Fedora Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (D.E.I.) Advisor

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The Fedora Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (D.E.I.) Advisor is a liaison between the Fedora Council and the Fedora Community on topics and issues related to diversity and inclusion in Fedora. The D.E.I. Advisor works with Fedora Council leadership to represent perspectives and voices of the Fedora Community in decision-making and project discussions. Additionally, they also lead initiatives to assess and promote equality and inclusion in close collaboration with the Fedora D.E.I. Team.

Current D.E.I. Advisor

Vipul Siddharth (he/him)

Vipul Siddharth (he/him) works on CI and Infrastructure team in the Community Platform Engineering at Red Hat. He was a contributor long before that too. More coming soon after the Fedora 34 release cycle winds down and we begin working on Fedora 35.

Duration of service

The D.E.I. Representative will serve until they wish to step down, or the Council or the D.E.I. Team wish to replace them. The recommendation for duration of service is two Fedora release cycles, or one year. However, terms may (and have) run shorter or longer depending on the personal situation of the person filling the Advisor role.

In the event that the representative, Council, or D.E.I. Team wish to make a change in representative, sufficient reason should be given. A new representative will then be selected by the D.E.I. Team.

Responsibilities

The Fedora D.E.I. Advisor is a liaison between the Fedora Council, the Fedora D.E.I. Team, and the Fedora Community. The following responsibilities and duties are delegated to the D.E.I. Advisor.

To Fedora Council

  • Participate in two to three Council hackfests a year (what is a hackfest?)

  • Participate in two to three Council meetings a month, as representative of the D.E.I. Team

  • Identify synergies and collaboration opportunities with Fedora Council responsibilities, Fedora D.E.I. Team objectives, and the Fedora Community

Examples

  • Hackfests: See Matthew Miller’s four-part report about the November 2019 Council hackfest. Fedora-Council/tickets#331 also shows an example of the planning for a hackfest.

  • Council meetings: Sometimes in text, sometimes on video.

  • Synergies and collaborations: See Fedora-Council/tickets#306, which discussed renaming the dist-git default branch from master to main. This only represents one small part of the (publicly archived) conversation, but there is more behind-the-scenes work that involves talking to other members of the Fedora Community. Another example is Fedora-Council#335, which was a proposal for the Fedora Community Outreach Revamp. While not explicitly a diversity, equity, and inclusion topic, there is an opportunity for the Council Advisor to share constructive feedback to up-and-coming initiatives within the Fedora Community.

To Fedora D.E.I. Team

  • Participate in two to three Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion meetings a month

  • Share periodic updates and insight on Council tasks and priorities back to the team

  • Maintain and update team documentation for any key objectives and the D.E.I. Advisor role page

  • Maintain Fedora D.E.I. budget documentation in coordination with Community Action and Impact Coordinator

Examples

  • D.E.I. Team meetings: Usually held over text channels, such as IRC, Matrix, and Telegram. Also an opportunity for the Council Advisor to share any announcements or on-going work in the Fedora Council back with the wider team.

  • Documentation: Help keep pages (like this one!) up-to-date in the D.E.I. Team documentation.

  • Budget maintenance: This is done with support Community Action and Impact Coordinator. Logistics of how this is updated varies between Council Advisors.

To Fedora Community

  • Monitor and respond (if necessary) to mail sent to Fedora D.E.I. email address alias (see email address below)

  • Listen to needs, concerns, and hopes of the Fedora Community for Fedora

  • Be an intersectional advocate for the diverse Fedora Community to Fedora Leadership

  • Act as a source of support and/or mediator in concerns or incidents

  • Make explicit invitations for Fedora Community events and provide financial support to do so when needed

  • Promote inclusion in the Fedora Community

Examples

There are fewer concrete examples of what meeting responsibilities to the Fedora Community looks like. This is deeply personal and varies between Council Advisors. It is also a unique opportunity to take a creative spin to how each Council Advisor approaches the role. There is always room for new ideas and approaches on how to best serve the needs of the Fedora Community and encourage inclusion across Fedora.

Selection

This section explains how the D.E.I. Advisor is nominated and confirmed. The selection process documented below is initiated when a rotation of Advisors is motioned by the existing representative, the Fedora D.E.I. Team, or the Fedora Council.

Nomination

There will be a one-week nomination period for potential representatives. Nominees can be self-nominated or nominated by others with their consent. A prospective nominee should understand the dynamics of the Fedora D.E.I. Team, a basic understanding of various Fedora sub-projects, and have sufficient time to perform the responsibilities required. Nominees are required to be members of the Fedora D.E.I. Team.

In the event that there are no nominees, the D.E.I. Team will work with the Council to broaden the search message and request more time. Should no nominees be found after that, the role will rotate among existing D.E.I. Team members until the next representative is identified.

Confirmation

After the one-week nomination period expires, the Fedora D.E.I. Team will discuss candidates in a public meeting. In a meeting discussion, it provides an opportunity for the team to weigh in and share other context. In the event that more than two nominees are both interested in the Advisor role, the Fedora D.E.I. Team will coordinate with the Fedora Program Manager to run an election.

For the Fedora Elections application, use these conditions:

  • Nominee must be a member of fedora-diversity F.A.S. group

  • Voting is open to CLA+1 voters (like Council elections)

The selected person and the Council will be notified once the selection is confirmed. The selected person will begin serving as the D.E.I. Advisor to the Council as soon as possible.

Contact

Get in touch with the Fedora D.E.I. Advisor in the following places:

History of Fedora D.E.I. Advisor

Releases Advisor

35, 36, …

Vipul Siddharth

33, 34

Justin W. Flory

29, 30, 31, 32

Jona Azizaj

27, 28

Amita Sharma

23, 24, 26, 26

Maria "tatica" Leandro

Appendix

Hackfest

A hackfest is a multi-day "team sprint" where Fedora contributors gather together to work towards one or two clear objectives or goals. Pre-COVID, teams could propose their own budgets for arranging travel, booking accommodations and a venue, and other support costs for bringing people together. During COVID, hackfests sometimes take the form of multi-day events spread out over multiple weeks, i.e. one 4-5 hour call a week for

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