Kim McMahon to Join FreeBSD Foundation as Senior Director of Advocacy and Community

[getopt]

I am incompatible with CoCs and other such nonsense.

How are forum rules different from CoCs?

 

[kpedersen]

One thing that bothers me is that none of the well-known FreeBSD people post here. Colin Percival doesn't even have an account, for example.

Same with a number of the developers. It just seems that mailing lists are the preference.

That or they are all far too busy. To be fair, most of my responses here are posted on my behalf by my private secretary. I imagine it to be the same situation for most of us.

How are forum rules different from CoCs?

Probably they relate just to the forums rather than a random mix of international politics and sexual preferences.

Correct. They are scraped from other sites and posted by a script. As they are automated and not posted by an individual the original author of such a scraped post won't see them. So it's rather pointless to allow responses.

You know us. We like a good gossip on a topic. I think it could be useful to allow responses. Not so much to discuss with the original poster (if they are automated) but mostly to discuss amongst ourselves. Same with some of vermaden's news digests.

 

[Crivens]

getopt I don't think it is that. Having sources is a good thing, and admitting when you don't know is a good character trait. Assuming the worst of your fellow human is not.

And what the difference is? Social .vs. political comes pretty close. Treat others as you would want to be is a social norm. Treating someone different because someone says so is political. And I don't go along with that.

 

[getopt]

... got a marketing guy. Within a year, we went under.

Once a company is in need for starting marketing, that is a known bad sign. Unfortunately the effects of marketing are very hard to measure. But for sure marketing has a not so good connotation because it is associated with tricks and manipulation.

But we need to differentiate when looking at the FreeBSD Foundation:

Our Team – FreeBSD Foundation

freebsdfoundation.org

There were and still are:
Director Communications, Campaigns, and Operations
Digital and Community Manager

and now new:
Senior Director Advocacy and Community

If you had watched this page over the times you may have noticed a new term used there: "Leadership" which may point to a more hierarchical structuring.

 

[getopt]

Overcome by events.

 

[bakul]

I too often think "oh, that's memorable" then a few days later (or whenever):

• I forget where I read, or wrote, the memorable thing.

Working with this diversity of media is made easier with an online bookmarking/annotation service.

This is where the idea of "second brain" has come about! Use an external repository for stuff you want to remember and interconnecting related stuff. Other such keywords: zettelkasten, commonplace book etc. Nowadays you can use apps like Obsidian, logseq, Roam Research, org-mode+emacs, wikis, and many more. Invaluable if you are writing articles, blogs, Thesis, books etc. This really appeals to a certain subset of people and you will find lots of articles and videos and even some books such as "How to Take Smart Notes" but you can start with just plaintext files. You can of course rely on websearch but that is taps into too vast a source. Your "second brain" contains curated & linked information that you deemed important in the past. This goes beyond bookmarking and may be annotating as you also write down your thoughts and link them to others (just the process of spending some time right then improves recall). Of course, when you write based on this database, you still have to make sense to others as they won't have the same context as you!

Doesn't work for everyone but worth a try.

Sorry for going off-topic. Now you all can go back to opining on this appointment!

 

[grahamperrin]

What's the point of a "Community Manager" anyway?

I don't know, but wherever these people are, their roles will be quite different from that of Kim McMahon:

• Senior Director of Advocacy and Community.

For those of us who never before heard the word fractional in relation to employment:

Fractional work - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[grahamperrin]

… none of the well-known FreeBSD people post here.

jrm@ emaste@ bsdimp and others weep uncontrollably whilst fading into obscurity

Colin Percival doesn't even have an account, for example.

As far as I can tell (can't find gjb or gjb@), neither did Glen Barber.

Colin is a Reddit user, I was aware of his occasional contributions to the FreeBSD subreddit, until today I hadn't thought to take a broader view:

https://www.reddit.com/user/perciva

Please note, this is not to provoke any extreme reaction for, or against, things such as Reddit or social media. There's another place (please):

Social Media

Over the last year or so I have disengaged from most social media platforms. The last to possibly go is FB. The problem is I have friends in a variety of communities. I am weighing the cost/benefit ratio for staying with the platform. I am leaning towards departure, I feel it is becoming a...

forums.freebsd.org

2013:

Faces of FreeBSD - Colin Percival

Faces of FreeBSD We are pleased to be running our Faces of FreeBSD series again! Every week we’ll be sharing a story from someone inv...

freebsdfoundation.blogspot.com

---

On a personal note, now I know exactly what Colin meant by "fussy toddler" at <https://old.reddit.com/comments/17zzclc/-/ka2stde/>

 

[smithi]

One thing that bothers me is that none of the well-known FreeBSD people post here.

