News: Red Hat frees Fedora project

[neilius]

Some interesting stuff I just found on newsforge.com:

"Mark Webbink, deputy general counsel for Red Hat, announced in his keynote address this morning at the Red Hat Summit that Red Hat is freeing the Fedora project from its direct control. Red Hat has created the Fedora Foundation -- to be run by an independent board of directors -- which will direct and control the project from now on. Webbink said Red Hat made this move because it listened to the Fedora community when it said it would be more comfortable about the project if it were not directly owned by a commercial firm."

http://os.newsforge.com/os/05/06/03/1422220.shtml?tid=2

[ilja]

would you be so kind to add a link? ;)
*moved*

[tejas]

I'm wondering if it is bogus, but here it is:

http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/1422220&tid=2

[TheOlster]

Someone tell me, is this good/bad??

[ghaefb]

Do not use QUOTE,CODE,... in news section, it will mess up the front page.
I fixed it.

[oldman_420]

Someone tell me, is this good/bad??

I don't think it's really a matter of good/bad so much as its "different". In the long run you could consider it good because RedHat is no doubt putting all efforts on their enterprise line which would leave scarce resources to maintaining any kind of Fedora Foundation administration so now the FC community maintains its own administration (less RH is keeping a tight leash on it).

[tejas]

I don't think RedHat was doing any damage to the Fedora Project.

At worst they were ignoring it, but that isn't true, as a lot of help came from the people with @redhat.com addresses.

I don't think it will be too different. Fedora is and always was a community project. Yes, there were bosses peering over shoulders, but they never bothered the developers too much

On the other hand, RedHat artwork will vanish

I guess we'll miss the resources, and we need to get the fedora project a new website. Especially for the mass downloads expected on June 6th.

[Unkemptwolf]

Does this mean FC5 might play MP3s and DVDs out of the box? :-D

[justinb_76]

well, for some reason the release has been pushed back to June 13th according to this (http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/schedule/)

[imdeemvp]

well, for some reason the release has been pushed back to June 13th according to this (http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/schedule/)I rather wait another week than have a broken kernel as it happened with fc3 when it was released. Fixing bugs maybe. This was a short week for many of us and that could also be another reason.

[tejas]

this sux. I need to pay per Mb for downloads after June 30th. I have a slow net connection, and everyone will be trying to download FC4. I hope they don't push it farther.

You should probably make this a new post so it can become a news Item.

Two news Items in one day. Might be a new record.

[cardinal II]

'Redhat frees Fedora Core' could also be seen as 'Redhat dumps Fedora Core' I have a bad feeling about it :(

[Flyboy917]

Someone tell me, is this good/bad??

This question needs to be answered by the independent Fedora developers who have been working with Redhat; the men who are actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strive valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spend themselves in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

I'm gonna get reamed for this.

:)

[1yippy1]

Hope this has nothing to do with microsoft meeting with Redhat few weeks ago !!!
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5701700.html

[tchung]

I feel some uncertainty from the community. Please let's hope this is a postive direction for our community.
Here is Brian Proffitt - Managing Editor of Linux Today - note:
http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/mailprint.php3?action=pv&ltsn=2005-06-03-012-26-OP-CY

Thomas Chung

[Firewing1]

Hey,
in my opinion, it's great. Sure, we lose redhat's artwork... there's always a bad side. But now, we make our own rules, and do what we want, when we want. We want a new Fedora Core, then we make it happed. And for downloads of FC4, there sure is going to be a lot of them, but all they have to to is delay the release a day, and let the mirrors download it first. Then, instead of 1 site we have about 50 with the images...
Firewing1

[Shadow Skill]

Well the user base is large enough that not having redhat be a direct part of the project shouldn't have that much of an effect either way. Now maybe we will get multimedia working out of the box and built in ntfs. As for loosing the artwork there is no reason why you won't be able to install the artwork despite not being a part of the project any more. I can get the artwork on Gentoo for example with no trouble at all, no need to fret.

[packy]

As many people already have mentioned, I don't think there will be huge differences in how this all will play out. Fedora is a community project and Red Hat releasing its grasp of it is both good and bad, but overall - we've had a better and safer start than many other Linux distros (thanks to Red Hat), and those linux distros are now standing and fully swinging their legs in polite gesture towards everything licensed, so why wouldn't we manage to do the same thing? :-) **a somewhat repsond to Unkemptwolf**

Thanks for the link!

