On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Mike McGrath <mmcgrath(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote: Um, yeah.....I'm going to have to go ahead and sort of...disagree with you there. Yeeeaahhhh :)

I haven't sent this yet as I'd rather get other people's thoughts too, and I'm sure some are able to be far more accurate than I am! best wishes Jon ------------------------ I just read this article and was disappointed to discover that you seem to have severely mis-represented the Fedora Project. If I can take a few moments of your time, I'd like to advise you of the specific points in the story where you've been mistaken, and also to invite you to start a dialogue with the Fedora Project by contacting us on press AT fedoraproject DOT org to avoid making the same in the future. "...Red Hat has a preview of an upcoming Fedora Development release, Version 9..." Firstly, Fedora is not a Red Hat product but a community maintained distribution of which the majority of packages (over 60%) are maintained by non-Red Hat employees. Secondly, Fedora is not a development release in anyway, but a stable system that showcases the latest free and open source software. It's true to say, on the other hand, that Fedora is an innovative distribution that leads the way in the adoption and development of a lot of new technologies, feeding back all improvements and changes we make up-stream for the benefit of all. "Fedora 8 is the currently available development release, which got underway in April 2007 and which was launched last November. A lot of the code that was hammered out in that Fedora 8 development release is winding its way toward Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2" Again, any final release of Fedora such as version 8 is not a development release. A lot of the code from that release is making it's way into RHEL 5.2, but you know what else, it's making it's way into all other GNU/Linux distributions too including Ubuntu, Debian and openSUSE. This is because we push our developments to the upstream communities, which other distributions then base their own work around. "Remember, the Fedora 9 preview is just that--a preview--and is not even to be considered beta code yet and hence is not appropriate for anything close to production environments." I feel like I'm repeating myself, but Fedora 9 will not be a development release, and you're mis-representing the facts by suggesting that the preview release is not even to be considered beta software. The preview release is very close to what the final release will be, and is where a huge number of bugs will be squashed to make sure that the final release is on a par in terms of stability as well as features with any other distribution.

Nicely worded. -- Regards, Susmit. ============================================= ssh 0x86DD170A http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/SusmitShannigrahi =============================================

I agree with Rahul -- we need to frame this in a more positive tone. I think scheduling a phone call with Paul and the journalist would be a more effective vehicle. We could clear up any incorrect details and continue to build a good relationship with this journalist....all leading to positive (and accurate) coverage of Fedora in the future. I'm offering up my help in scheduling this call. -Kara Rahul Sundaram wrote: -- Kara Schiltz Corporate Communications Red Hat, Inc. office: 919.301.3002 cell: 919.924.8557 RH extension 43002

Points taken all, and I'll bear it in mind for the future! It's for learning like this that I didn't just send it without checking first :) I think the best solution I've seen so far was Kara's to have a phone call with him, but I'm happy to re-write too - though I'm busy for the next few hours with a potentially long game of Risk!! Best wishes, and as always, thanks for the advice and feedback :) Jon

On Tue, 29 Apr 2008, Jonathan Roberts wrote: My big fear here: I don't want people to interpret this as "only *official* people can speak about Fedora," which is pretty much the exact opposite of what this list is about. Personally, I would like to see Jon rework his message and take point on this. Learn the lesson, apply the lesson. --g -- Greg DeKoenigsberg Community Development Manager Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255 "To whomsoever much hath been given... ...from him much shall be asked"

2008/4/30 Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta(a)gmail.com&gt;: What about graphs charting growth? I know we don't have loads of accurate information on this, but I heard talk a while back about being able to go back through the account info and find information about when people signed up...maybe something based around number of active contributors would be good? Best wishes, Jon

