I am keenly waiting to read the Council interview questions for the upcoming election cycle.
I was looking at who will be running, Council/Nominations - Fedora Project Wiki
And I noticed that we have a 16 year old running for Council.
Do we have any rules about a minimum age for candidates? Can a 16 year old actually perform the required duties?
I wouldn’t vote for any of those candidates.
I can’t see age in any of those candidates’ biographies.
But generally it’s not clear there is a barrier to a 16-year-old performing the duties. People can correct me if I’m wrong on US law, but because Fedora has no formal legal existence separate from Red Hat, Council members likely aren’t performing legal functions that would require them to have reached the age of majority. It might be different if Fedora were an independent foundation and the Council were its board of trustees.
I don’t see an issue with someone who is a teenager running for Council. The only potential issues I see is that they probably can’t drive at night, nor would they be able to rent a hotel room without an adult. And neither of these are technically required for someone to serve on Council. I say we judge candidates by their actions and not by age or any other abilities. This is a volunteer position and I feel that it could only help this candidate in the future.
I think if someone that young has proven that they are dedicated to the cause as it were, and they feel that they can make the commuinty a better place by helping to choose the paths we go in the future, more power to them. I didn’t get that chance when I started dabbling with Linux around 16, I wish I would have gotten more involved then.
We need young poeple to get involved, I have another hobby, Amateur radio, in which a lot of the folks that participate are older. Not a lot of new ideas there. New ideas are how we move forward, New ideas require new sets of eyes, and fresh thinking. If we want Fedora to continue to be cutting edge and relevant, we need all the help we can get.
I hope this candidate does well in the election, and if they don’t get elected, I hope it doens’t dissuade them from FOSS and leadership roles in the future.
Hmm.
I’ll need to look into this a little.
Off the top of my head, I don’t see this as a deal breaker, we’ll have to adapt how we work based on inner-Council discussions to accommodate members if they can’t reasonably travel, for whatever reason.
This gets into a discussion of culture versus process. While Council face to face working sessions are not strictly required, it is perhaps a cultural norm that has enough value to try to continue. If we have Council members who can’t travel, regardless of reason, working culture will have to adapt to suit.
Look all I know for sure is I’ve always enjoyed curling with 16 year olds over the years when I got a chance to play with them on the same team. And it took me years to catch up to the strategic thinking for a one or two teenage skips I’ve played against a decade or so ago. There was a junior girls team in particular that pasted me repeatedly from the age they were 12 till they entered the US curling high performance program and no longer had time to waste on the likes of me. For years after, when any of those young women deemed to give me curling strategy advice, I listened. Whether or not I was actually capable of executing to the degree necessary to take full advantage of their youthfully sage advice was another matter entirely.
May I ask where they state their age?
You got that wrong. They can’t drive at all with 16, however they can drink gallons of beer. 
As a person, who is not a teenager, but can not travel to US for whatever reasons, I agree that it is the Council’s responsibility to figure out the way how to organize meetups and other work, so that all elected members of the Council are properly included in it.
The logistics topics should not be a concern of the community. You vote for the best representative, then the project figures out how to make it work.
But also, disclosing someone’s age is not and should not be required[1] to participate in the community. Same goes for country, religion, gender… and so on.
Except for that part where Red Hat Legal forced us to add the “at least 16 years old” requirement in the Fedora Account System ↩︎
If I recall, this was the result of a law passed in the US.
But i also agree that some things need not be disclosed unless there is a legal reason for disclosure.
There’s more I thought about this, but I initially thought maybe only long-time community members are only eligible since they know much about the community.
But what I think now is since the Council’s job is to represent contributors and help steer Fedora’s direction, and a 16-year-old has done the work, earned the trust, and understands what Fedora stands for - why would age stop them?
Young people bring fresh perspectives and different ways of thinking that the community genuinely needs. Welcoming them also means something bigger: leadership at a young age shapes people. If they believe in themselves, and some of us believe in them too - we shouldn’t hold back.
On meetings, I believe online participation works just fine. Physical presence shouldn’t be a barrier for anyone, young or otherwise. Fedora is a global community and we’ve always found ways to collaborate remotely. (Text-based meetings are great too - I could participate even with a cold and no voice! 
)
Good points everyone. I’ve gotten over my shock, and pretty much agree.
BTW, Vit can travel, he will be at Flock and I look forward to meeting him.
I note that he is the only candidate that has done some training in governance as part of his running.
This is a fascinating problem, it’s never crossed my mind before. I fully agree with @bookwar and @lochipi and others who have expressed similar sentiments - it’s a democratic vote, so if someone is a valued community member, I don’t see a reason why we shouldn’t allow the community vote for them in a fair election.