This ticket is opened first as a private ticket for consideration in the Council, but if positive interest, I propose making this ticket public.

Summary

Submit an application to fund independent research about the Fedora Project and its role as a digital infrastructure project [hard deadline: 2020-09-04 @ 23:59 EDT]

Background

There is a strong motivation for the Fedora Project to apply as a research candidate to a joint-funded research study by the Ford Foundation, Sloan Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and Mozilla. This is specific to studying the sustainability of digital infrastructure – things we are often figuring out in real-time in Fedora.

This grant, funding tranches of funding sized <$50k, $50k-$125k, and $125k-$200k to research a range of issues and topics of interest related to understand the incentives and constraints that influence the maintenance of digital infrastructure.

Many questions asked in the RFP can be connected with Fedora:

1. What makes digital infrastructure “critical”? How should support for digital infrastructure projects be prioritized, and by whom? How can the value of digital infrastructure be quantified through economic, social, security, or other measures?

2. How might we assess the reliability of digital infrastructure? What incentives and supports might foster more robust auditing and maintenance? [ed.—Fedora CI]

3. What is the role that companies and other private institutions should play in maintaining a stable ecosystem of open source technology, and with what kinds of accountability mechanisms? What are the trade-offs between private sector, government, university, civil society, and/or volunteer maintenance of digital infrastructure?

4. How can communities that maintain digital infrastructure best be sustained? What are the unique challenges of diversity, motivation, and health for such open projects, and what formal and informal policies are needed to improve them? [ed.—Fedora D&I work]

5. Are certain skills or expertise missing or weak in the field of digital infrastructure, such as management experience or succession planning? How can the skills of individual maintainers, developers and advocates of open source technology be strengthened? [ed.—Fedora Mindshare teams]

6. How are systemic inequalities like racism, sexism, ableism, and/or xenophobia encoded in digital infrastructure, and how might that encoding be dismantled? How might the diverse local and global communities reliant on this infrastructure exercise power and more actively shape its creation and maintenance?

7. What are the policy and regulatory considerations for the long-term sustainability of digital infrastructure? What kinds of capacity are needed, for example in government, philanthropy, or civil society, to ensure long-term development of digital infrastructure in the public interest?

The value to Fedora is not to answer these questions, but to be a real-world, practical example of what building digital infrastructure actually looks like. We do a lot of amazing things in Fedora that sometimes get lost in connection to the Linux kernel open source project. This is a unique opportunity to be a model of the amazing things we do on a wider stage.

Details

The action item for this to first submit a proposal of interest, due September 4 2020. The proposal of interest form is not too detailed and it is not a binding commitment to following through in the process. From a legal perspective, the bar of entry is low and noncommittal.

If there is a positive interest by the reviewing committee, the submitter is then invited to submit a full application (a.k.a. real copyedit work).

The initial cost to Fedora is a high initial spend of time and energy to go through this process. The energy and time required by Fedora Leadership decreases over time. There are research partners that could work embedded within the Fedora Community to study how we work and talk to our community (actually could partner well with Fedora Design / Mizmo too).

Desired outcome

The unique ways that Fedora work as a global project and community become more visible to a new audience on a broader platform.

I personally see this as a great opportunity for Fedora to share the story of the "First" Foundation far beyond technology, and how the "Friends" Foundation is an important part of what we do to further our Vision:

The Fedora Project envisions a world where everyone benefits from free and open source software built by inclusive, welcoming, and open-minded communities.