The Fedora Project
Open Source Evolved
What is The Fedora Project
The Fedora Project is a Red Hat sponsored and
community-supported open source collaboration
project. Formed in 2003 as a partnership between Red
Hat and volunteer participants from around the world,
the Fedora Project supports a growing and thriving
open source community with thousands of project
members
Our Mission
The Fedora Project's mission is to lead the
advancement of free and open source software and
content as a collaborative community.
Elements of Fedora's Mission
The three elements of this mission are clear:
The Fedora Project always strives to lead, not follow.
The Fedora Project consistently seeks to create,
improve, and spread free/libre code and content.
The Fedora Project succeeds through shared action on
the part of many people throughout our community.
Our Core Values
The Fedora Project's core values, or Foundations, are
set out on their own wiki page.
We strongly believe in the bedrock principles that
created all the components of our operating system,
and because of this we guarantee that Fedora will
always be free for anybody, anywhere, to use, modify
and distribute.
Our Community
Fedora is more than just software, though. It is a
community of contributors from around the world, including
volunteers and Red Hat employees, who work with each other to
advance the interests of the free culture movement. Everyone is invited
to join, and no matter what your skills are, we have a place for you in
our community! The Fedora community includes software engineers,
artists, system administrators, web designers, writers, speakers, and
translators -- all of whom will be happy to help you get started.
We believe that all contributors should "be excellent to each other." By
creating an environment for constructive contribution, we can more
effectively and successfully compare and challenge different ideas to
find the best solutions for advancement, while building the size of our
community, diversity, and strength of our community
Our Method
Fedora is a center for innovation in free and open source
software, and creates a community where contributors of all
kinds -- developers, documenters, artists, system
administrators, and other free software and open source
enthusiasts -- come together to advance the ecosystem for
the benefit of everybody. The Fedora community
contributes everything it builds back to the free and open
source world and continues to make advances of
significance to the broader community, as evidenced by the
regular and rapid incorporation of its features into other
Linux distributions. Regardless of which Linux distribution
you use, you are relying on code developed within the
Fedora Project.
Fast Facts
New releases of Fedora come out every six months
Fedora is free to copy, modify and redistribute without any
cost and license fees
Red Hat is the primary sponsor for the Fedora Project and a
major contributor
There are over 17,000 Fedora Account System members who
have signed the Contributor License Agreement that allows
them to edit and provide new code and content in Fedora.
Fast Facts-Cont’d
Around 65% of Fedora's code is maintained by volunteers
Fedora serves as a community R+D lab, where ideas can
be turned into reality quickly
Innovation through Fedora often forms the basis for
many Red Hat open source projects
There are over 15,000 installable software packages in
Fedora 12
Why Is the Fedora Project Different?
We try to always do the right thing, and provide only free
and open source software. We will fight to protect and
promote solutions that anyone can use and redistribute.
To this end, we use only free and open source software to
power the Fedora infrastructure itself. With this in mind,
all of our developers are focused on working closely with
upstream, so everyone can benefit from our work and get
access to our changes as soon as possible. Due to the
huge amount of innovation that Fedora drives, this focus
has had significant and long lasting effects. Some of the
recent developments in free and open source software
that Fedora has driven include:
Why Is the Fedora Project Different?
Network Manager
D-Bus
Policy Kit
Package Kit
Console Kit
Device Kit
Free IPA
SE Linux
Pulse Audio
More Differences
The reverse is also true: by sticking close to upstream
development teams, Fedora often gets the latest software
before anybody else. Not only does this benefit our community,
but it also benefits the upstream teams by providing a much
larger audience and more feedback for them.
Another striking difference of Fedora is our goal to empower
others to pursue their vision of what a free operating system
should be like. Fedora now forms the basis for derivative
distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the One
Laptop Per Child XO, and Creative Commons' Live Content
DVDs.
Other Differences
And that's not all. It is just as easy for individuals to create their
own distribution, thanks to Fedora's easy remixing tools. These
tools allow you to quickly select the packages you want, and
create live images for CD/DVD or USB, or installation discs.
Some official versions, or what we call "spins," of Fedora have
grown up this way, including:
Fedora Electronic Lab (installable Live DVD)
Fedora Xfce Spin (installable Live CD)
Fedora Games Spin (installable Live DVD)
Joining the Fedora Project
Like what you see and want to help out? That's easy too! And don't
forget that all our contributors get access to some awesome tools to help
them get their work done:
Fedora People provides free web space for hosting Fedora related
content
Fedora Planet is an aggregation of contributor blogs so you can see
what everyone is up to
Fedora Hosted is the perfect location for hosting your free and open
source projects
Fedora's own Gobby server, so we can collaboratively work on
documents in real time
Fedora Build System to build your software across multiple
architectures
The skills and experience of hundreds of fellow Fedora contributors!
Fedora Talk is a free hosted Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)
telephone system
What is the Fedora Distribution?
Fedora is a Linux based operating system that provides
users with access to the latest free and open source
software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form.
Fedora is the largest of many free software creations of
the Fedora Project. Because of its predominance, the
word "Fedora" is often used interchangeably to mean
both the Fedora Project and the Fedora operating
system.
How do I get the Fedora Distribution?
Easy, just go to http://www.getfedora.org. You can try
it without installing anything on your computer,
thanks to our Live images on the CD
Otherwise you can contact me after the presentation*
More information
How can Fedora give away all of the code that people have contributed?
There are over 17,000 Fedora contributors that have signed the Contributor License which is
an agreement that allows them to contribute to the Fedora Project. Further, all code and
content produced in the Project is provided under a free and open source software license
that preserves users' rights to copy, distribute and make derivative works.
What benefit does a contributor gain from participating in the Fedora community?
There are multiple benefits, and individual contributors sometimes realize very different
individual benefits through their involvement. One major benefit contributors often cite is in
the act of collaborating itself. Fedora community members enjoy working on new features,
solving problems and interacting with other folks that share a common interest. Because
Fedora is an open and transparent project, it also provides a way for people to demonstrate
their skills at work to potential partners, customers, or employers.
Why such a short development cycle?
The development cycle is purposely restricted to six months to encourage rapid innovation
and collaboration between thousands of Fedora project contributors worldwide. Six months
gives us the best balance between providing the latest software with the quality that users
expect from a release.
