public ticket with a summary of the provenpackager revocation discussion

eseyman commented

2026-04-20 22:16:46 +00:00

Summary

A summary of FESCO's provenpackager revocation discussion should be published

Background

A little under 18 months ago, FESCO announced a decision they had taken through private discussions and a secret vote (this was over revoking someone's provenpackager status). When this was announced, we were told that a public ticket with a summary of the private discussion would be filed.

Shortly after, the Council involved themselves and reversed FESCO's decision. Since then, we have waited for the public ticket we were told would be created and we have had to vote for several FESCO elections without the full voting record of the people who voted then so that we can determine if we want them to stay on FESCO or not.

I exchanged emails with Fabio Valentini who explained to me that FESCO had made a summary of the discussion available to the Council but never gotten explicit approval to publish it. He recommended I file a ticket with the Council asking them to consider whether to publish the summary we sent them or not.

Details

Take the summary of FESCO's discussion that was made available to the Council
Ensure everything in it can be published
Ensure it contains the voting record for FESCO's decision
Publish the summary to the devel mailing-list (and maybe other places as well)

Summary

We will finally be able to vote for FESCO members being fully informed on their voting record

### Summary A summary of FESCO's provenpackager revocation discussion should be published ### Background A little under 18 months ago, FESCO announced a decision they had taken through private discussions and a secret vote (this was over revoking someone's provenpackager status). When this was announced, we were told that a public ticket with a summary of the private discussion would be filed. Shortly after, the Council involved themselves and reversed FESCO's decision. Since then, we have waited for the public ticket we were told would be created and we have had to vote for several FESCO elections without the full voting record of the people who voted then so that we can determine if we want them to stay on FESCO or not. I exchanged emails with Fabio Valentini who explained to me that FESCO had made a summary of the discussion available to the Council but never gotten explicit approval to publish it. He recommended I file a ticket with the Council asking them to consider whether to publish the summary we sent them or not. ### Details * Take the summary of FESCO's discussion that was made available to the Council * Ensure everything in it can be published * Ensure it contains the voting record for FESCO's decision * Publish the summary to the devel mailing-list (and maybe other places as well) ### Summary We will finally be able to vote for FESCO members being fully informed on their voting record

eseyman added the

needs

triage

label

2026-04-20 22:16:46 +00:00

jflory7 added this to the Council Meeting Planner project

2026-04-22 14:10:23 +00:00

jflory7 commented

2026-05-06 17:17:21 +00:00

Owner

Discussed in 2026-05-06 Fedora Council meeting.

The Council briefly discussed the request to publish a summary and the FESCo voting record concerning the provenpackager revocation incident. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic involving the Code of Conduct, concerns about reopening old wounds, and debates over election transparency versus retroactive disclosure of private votes, the Council determined that an asynchronous text chat was insufficient for resolution. The discussion has been tabled for a dedicated, high-bandwidth video call later this week. The outcome of the public discussion will be summarized and shared in this ticket.

Follow-up Items

Next Steps: Hold a live video call to thoroughly discuss the request and determine the Council's official response.
Owner: @jflory7 to schedule the internal video call and report outcomes back to this ticket.

_Discussed in [2026-05-06 Fedora Council meeting](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-council-meeting-2026-05-06-innovation-lifecycle-policy-f44-interviews-and-ai-desktop/190575)_. --- The Council briefly discussed the request to publish a summary and the FESCo voting record concerning the provenpackager revocation incident. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic involving the Code of Conduct, concerns about reopening old wounds, and debates over election transparency versus retroactive disclosure of private votes, the Council determined that an asynchronous text chat was insufficient for resolution. The discussion has been tabled for a dedicated, high-bandwidth video call later this week. The outcome of the public discussion will be summarized and shared in this ticket. ## Follow-up Items * **Next Steps**: Hold a live video call to thoroughly discuss the request and determine the Council's official response. * **Owner**: @jflory7 to schedule the internal video call and report outcomes back to this ticket.

jflory7 added

category

code-of-conduct

labels

2026-07-06 20:29:39 +00:00

jflory7 commented

2026-07-06 20:41:23 +00:00

Owner

I owe this ticket a sincere apology. Five of us met privately in early May and reached a resolution on this, and I was supposed to write up a public summary the same day — I never did. The Council revisited this again during our June 3, 2026 meeting and reaffirmed the same resolution, once again assigning me the action to post it here. That also sat for another month. This delay is entirely on me; I've been overloaded with Flock to Fedora planning work and let this action item slip twice. I'm sorry to everyone who has been waiting on this, especially given how long it's already dragged on.

Here is the resolution the Council reached, reaffirmed at the June 3 meeting:

On disclosure: The Council will not publicly disclose the confidential details of the original incident or the original voting record. Backtracking on the expectation of privacy under which those decisions were made would be disingenuous, and we lack the full context needed to form a fair retrospective opinion of a discussion we weren't part of at the time.

Path forward: Rather than a retroactive fix, the Council is committing to improving our Conflict of Interest policy as the mechanism to prevent this kind of governance issue in the future — a concern directly adjacent to what was raised by the person involved in the original incident. This ties directly into #513, where a Conflict of Interest guidelines draft has existed since July 2025 but hasn't been substantively touched since Council members last reviewed it that same month. The Council will need to pick this back up and refresh that draft before it goes to the wider community for input and adoption as a Fedora Project policy.

No further Council action is needed on this ticket.

_{Assisted-by: Claude Sonnet 5 (1M context)}

I owe this ticket a sincere apology. Five of us met privately in early May and reached a resolution on this, and I was supposed to write up a public summary the same day — I never did. The Council revisited this again during our June 3, 2026 meeting and reaffirmed the same resolution, once again assigning me the action to post it here. That also sat for another month. This delay is entirely on me; I've been overloaded with Flock to Fedora planning work and let this action item slip twice. I'm sorry to everyone who has been waiting on this, especially given how long it's already dragged on. Here is the resolution the Council reached, reaffirmed at the June 3 meeting: **On disclosure**: The Council will not publicly disclose the confidential details of the original incident or the original voting record. Backtracking on the expectation of privacy under which those decisions were made would be disingenuous, and we lack the full context needed to form a fair retrospective opinion of a discussion we weren't part of at the time. **Path forward**: Rather than a retroactive fix, the Council is committing to improving our Conflict of Interest policy as the mechanism to prevent this kind of governance issue in the future — a concern directly adjacent to what was raised by the person involved in the original incident. This ties directly into #513, where a Conflict of Interest guidelines draft has existed since July 2025 but hasn't been substantively touched since Council members last reviewed it that same month. The Council will need to pick this back up and refresh that draft before it goes to the wider community for input and adoption as a Fedora Project policy. No further Council action is needed on this ticket. <sub>_Assisted-by: Claude Sonnet 5 (1M context)_</sub>

jflory7 closed this issue

2026-07-06 20:41:38 +00:00

jflory7 referenced this issue

2026-07-06 20:41:54 +00:00

Conflict of Interest guidelines #513