manager,
and the Council is working through how the
existing roles and responsibilities of the Council
will be revised (downwards?), and redistributed
given the reduction of staffing, and if anyone
sees something getting dropped, create a ticket
(properly wordsmithed by someone with actual
skills in writing words, of course).

I think we all appreciate that everyone is
stepping up and trying their best.  Thank you!

But I will continue to believe that we(*) should
not have had to find out about the changes
when the elections did not happen, which was
the point of my request that this be taken as
a learning opportunity about better
communications for the next time (which
may have nothing to do with future
redundancies, as people can leave, or have
life emergencies, and those can impact
ongoing activities).

Thank you for your consideration.



(*) I was aware of it personally because
it was posted elsewhere, but clearly a lot
of people seemed to have been surprised.
I do not believe that should happen.


I agree that it should not have happened this way.

--
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