On Tue, 2008-04-29 at 13:19 -0400, Max Spevack wrote: Well, if there's ever been a door held for me to walk through, that's got to be it. :-) It is *absolutely vital* that all of us on the Fedora Marketing team be on the same page for how to deal with journalists and other media people. Presenting a consistent, positive, and thoughtful message about Fedora is our Number One priority on this team and on this list. A lot of the message points are already documented on our wiki so there's no need to rehash them here. Journalists are busy people, just like you and me, and occasionally they make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes go uncorrected and become embedded in the journalist's mind. It's up to us to correct them helpfully, with a gentle touch, and to leave the door open for future interaction with them. A single negative interaction can sometimes close a media door to us for good (or at least for a long time), but consistent, positive interactions make it likely that journalists will return to us for good stories. *WE* have the ability to make all the difference. (By the way, if you're even the *least bit* geeky, go read this now: http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html . Now assume in any future interaction with journalists that *only you* have read this, and it's up to you to work with that person's tact filter.) The #1 guideline that will make everything else below just icing on the cake: *GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO BE NICE.* It's *especially* important to be concise, careful, and polite if you are talking with a person whose native language is different than yours. Cultural norms differ and you want to make sure that (1) your message is understood, (2) the other person understands it, and (3) that person goes away feeling that the interaction was helpful and friendly. Again, *GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO BE NICE.* This may be the 14,267th person you've had to talk to about what Fedora is, or why we do things a certain way, but you may be the FIRST AND ONLY Fedora person that individual has ever met. Make it an experience so great that by the time you're done, they'll want to join up themselves. AND their neighbors. ;-) (And if they want to contribute to FOSS, we're happy to have them.) Here are some ideas for how to handle these follow-ups. Please look at these and make comments, since this is certainly a team effort. 1. For any formal press outlets, if you see something wrong, send a boilerplate letter with an offer to provide more information. Either Cc: or Bcc: the fedora-marketing-list and me. I don't want all of our ability to get our message out to block on me, but I also want a shot at spinning these offers into interview opportunities. (Look at it this way -- that's part of my job, so I get to point to these interviews at the end of the year and say "Didn't I do a great job? Huh? *ahem*"... followed by the sound of crickets.) And don't forget, be nice. *** TODO: Draft up the boilerplate. It should be even-toned and helpful and give the journalist a chance to check their facts, which I'd think most of them would really appreciate. Maybe Kara would like to take a shot at doing this on our wiki, at e.g. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/FollowUp 2. For blogs, don't just put in a comment. Trackback from your own blog, and tag or categorize it so it gets carried on the Fedora Planet feed! Wait, you're not on our Planet feed? Well put this message on hold, go read http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet and come back when you're done following those instructions. And don't forget, be nice. (Wait a minute, maybe I said that before...) 3. For broadcast, make a note of the show name, the air date/time, and where you heard it, and send something to the list. Now, I certainly don't mind at all if people just refer these articles to me, because after all, if only one person is speaking, that makes for a potentially very consistent message. But it's not a very scalable model going forward. Rather, I'd like to turn these follow-ups into *opportunities* to speak to media officially. And if, on top of that, our intrepid Marketing team is following up with a consistent, positive message, especially under the tutelage of Leigh, Kara, and some of the other professional marketing people from Red Hat, we are going to find ourselves with a very successful press campaign on our hands. Please write your comments back, I'd love to hear what people think about what I've written above. -- Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

On Tue, 29 Apr 2008, Leigh Cantrell Day wrote: And when she says "take 'em or leave 'em," I'd strongly advise taking them. Having frequently made these kinds of mistakes myself. :) When someone misses the mark this badly, I often have to restrain the urge to "hit 'em in the mouth." Resist that urge. Remember, JonRob: you ARE Fedora. Just like everyone else on this list is. --g -- Greg DeKoenigsberg Community Development Manager Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255 "To whomsoever much hath been given... ...from him much shall be asked"

OK all, firstly, I'd like to say I'm slightly embarrassed - I always like to think that I'm polite and positive in what I say and certainly on this occasion that's not been the case! So, yeah, firstly apologies for what I said previously... like people said, the points were valid but the tone certainly wasn't. Secondly, whether or not this gets used (I'm uncertain of the preferred direction following the comments so far in this thread), here is a re-worked version - as always more comments and feedback is welcome :) ------------- Hi there, I was just sending a quick note to you as I was slightly disappointed when I read your article. Mostly, I just wanted to let you know that the Fedora Project isn't a development release for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but rather a mature and stable distribution in it's own right, which aims to promote the latest and greatest in free and open source software. One of our proudest points as a community of contributors is that we help drive innovation in free and open source software by ensuring all the exciting work we do each release is quickly fed upstream, allowing all to benefit from it. It's because of this that a lot of our code ends up in RHEL, and also in the majority of the major distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian and oepnSUSE. Another point that we take significant pride in is that the majority of the packages that make up the distribution (over 60%) are maintained by non-Red Hat members. Interestingly, it's been recently decided that the governance of Fedora would change from there being a majority of people on the board appointed by Red Hat, to a majority of people being elected by the community. I hope these points might be of interest to you, and would love to invite you to start a dialogue with the project so that in the future we can work together to make your life a little easier :) Feel free to send an e-mail to press AT fedoraproject DOT org anytime, and someone will be more than happy to help. Best wishes, ----------------