Fedora Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Advisor

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The Fedora Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Advisor is a liaison between the Fedora Council and the Fedora community on topics and issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in Fedora. The DEI 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 equity and inclusion in collaboration with the Fedora Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Team.

Current DEI Advisor

Jona is a community builder and Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) hacktivisit. She first started using Fedora Linux in 2014 when she was introduced to Fedora at Open Source Conference Albania (OSCAL). In 2015, she became a Fedora Project contributor. Later, she served in various leadership roles in Fedora such as the late Fedora Ambassador Steering Committee (FAmSCo) and the Fedora Council. She also became the first Fedora Ambassador from Albania. Over the years, she has participated in and led various other open source communities such as LibreOffice and NextCloud. She is also a co-founder of the Open Source Diversity community.

You can learn more about Jona on her Fedora wiki userpage.

Duration of service

The DEI Advisor will serve until they wish to step down, or the Council or the DEI 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 DEI Advisor, Council, or DEI Team wish to make a change in the Advisor, sufficient reason should be given. A new DEI Advisor will then be selected by the DEI Team.

Responsibilities

The Fedora DEI Advisor is a liaison between the Fedora Council, the Fedora DEI Team, and the Fedora community. The following responsibilities and duties are delegated to the DEI 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 DEI Team.
Identify collaboration opportunities with Fedora Council responsibilities, Fedora DEI Team objectives, and the Fedora community.
Optionally, serve as an Executive Sponsor of a Fedora Community Initiative.

Examples

Council Hackfests: See the February 2023 Council hackfest report. Fedora-Council/tickets#331 also shows an example of the planning for a hackfest.
Council meetings: Sometimes in text, sometimes on video.
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 DEI Advisor to share constructive feedback to up-and-coming Community Initiatives.

To Fedora DEI Team

Participate in at least one DEI Team meeting (out of two) each month.
- If the DEI Advisor cannot make one meeting, they will provide updates asynchronously to the team or the Meeting Chair.
Share periodic updates and insight on Fedora Council tasks and priorities back to the DEI teams.
Maintain and update DEI team documentation for any key objectives and the DEI Advisor role page.

Examples

DEI Team meetings: Held on Matrix and audio/video twice monthly. Also an opportunity for the DEI 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 DEI Team documentation.
Budget maintenance: This is done with support from the Fedora Community Architect. Logistics of how this is updated varies between DEI Advisors.

To Fedora community

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 to 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 these responsibilities to the Fedora community. Each DEI Advisor takes their own approach to these responsibilities. It is also an opportunity for the DEI Advisor to take a creative spin on 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 DEI Advisor is nominated and confirmed. The selection process documented below is initiated when a rotation of Advisors is motioned by the existing DEI Advisor, the Fedora DEI Team, or the Fedora Council.

Nomination

There will be a one-week nomination period for a potential DEI Advisor. Nominees can be self-nominated or nominated by others with their consent. A prospective nominee should understand the dynamics of the Fedora DEI 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 DEI Team.

In the event that there are no nominees, the DEI 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 DEI Team members until the next DEI Advisor is identified.

Confirmation

After the one-week nomination period expires, the Fedora DEI 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 DEI 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 FAS group
Voting is open to FPCA+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 DEI Advisor to the Council as soon as possible.

Contact

Get in touch with the Fedora DEI Advisor in the following places:

Fedora Discussion: #dei-team tag
Matrix/Element: #dei:fedoraproject.org
Email: diversity AT fedoraproject DOT org

History of Fedora DEI Advisor

Releases	Advisor
39, 40, ..	Jona Azizaj
35, 36, 37, 38	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.

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