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📝 council(ROOT): Clarify FCA fiduciary duty; s/OSPO/OSAIPO/

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The Decision-Making section described the FCA's employment and funding
relationship with Red Hat but never said what that relationship means
when Red Hat's interests and Fedora's interests point in different
directions. This commit makes that explicit and also catches up an
organizational rename.

Red Hat's Open Source Program Office (OSPO) is now the Open Source & AI
Program Office (OSAIPO). This was updated throughout the document. The
opening paragraphs are also rewritten to lead with the financial
relationship rather than mention it in passing: OSAIPO employs the FCA
and allocates the annual Fedora community budget, and stewarding that
allocation well is a key part of the job, not incidentally. The new
"fiduciary" language then draws the consequence directly from that
financial fact: the budget resources belong to Red Hat, but the FCA's
duty in using them runs to the Fedora Project and its community, not to
Red Hat's convenience. This is the distinction that makes it reasonable
for a volunteer-driven community to trust a Red Hat employee with
governance and budget authority over shared resources, and the previous
text implied it without ever stating it outright.

The bulleted list of collaborative decision-making processes below these
paragraphs is unchanged; it remains accurate as written.

Assisted-by: Claude Sonnet 5 (1M context)
Signed-off-by: Justin Wheeler <jwheel@redhat.com>
This commit is contained in:
Justin Wheeler 2026-07-05 04:43:59 -04:00
commit c8c6363325
Signed by: jflory7
GPG key ID: 7748B15FA8FA4C7E
1 changed files with 10 additions and 7 deletions
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17
council/modules/ROOT/pages/fca.adoc
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@ -34,9 +34,9 @@ The Fedora Community Architect has the following key responsibilities:
* Analyze previous fiscal year spending and event impact to inform future budget strategy.
* Lead the annual budget planning process, gathering requirements from the Fedora Council and community stakeholders.
* Develop the annual budget proposal, creating forecasts based on strategic priorities and anticipated event costs.
* Negotiate the final budget with OSPO leadership, aligning community needs with corporate financial realities.
* Negotiate the final budget with OSAIPO leadership, aligning community needs with corporate financial realities.
* Oversee the public processes for event funding requests and other community initiatives throughout the year.
* Maintain accurate accounting of all expenditures, providing regular financial reports to both the Fedora community and OSPO.
* Maintain accurate accounting of all expenditures, providing regular financial reports to both the Fedora community and OSAIPO.
[[roles-flock]]
=== Flock Contributor Conference
@ -74,12 +74,15 @@ You can read more about his participation and history in Fedora https://jwheel.o
[[decision-making]]
== Decision-Making
The Fedora Community Architect (FCA) is a Red Hat employee, and this context is a primary factor in their role.
The FCA has professional goals and responsibilities within Red Hat's Open Source Program Office (OSPO).
This sponsorship by Red Hat is a bias the FCA must remain aware of and transparent about.
The Fedora Community Architect (FCA) is an employee of Red Hat, LLC, and Red Hat is the primary financial sponsor of the Fedora Project.
The FCA has professional goals and responsibilities within Red Hat's Open Source & AI Program Office (OSAIPO), which employs the FCA and allocates the annual Fedora community budget that the FCA stewards.
Stewarding that allocation on the Fedora Project's behalf is a key aspect of the FCA's job.
This sponsorship relationship is a bias the FCA must remain aware of and transparent about.
However, the FCA's primary objective is to ensure the long-term health and success of the Fedora Project and its global community.
This requires acting as a bridge between Red Hat's interests and the broader community's needs, advocating for the community's perspective within Red Hat while communicating Red Hat's context back to the community.
Despite that sponsorship, the FCA is empowered to act as a fiduciary for the Fedora Project: a role of trust in which governance, budget, and stewardship decisions are made in the best interest of the Fedora Project and its global community, not merely in the interest of Red Hat.
This distinction is what makes the role legitimate to a volunteer-driven community — the resources under the FCA's stewardship belong to Red Hat, but their use on Fedora's behalf does not.
In practice, this means acting as a bridge between Red Hat's interests and the broader community's needs: advocating for the community's perspective within Red Hat, and communicating Red Hat's context back to the community.
The FCA's primary objective, in every case, is to ensure the long-term health and success of the Fedora Project and its global community.
Decisions are made through the following collaborative processes: