Clearly the topics that the marketing team will discuss are very bikesheddey. We would like to see the team being assembled from every corner of a Nix community. To join the team please write an email to webmaster@nixos.org trying to answer the following questions:
The answers are actually not used to judge people if they are good enough to join, but to understand the person joining, their intent and their vision. Since we will discuss many things that could be very bikeshedding it is important that we understand each other’s position and the context they are arguing from.
You can expect at meetings to discuss things first in an abstract manner (what are our goals) and only then get into more concrete proposals (how do we achieve goals). Meetings will be scheduled as needed and as much as the team has time, but at least once a month. Initially it might happen that we will meet more often until the whole idea of what a marketing team is/does is bootstrapped. Minutes of the meetings will be published with the potential agenda and the date of the next meeting.
I tried to anticipate some questions/reactions:
What’s with all the corporate lingo? We are an open source community and not a company?
It is the language I’m familiar with and I know few others are as well. If there are things that bother you please contact any of us and propose ways in which we can improve.
Why not use the RFC process?
The RFC process targets changes to the Nix ecosystem. Technical changes, not social changes. Going through the RFC process would expose this endeavor to unneeded bikeshedding.
How will you avoid bikeshedding? How will you get anything done?
We will try to do our best. Patience is the key :)
How will you handle controversial topics?
When a controversial topic comes to be discussed we will look at it from all the sides and provide a summary. We will try to invite the community (especially the concerned part of the community) to get involved more and try to clarify in as much as clear way as possible. Experience shows that most of the time problem is in communication and this is what we will always try to do better.
I don’t like that the community is becoming professional, can we just hack?
We always avoid success, but let’s try for once to plan it :)