[ edit: clean up included 'quote' breakage ]

jrm@ emaste@ bsdimp and others weep uncontrollably whilst fading into obscurity

Without mentioning anyone in particular, there are at least several other well-known FreeBSD folk including regular committers and mailing list participants over many years, who here have a different username than in their regular or @freebsd.org addresses.

 

[eternal_noob]

don't know, but wherever these people are, their roles will be quite different from that of Kim McMahon:

• Senior Director of Advocacy and Community.

Manager, Director... all the same useless jobs when it comes to the community. We don't want to be managed, we are grownups. I successfully mastered my potty training already.

I wonder what her salary is for "managing" me. Or "directing" if you want to nitpick again.

All the donations are better used for coding work.

 

[T-Aoki]

Manager, Director... all the same useless jobs when it comes to the community.

One thing to note. Kim is a Senior Director "of Foundation", not whole community. FreeBSD Foundation is, unlike the whole community, a Non-profit "Organization", so officers, directors (and if it's large enough organization, managers and else) shoule be required by legal requirements.

 

[getopt]

We don't want to be managed, we are grownups.

There seems to be a VERY big misunderstanding. The directors of the FreeBSD Foundation (how funny the names chosen may look to you) are not the bosses or rulers of the FreeBSD community. They simply serve a different purpose. I.e. talking to hardware vendors for a better support and coordinate projects for coding like improving WiFi.

 

[T-Aoki]

They simply serve a different purpose. I.e. talking to hardware vendors for a better support and coordinate projects for coding like improving WiFi.

Exactly, especially when the vendor themselves are constrained with NDA or alike. In those cases, they usually forced to release FreeBSD binaries instead of source codes, meaning they need to build, test and release FreeBSD binary on every updates. (Sometimes it's the choice of themselves, like x11/nvidia-driver's binary part.)

 

[unitrunker]

The "blog Open For Work" does not look to me as a blog. It's more a self marketing homepage.

One minor nitpick - "Open For Work" is the title of that blog post, not the name of Mcmahon's personal blog.

 

[grahamperrin]

"Open For Work" is the title of that blog post, not the name of Mcmahon's personal blog.

+1

Her LinkedIn post at the time also used the #OpenForWork tag.

You'll see the tag circling someone's face at:

Let recruiters know you’re Open to Work | LinkedIn Help

 

[grahamperrin]

… All the donations are better used for coding work.

Is the Enterprise Working Group not worth tuppence ha'penny?

2023 in Review: Partnerships and Research – FreeBSD Foundation

EnterpriseWorkingGroup - FreeBSD Wiki

• thanks to cmoerz and others for edition.

 

[cmoerz]

I'm a third Beetlejuice. Say my name once and I appear

Glad to be able to do some positive and for the community. I believe the Enterprise Working Group is a good example of services the Foundation can bring to the table. It's an ambassador for the project (FreeBSD), interacts with stakeholders to spread the word, facilitates paid development when required and helps bring in funding. Truth is, it requires structure and a dedicated team to accomplish this.

Admittedly, some jobs might be possible to fill with volunteers that do not accumulate any costs (like myself) - then again, if you do want continuous progress and delivery, you'll have to spend some money on dedicated staff.

Clearly it's a controversial topic where the money goes. Still, I personally believe it's worth a shot to advance the community the way the Foundation is setting forth at the moment. The more people talk about FreeBSD, the better.

Any change will always offset the balance of things and will make some people unhappy. Still, when I look at Greg Wallace's work so far - I see nothing but positive results. I'd even venture to say he set out to achieve even more but - as I pointed out before - was limited by just being one person. I believe, we have all been there.

I suggest lets be open minded and give Kim a chance to show how she can help the project and serve the community. Having someone work on the marketing and representational aspects for the project can only be good for everyone in my book.

 

[blackbird9]

jrm@ emaste@ bsdimp and others weep uncontrollably whilst fading into obscurity



As far as I can tell (can't find gjb or gjb@), neither did Glen Barber.

