[fedora-india] [Post Event Report] Fedora 24 Release Party Bangalore

From: "Lalatendu Mohanty" <lmohanty(a)redhat.com&gt; To: india(a)lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Monday, July 4, 2016 12:05:34 PM Subject: [fedora-india] Re: [Call for Action] Fedora 24 Release party BLR - RSVP required On 06/29/2016 01:59 PM, sankarshan wrote: > On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 1:46 PM, Ratnadeep Debnath <rtnpro(a)gmail.com&gt; > wrote: >> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 7:12 PM, sankarshan <foss.mailinglists(a)gmail.com&gt; >> wrote: >>> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 7:03 PM, Ratnadeep Debnath <rtnpro(a)gmail.com&gt; >>> wrote: >>>> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 6:19 PM, Kushal Das <kushaldas(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: >>>>> On 28/06/16, Sumantro Mukherjee wrote: >>>>>> I am delighted to announce the Fedora 24 release party which is >>>>>> happening in Red Hat,Bangalore office on Sunday 3rd of July from >>>>>> 11:00am to 2:00pm. Needless to mention that's open to all and we will >>>>>> be discussing about some of the new features and the goodness which >>>>>> you can expect from Fedora 24. We will also talk about how you can >>>>>> participate in making Fedora better by contributing to different >>>>>> projects. We would like to know the amount of people who are willing >>>>>> to come up and hence giving us a reply to this email with RSPV might >>>>>> help us anticipate the number of attendees. >>>>> Just wondering if you have talked with the local ambassadors first, who >>>>> organize regular Fedora Bangalore events? I can not see any planning >>>>> discussion, just a direct announcement. >>> I'm not sure if a conversation with me counts. In continuance of the >>> small bits of work Sumantro is putting together, I had requested him >>> to check if there is a possibility of putting together a small party >>> to celebrate the release of Fedora 24 as well as share the experiences >>> of all those who have been taking the small first steps in >>> participating within the Test team. >> In that way, we should be having multiple small small release parties: >> Fedora QA, Fedora Infra, Fedora Cloud, Fedora Docs, etc. and what not. >> I am not sure if it's best to have community events in such a segregated >> fashion. >> > Actually that's not a bad idea at all. The nature of a large/broad > based event often obfuscates the fact that there the project itself is > made up of smaller collectives. > > A "community" (and we have used that word in abundance in this > conversation) is really a group of individuals who have a form of > shared interests and goals. So, if a group of individuals who have > taken a few first steps in learning how to make their first > contributions to a Fedora (sub)project decide it would be nice to > celebrate a release they were participating in - what is the exact > nature of the concern that we are trying to discuss? > >>> You'll notice that the agenda is very barebones - that is a request I >>> had put forward. Instead of attempting to cover a lot of ground, often >>> unfamiliar, focusing on sharing of experiences and learning. >>> >>>> There were no discussions or planning about this event with Fedora >>>> Ambassadors from Bangalore: me and Aditya, AFAIK. All of a sudden, you >>>> see an announcement for the event. It's good that some one wants to do >>>> a Fedora Release Party, but, a planning without involving the local >>>> community members and contributors is not proper. >>>> >>> I agree. There's nothing which states there has to be only one release >>> party at a city. The Ambassadors, who have been long-term participants >>> and highly visible are exceptionally adept at pulling together a >>> larger event of greater depth. >> If we once start doing things like this, individually, without proper >> involvement of and discussions with the community, this will encourage >> any other guy in the future to conduct his own Fedora event at his/her >> whim, which might be misleading from a community point of view. We had >> similar experiences in the past where people had even said things like >> “Fedora is owned by Red Hat”. We’re just cautious that we don’t end up >> communicating any such wrong notions in the future. >> > I am going to re-hash what I mentioned at the Pune FUDCon - we do need > to get off this notion of only the blessed can organize Fedora events. > The centralized model failed us at the very point we lacked ownership. > Trying a de-centralized approach could be a good step forward. I do not see asking existing Fedora contributors if they are interested to co-organize a Fedora event is a centralized model. I dislike events likes this where the original organizer never asks existing organizers or contributors. IMO It is discouraging for people like me. Also giving participants less than one week to respond is a bad idea. This is the first release party in Bangalore I have missed in last couple of years because of this. > > Let's cut to the chase - what is the worst that can happen? We'll have > a boat load of events which are springing up everywhere? What's the > downside in that when contrasted with the fact that we haven't been > having regular meetups both for Fedora and participating across other > exciting communities (eg. k8s, adb etc)? > >> My understanding of community is more of collaboration and doing >> things together, rather than doing things individually. There is >> nothing wrong in doing an internal only event in Red Hat office, but >> it should not have been pushed to the India list as a Fedora 24 >> release party in Bangalore (while cc'ing internal mailing list). > I think you are mixing up your knowledge of what comes to you as part > of your day job and what has been publicly posted. And I'd like to > understand why you think this call-for-action is not "doing things > together".