Re: On Ownership
In response to Mairin Duffy, whom, by the way, I respect very much, and I think deserves your respect as well.
Mo does an awesome job engaging an audience in Free Software that would have otherwise be left to their own fate wading through a hell for the rest of their lives, an audience that would never have been moved by us mortals focused on the technical side of things. I can't wait to hear of the results on SXSW, honestly. Note I know I'm leaving out an awful lot appreciation for other work she's done [for all of us] over many, many years of passionate engagement in what you probably care just as passionately about, as does the rest of us.
That said, however, on the subject of ownership... yes indeed we do make it. That doesn't say anything about the ownership though. I think every single one of us community members have given the Fedora brand the value it has today. Though I'm doubtful it requires the level of, or means through which it is getting such, protection to date, I do realize how something as valuable to so many of us must have someone be the owner in order to protect it.
However, history shows us that the people giving something value, and as such own that something, are not necessarily the ones deciding what to do with it. This, I think, is the underlying thought behind the recent protests - not whether we make it, but to what extent we actually own what we make.
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The point behind my blog
Thanks for the nice comments.
I just wanted to point out - and I know I left it vague because I was so angry when I posted it that I didn't want to say more than I felt I should - I posted that blog post because I was not upset at why or what about people were 'protesting' against - but HOW they were protesting it. Just because there is some issue that needs attention drawn to it doesn't justify the disgusting manner in which attention was sought for it. Ripping at the girls' outreach program I and several other women in free software put together and ran was really the worst possible way to go about protesting anything in Fedora. That everyone in Fedora makes Fedora is not necessarily a good thing, because sadly the manner in which some people chose to 'make it' has embarrassed and ashamed me for having associated my outreach program with Fedora at all and may have other negative consequences that will negatively effect our ability to conduct similar outreach programs in association with Fedora in the future.
That the negative behavior was not admonished or even vaguely acknowledged by any Fedora contributors as being an activity that should stop makes it far worse. Do folks in Fedora really think Girl Scouts don't have any right to enjoy the benefits of free software? I'm still hoping that they don't, but certainly nobody has acted in a manner that would support my perhaps foolish hope.
From my perspective, this 'protest'/'campaign' has caused nothing but problems and trouble for me - undeservedly, since I don't think I did anything to cause the actual issues people are concerned about bringing attention to. My having to deal with the consequences of the sensational elements of the protest has left me, a Fedora board member, without any time or energy to deal with the core issues that need dealing with. If folks want to make Fedora and affect change, certainly tearing down others' efforts is NOT the way to go about doing it.
You're right, and they're wrong
I think the concerns raised -in a miserable way, admittedly, and I may very well have been part of all that misery- apply more to and are caused by what seems to be a shift in focus the Fedora Project is experiencing, as well as a change in culture (e.g. from bottom-up meritocracy to top-down democracy). It's regrettable the outreach program ("girl scouts") has been used as what I think is more of an outlet -however misappropriate- then it is a just target in and by itself. In my opinion, noted that I too fire off bolts of lightning in seemingly random directions every once in a while, we should applaud such initiatives.
On a similar yet different stream, it seems many have the feeling they can't "make it" to what they want it to be any longer -myself included. Where sometimes an initiative like yours becomes the subject of ridicule, other initiatives are burned down to the ground as well, though perhaps pre-maturely, and in a different fashion. I suppose many people have gotten tired fighting for what they care about, whether that passion merely extends to the wellfare of the Fedora Project or includes the health and adoption of Free Software and/or Free Culture as a whole. I even think the fact the words "tired" and "fighting" being not all too misappropriately used in this context expresses exactly how the current protests are completely justified.
That said, pointing the proverbial finger-of-doom or targetting one or the other specific initiative in a deminishing, offensive, degrading way of course doesn't get us out of this ditch. So long as it is unclear what will get us out of the ditch we apparently find ourselves in, however, I'm afraid shit like this will continue to beat the crap out of some of our most valuable contributors.