Colin is a Reddit user, I was aware of his occasional contributions to the FreeBSD subreddit, until today I hadn't thought to take a broader view:

https://www.reddit.com/user/perciva

Please note, this is not to provoke any extreme reaction for, or against, things such as Reddit or social media. There's another place (please):

Social Media

Over the last year or so I have disengaged from most social media platforms. The last to possibly go is FB. The problem is I have friends in a variety of communities. I am weighing the cost/benefit ratio for staying with the platform. I am leaning towards departure, I feel it is becoming a...

forums.freebsd.org

2013:

Faces of FreeBSD - Colin Percival

Faces of FreeBSD We are pleased to be running our Faces of FreeBSD series again! Every week we’ll be sharing a story from someone inv...

freebsdfoundation.blogspot.com

---

On a personal note, now I know exactly what Colin meant by "fussy toddler" at <https://old.reddit.com/comments/17zzclc/-/ka2stde/>

This is a user forum, and there's nothing wrong with that Someone has to use the damn thing, otherwise all the work on bsdiff, phd thesis etc is just a boring academic exercise. Remember the adoration that the users were held in in Tron! They're lucky they've got a bunch of semi-intelligent simians discussing how it's used

As for the marketing person (am I allowed to say "girl"?), it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it!!

 

[vermaden]

I don't like X. I find Reddit & Facebook ok.

Twitter/X is a lot better with Minimal Theme for Twitter/X plugin (using with Firefox).

Without it there are posts of people I do not follow and advertisements. With this plugin you only have tweets from accounts You follow and not pointless suggestions.

Config:

Hope that helps.

 

[smithi]

Glad to be able to do some positive and for the community. I believe the Enterprise Working Group is a good example of services the Foundation can bring to the table. It's an ambassador for the project (FreeBSD), interacts with stakeholders to spread the word, facilitates paid development when required and helps bring in funding. Truth is, it requires structure and a dedicated team to accomplish this.

I think that's a very positive project, as is most of the Foundation's mission no doubt.

Admittedly, some jobs might be possible to fill with volunteers that do not accumulate any costs (like myself) - then again, if you do want continuous progress and delivery, you'll have to spend some money on dedicated staff.

People who donate to the Foundation, from within the community (however defined) or from 'upstream' - vendors and corporate users - clearly support the works undertaken, and those who don't donate still have a say, here anyway.

Clearly it's a controversial topic where the money goes. Still, I personally believe it's worth a shot to advance the community the way the Foundation is setting forth at the moment. The more people talk about FreeBSD, the better.

I'm fine with that. What I said about corporate-speak being marketing BS is because it is new in this mileau, but given the culture of companies like Cisco, where voluntary workers are no doubt rare compared to within a project like FreeBSD, none too surprising.

Any change will always offset the balance of things and will make some people unhappy.

I'm more uneasy than unhappy, but seeing the alarm some feel about how 'leadership' might try extending to this herd of cats, guess some adjustments to language might ensue.

I suggest lets be open minded and give Kim a chance to show how she can help the project and serve the community. Having someone work on the marketing and representational aspects for the project can only be good for everyone in my book.

Well said, fair enough and thanks.

 

[grahamperrin]

… open minded and give Kim a chance to show how she can help the project and serve the community.

Having someone work on the marketing and representational aspects for the project can only be good for everyone in my book.

Graham Perrin (@grahamperrin@bsd.cafe)

Attached: 1 image Leadership! Deb Goodkin, Executive Director Ed Maste, Senior Director of Technology Kim McMahon, Senior Director Advocacy and Community Greg Wallace, Director of Partnerships and Research <https://freebsdfoundation.org/about-us/staff/> @FreeBSDFoundation@mastodon.social...

mastodon.bsd.cafe

emaste@ gtewallace amongst the four leaders.

Kim McMahon is well-known in the open source and cloud native ecosystem as a marketer of open source and growing healthy and productive communities. She led the marketing and community activities at several Linux Foundation projects including CNCF and RISC-V, building member participation and end-user ecosystems. She has also worked at organizations large and small such as Cisco and Nirmata, leading marketing for open source projects, developer journeys, and community. Community building, breaking down barriers, and uniting are Kim’s drivers.