[Finalzone]

I agree that Fedora Community is large enough to be on its own. Red Hat developers will still be involved though especially when it comes to kernel, anaconda and other essential stuffs. that move will allow Red Hat to focus on Enterprise environment. Remember some Fedora features will sitll be ported on RHEL and vice versa (GFS and LVM is one of example).

As for multimedia, I really like ogg format due to its flexibily and lossless compression. Maybe users will get mp3 as default on incoming release, but why not focusing on a open format that provides a greater quality than mp3 like vorbis? Another issue is the software patents issue that we as developers/users have to deal especially those who lives in Europe continent.

[strikeforce]

I just hope in the process that there are sufficient people to help the Fedora project along to be as good has what it has been.

I'm not sure what originally happened regarding the RH and Fedora 'alliance' and how many Red Hat staff actually worked on things for Fedora I just hope the quantity and quality of effort doesn't stop but only a developer involved could answer that.

[Finalzone]

After ready Brian Proffit editorial, I am not worry very much about that issue.

[1yippy1]

Looks like Redhat are putting their effort into the Fedora Directory Server project.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1822952,00.asp

[Jman]

I don't think it will be too different. Fedora is and always was a community project. Yes, there were bosses peering over shoulders, but they never bothered the developers too much

On the other hand, RedHat artwork will vanish
I don't think it will be very much different either.

Note that Red Hat will defend it's trademarks (http://fedora.redhat.com/about/trademarks/). I think the Fedora logos will stay around, but I think they're covered by this.

Does this mean FC5 might play MP3s and DVDs out of the box? :-DNot if you want to be completely free of propietary and patented codecs.

The ntfs issue is interesting. That was reversed engineered, but I'm unclear on the legal status.

'Redhat frees Fedora Core' could also be seen as 'Redhat dumps Fedora Core' I have a bad feeling about it From the article that Thomas cited: "Every single engineer in the company works on Fedora." (http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/mailprint.php3?action=pv&ltsn=2005-06-03-012-26-OP-CY) That's from the CEO.

[tejas]

You know what?

I have a feeling RH was planning this from the start.

They slowly seemed to remove reminders that it is RedHat who own's fedora
redhat-network-config
became
system-network-config

I don't know how it is in RHEL.

I guess they just didn't want a free OS for them to maintain.

And another thing. (at least this is true in India), all redhat training (RHCE, RHCT...) is done on RedHat 9. I think that they would have prescribed Fedora as the base OS if they wanted people to use the Fedora Project.

Don't forget: From the start, Fedora always was a community effort

Just my $0.02

[foolish]

Please people, wait for the official announcement before go all crazy about this.

[Firewing1]

All of you are right. And remember, too: Fedora was initially just a testing ground for RHEL. New package comes out, test it. Release the RPM, see what happens on FC. If it's good, then add it to RHEL. Why would they dump FC if it had such a big role in their RHEL? Obviously, they want to spend more time with RHEL, and they think (and know) that we can handle this on our own, so the set us free... so to say...
Hope this has nothing to do with microsoft meeting with Redhat few weeks ago !!!
I hope not... I'd like to see what M$ really told them at that meeting, if it was really buisness or not... If it was b/c of the meeting with M$, then it can only get worse for RH... "Tusted" computing, and now this...
Firewing1

[RahulSundaram]

All of you are right. And remember, too: Fedora was initially just a testing ground for RHEL. New package comes out, test it. Release the RPM, see what happens on FC. If it's good, then add it to RHEL. Why would they dump FC if it had such a big role in their RHEL?

There is a lot happening in Fedora which doesnt affect RHEL like the formation of Fedora Extras repository. RHEL has a very long (around 6+ months) for a public beta testing period and using Fedora solely for that purpose is not Red Hat's idea

Rahul
Red Hat Inc

[RahulSundaram]

'Redhat frees Fedora Core' could also be seen as 'Redhat dumps Fedora Core' I have a bad feeling about it :(

I dont see any reason for you to be worried about Fedora being an independant foundation. If you think this is a sign of the project being dropped off or something, thats just a misconception

Rahul
Red Hat Inc

[ckasprzak]

I say just gather up our forces and move on with life! ;)

[strikeforce]

I dont see any reason for you to be worried about Fedora being an independant foundation. If you think this is a sign of the project being dropped off or something, thats just a misconception

Rahul
Red Hat Inc

I suppose everyone is a bit worried from the Fedora situation and that all these suggestions need to get hosed down although I don't think they will.

Fedora has a fairly good following and a lot of support from the community. My thing is I suppose is that in a server enviroment of important most of the users here would use RHEL so RH to stay linked to Fedora would maintain a potential customer base.