Fedora-Council/tickets ticket #555: Council Strategy Summit 2026 – 2-6 February 2026 – Tirana, Albania

[jflory7 (Justin Wheeler)]

@jflory7 filed Fedora-Council/tickets ticket #555. Discuss here and record votes and decisions in the ticket.

Ticket text:

@@jflory7

Summary

This ticket proposes the Fedora Council 2026 Strategy Summit in Tirana, Albania, requiring full-day engagement from February 3–5, 2026, to align leadership on Strategy & Governance, Engineering, and critical Community Initiatives.

Background

The annual Fedora Council Strategy Summit provides a high-bandwidth, in-person environment for the Council to focus exclusively on the project’s health, vision, and strategic direction. This 2026 summit is particularly critical as it will be the first for the new Fedora Project Leader, @jspaleta, providing a prime opportunity to set a cohesive vision for the future of Fedora. Participants are expected to arrive in Tirana on Monday, February 2, 2026, for three full working days from Tuesday, February 3 to Thursday, February 5, before departing on Friday, February 6.

The agenda is structured around three strategic pillars: Strategy & Governance, Initiatives, and Engineering. A significant portion of the summit is dedicated to Community Initiatives, where the four Council members serving as Initiative Leads will present on the state of their Initiatives such as the Git Forge 2025 Initiative, Fedora Docs 2025 Initiative, Fedora bootc 2026 Initiative to identify blockers and resource needs. Additionally, the Council will focus on operationalizing the Fedora Strategy 2028 and addressing technical topics such as Konflux, AI, and Flatpak/Flathub. To ensure transparency, the Council commits to a communication plan following the summit, which will include a public-facing report on Fedora Magazine and a presentation to the Fedora/RHEL/CentOS Leadership (FRCL).

Details

To move this event from the planning phase to execution, specific administrative actions are required from Council members regarding budget forecasting and attendance confirmation. Furthermore, while the agenda has been iteratively developed, we are now soliciting feedback from the wider community before finalizing the schedule in early January 2026.

• Budget Forecasting: While a formal vote on this ticket is not required, every Council member must research their estimated airfare costs and add these figures to the “Forecast” section of the Council Strategy Summit Wiki page.
• Attendance Confirmation: Council members listed as “undecided” (marked with a question mark in the Wiki participants table) must update their status immediately. This is critical because local liaison @jonatoni is actively negotiating a central block for hotel accommodations, and accurate headcount is required to secure the booking block.
• Community Feedback on Agenda: We are opening the current agenda to the wider Fedora community for input via Fedora Discussion. Council members and contributors are encouraged to review the topics and provide feedback before the agenda is locked in early January 2026.

Outcome

Generate clear, tactical outputs for the Fedora Strategy 2028, ensure robust support for the Community Initiatives driven by Council leadership, and achieve alignment on major engineering shifts like Konflux, AI, and Flatpak/Flathub.

[ffmancera (Fernando F. Mancera)]

Just a reminder about something that @mattdm proposed during the last summit. It would be nice if you could create a single-day open event (doesn’t need to be a formal event) to connect with local Fedora community in Tirana/Albania.

It would be nice to let them see that the Fedora Council members are just regular people and that they could participate too!

What do you think?

[jflory7 (Justin Wheeler)]

@ffmancera I like this idea. Likely, this depends on @jonatoni’s knowledge of a local community and whether the Fedora Council could “make an appearance” there or not. I would respect the decision of a Council member not to attend (because CentOS Connect, FOSDEM, and a Council Strategy Summit is a lot!). But at least some of us could probably make the time to do something like this one evening, if there was an interest and willingness on the side of the locals.

[jflory7 (Justin Wheeler)]

Hey folks! A quick update here. @jspaleta and I met one last time for 2025 to review the Council Strategy Summit topics and agenda. A few changes were made, and I am happy to say, the Wiki page is no longer marked as a draft!

Jef and I reviewed input from the Fedora Council members in our discovery/feedback phase and made significant amendments to the agenda to ensure our time in Tirana is spent on the most pressing, actionable topics. I updated the Wiki to reflect these changes. Here is a summary of the adjustments and the rationale behind them:

1. Revamping Initiatives Day: Focus on Impact & Metrics

• The Change: We restructured Day 2 (Wednesday). While the morning will still feature status updates from Initiative Leads (Git Forge, Docs, bootc), the middle of the day is now dedicated to Contributor Recognition and Engagement Metrics. Additionally, we added a new status update presentation on the Mindshare Committee, to be delivered by @t0xic0der.
• The Rationale: Feedback highlighted that simply running Initiatives isn’t enough; we need to know if our experiments are achieving the desired results. We need to better communicate the value of Community Initiatives in the community. Consequently, we added a session to discuss how we build metrics around contribution impact. This includes specific tactics—such as a structured approach to Fedora Badges, swag, and communications—to measure and encourage engagement.

2. Engineering: Reframing the Konflux Discussion

• The Change: The scope of the Konflux session on Day 3 (Thursday) has shifted from a general deep dive to a specific Negotiation Strategy and Support Commitment discussion.
• The Rationale: There is ambiguity regarding the difference between building RPMs and composing images (e.g., Atomic Desktops, ISOs), and valid community concern regarding the future of RPM building. Since Konflux is not owned or supported by Fedora Infrastructure, we need to be realistic about sustainability.
• The Goal: The Council will use this time to define a negotiation strategy with Red Hat. We aim to secure specific support commitments for early adopters (like Atomic Desktops and ELN) and discuss a “Plan B” if Konflux encounters stability issues. We also plan to draft a communication plan to openly address community fears regarding Konflux capabilities for traditional RPM building, which is not something ready today.

3. Streamlining Topics: Removing AI

• The Change: We have removed the dedicated session on AI from the agenda.
• The Rationale: Currently, there are no immediate, high-level strategic decisions “on deck” for the Council regarding AI. We have an existing AI policy, and smaller implementation details can be handled in other places. Removing this topic frees up necessary bandwidth to focus deeply on the Konflux negotiation and Flatpak/Flathub governance.

Jef and I believe these changes will make the Strategy Summit more productive and responsive to the current needs of Fedora. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback so far!

[jflory7 (Justin Wheeler)]

Discussed during the 2025-12-17 Council meeting.

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The Council held a final check-in regarding the upcoming Strategy Summit in Tirana. That week was the final week for input, with @jflory7 and @jspaleta finalizing the agenda on Friday, December 18th to ensure stability leading into January. The Council emphasized that if any critical topics are missing from the agenda, they must be raised immediately before the holiday break. Brief travel logistics were also clarified, noting that while the hotel bookings are centrally managed, attendees are generally responsible for booking their own airfare.