Fedora Board Proposes Project Goals

Fedora Board members have been working for quite some time to etch their vision and long-term goals for the Fedora project in stone. A Vision statement came together last year, but more specific goals were still desired. Well, after a lot of discussion some long-term goals have been proposed.

Fedora's vision statement helps guide the project in a general direction toward the future, but long-term goals will actually direct ideas and actions in order to achieve their vision. Their vision is:

The Fedora Project creates a world where

* free culture is welcoming and widespread,
* collaboration is commonplace, and
* people control their content and devices.

Once that was in place, Fedora still needed a strategy. Over the course of several months, discussions and meetings produced a list of 15 possible long-term goals. Some of these are:

1. Improve and simplify collaboration in the Fedora Community - improve governance structure so responsibilities are more transparent and easier to distinguish. Make Fedora fun.

2. Improve and encourage high-quality communication in the Fedora Community - Make mailing lists more friendly and attractive. Teach collaborators how to effectively run meetings.

3. It is extraordinarily easy to join the Fedora community and quickly find a project to work on - Provide mentors, help users become contributors, and make Ambassadors first point of contact for new and prospective contributors.

4. Recruiting new / less-common skill sets into the project - by perhaps reaching out with bounties (or incentives).

5. Get more involved with upstream / sidestream FLOSS Communities - encourage new features to send upstream.

6. Expand global presence of Fedora among users & contributors - more conventions and activity days.

7. Sharing responsibilities - so that no essential knowledge is lost if a person disappears.

The full list has been sent in to managing committees for approval and feedback. The Board is also interested in user feedback. Interested parties can comment at the posting or mailing list. If the Steering Committees approve, community input will help form the final set of goals.