Clarify and document responsibilities of the Engineering representative for Council

decathorpe commented

2026-06-03 17:23:03 +00:00

Owner

The current documentation is rather bare-bones:

This person is responsible for representing engineering as a collective, and not as a single voice. They will be required to work with all of the various groups that collaborate with FESCo on technical things and act as a liasion between these groups and the Council itself.

from https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fesco/Fedora_Council_Engineering_Rep/

This doesn't actually specify what that representation should look like, what "required to work with all of the various groups" looks like, or what other (if any) responsibilities are associated with the role.

The current documentation is rather bare-bones: > This person is responsible for representing engineering as a collective, and not as a single voice. They will be required to work with all of the various groups that collaborate with FESCo on technical things and act as a liasion between these groups and the Council itself. from https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fesco/Fedora_Council_Engineering_Rep/ This doesn't actually specify what that representation should look like, what "required to work with all of the various groups" looks like, or what other (if any) responsibilities are associated with the role.

jspaleta commented

2026-06-03 17:27:10 +00:00

Owner

We also probably need to make sure the Council membership blurb aligns well with FESCo's view of the role as well. Both Council and FESCo need to explcitly agree on the duties of the role.

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/council/members/

I'm willing to take a follow up action to update the Council side docs once FESCo puts a section in that is able to delineate more explictly responsibilities for the role.

We also probably need to make sure the Council membership blurb aligns well with FESCo's view of the role as well. Both Council and FESCo need to explcitly agree on the duties of the role. https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/council/members/ I'm willing to take a follow up action to update the Council side docs once FESCo puts a section in that is able to delineate more explictly responsibilities for the role.

zbyszek commented

2026-06-13 13:27:43 +00:00

Owner

It'd be good to have some initial discussion about this during Flock.

salimma added the

meeting

label

2026-07-07 09:18:08 +00:00

decathorpe added

stalled

and removed

meeting

labels

2026-07-07 17:18:46 +00:00

siosm commented

2026-07-07 17:21:33 +00:00

Owner

From today's meeting, my suggestion:

Be responsible for bringing topics that are going to be voted on in the upcoming Council meetings to FESCO meetings, ideally before the Council meeting happens to gather FESCo feedback.

From today's meeting, my suggestion: > Be responsible for bringing topics that are going to be voted on in the upcoming Council meetings to FESCO meetings, ideally before the Council meeting happens to gather FESCo feedback.

decathorpe commented

2026-07-07 17:21:58 +00:00

Author

Owner

During today's FESCo meeting we decided to keep this ticket open for now but mark it as "stalled". It will be used for collecting input and / or ideas for how the current documentation for Council rep responsibilities will be changed and/or extended.

siosm commented

2026-07-07 17:23:19 +00:00

Owner

From Maxwell:

Add a recurring FESCo meeting topic for updates from the Council rep, even if it's just "nothing notable happened"

From Zbigniew:

Keep a list of things that you were doing as you go on so that we can use this as input to the docs in a few months.

From Maxwell: > Add a recurring FESCo meeting topic for updates from the Council rep, even if it's just "nothing notable happened" From Zbigniew: > Keep a list of things that you were doing as you go on so that we can use this as input to the docs in a few months.

👍 3

jflory7 commented

2026-08-03 23:22:50 +00:00

I was reflecting on this for a while. There are a few things that would be nice to see in my perspective.

Represent health of technical collaboration and discussion: The FESCo rep regularly attends FESCo meetings and has a keen sense of what Changes are flowing through Fedora and why. Together with the FOA @amoloney, both the FESCo rep and FOA have "boots on the ground" in technical discussion. I want more insight to the overall state of these discussions, challenging patterns, and tooling coordination. If there are consistent problems in the Engineering side of Fedora, the Council is an avenue to present the issues and get resources allocated to address consisting problems.
Coordinate on shared, visible leadership decisions: A place where we could have had better coordination was the migration from Pagure/GitLab to Forgejo. While all governance teams (Council, FESCo, Mindshare, EPEL) have now migrated to Fedora Forge, the timelines were all different and uncoordinated. In hindsight, greater collaboration on shared goals like our future git forge would help with friction people feel today with having too many places to look for contributor discussion. The FESCo rep can be a bridge for connecting issues that Council and FESCo are both thinking about.
FESCo-driven Council Strategy Summit topics: The Fedora Council holds an annual in-person "board meeting", what we are now calling Strategy Summit and previously called Hackfests. All members of Council, including the FESCo rep, are included as sponsored attendees at this meeting, whether in-person or virtual as each person's situation allows. For a while, I think the feeling (generally) has been "show up and see what is happening in the Council." I would like FESCo to use the FESCo rep to their strategic advantage at the Strategy Summit. This is a highly-influential opportunity for high-level bandwidth on Fedora leadership and areas which the Council aim to govern for in the upcoming year. Instead of having a FESCo rep attend to figure out what is going on with the Council, I would like a FESCo rep to come to the summit with agendas they want to put into the top-level discussion. The FESCo rep should effectively be FESCo's secret agent to influence the Fedora agenda. 😁

These were what came to my mind first.

I was reflecting on this for a while. There are a few things that would be nice to see in my perspective. 1. **Represent health of technical collaboration and discussion**: The FESCo rep regularly attends FESCo meetings and has a keen sense of what Changes are flowing through Fedora and _why_. Together with the FOA @amoloney, both the FESCo rep and FOA have "boots on the ground" in technical discussion. I want more insight to the overall state of these discussions, challenging patterns, and tooling coordination. If there are consistent problems in the Engineering side of Fedora, the Council is an avenue to present the issues and get resources allocated to address consisting problems. 2. **Coordinate on shared, visible leadership decisions**: A place where we could have had better coordination was the migration from Pagure/GitLab to Forgejo. While all governance teams (Council, FESCo, Mindshare, EPEL) have now migrated to Fedora Forge, the timelines were all different and uncoordinated. In hindsight, greater collaboration on shared goals like our future git forge would help with friction people feel today with having too many places to look for contributor discussion. The FESCo rep can be a bridge for connecting issues that Council and FESCo are both thinking about. 3. **FESCo-driven Council Strategy Summit topics**: The Fedora Council holds an annual in-person "board meeting", what we are now calling [Strategy Summit](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Council/2026_Strategy_Summit) and previously called Hackfests. All members of Council, including the FESCo rep, are included as sponsored attendees at this meeting, whether in-person or virtual as each person's situation allows. For a while, I think the feeling (generally) has been "show up and see what is happening in the Council." I would like FESCo to use the FESCo rep to their strategic advantage at the Strategy Summit. This is a highly-influential opportunity for high-level bandwidth on Fedora leadership and areas which the Council aim to govern for in the upcoming year. Instead of having a FESCo rep attend to figure out what is going on with the Council, I would like a FESCo rep to come to the summit with agendas they want to put into the top-level discussion. The FESCo rep should effectively be FESCo's secret agent to influence the Fedora agenda. 😁 These were what came to my mind first.

👀 2

Rows
Columns

Clarify and document responsibilities of the Engineering representative for Council #3613