Fedora Project

Fedora Project
The Fedora Project logo
Motto Freedom, Friends, Features, First.[1]
Founded September 22, 2003 (2003-09-22)
Founder Warren Togami, Red Hat
Type Community
Focus Free software
Products 389 Directory Server, Fedora operating system
Method Artwork, development, documentation, promotion, and translation.[2]
Owner Red Hat
Website getfedora.org
Formerly called
 Fedora Linux Project

The Fedora Project is a project sponsored by Red Hat primarily to co-ordinate the development of the Linux-based Fedora operating system, operating with the vision that the project "creates a world where free culture is welcoming and widespread, collaboration is commonplace, and people control their content and devices."[3] The project also oversees Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux, a special interest group which maintains the eponymous packages.[4] The project was founded in 2003 as a result of a merger between the Red Hat Linux (RHL) and Fedora Linux projects. Red Hat employees make up only 35% of project contributors, and most of the over 2,000 contributors are unaffiliated members of the community.[5]

History

The Fedora Project was founded on 22 September 2003 when Red Hat decided to split Red Hat Linux into Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and a community-based operating system, Fedora.[6] Red Hat Professional Workstation was created at this same time with the intention of filling the niche that RHL had once filled but it was created without a certain future.[7] This option quickly fell by the wayside for non-enterprise RHL users in favor of Fedora. The Fedora community continues to thrive and the Fedora distribution has a reputation as being a FOSS distribution that focuses on innovation and close work with upstream Linux communities.

The project's current vision statement is new as of October 2010, when the Board worked to synthesize ideas from many different parts of the community into a concise statement.[3] In spring 2017, the board and Project Leader Matthew Miller in particular began work on drafting an updated mission statement for the project, with a proposal in April reading "Fedora creates an innovative platform that lights up hardware, clouds, and containers for software developers and community members to build tailored solutions for their users."[8]

Security intrusion

In August 2008 several Fedora servers were compromised. Upon investigation it was found that one of the compromised servers was used for signing Fedora update packages. The Fedora Project stated that the attacker(s) did not get the package signing key which could be used to introduce malicious software onto Fedora users' systems through the update process. Project administrators performed checks on the software and did not find anything to suggest that a Trojan horse had been introduced into the software. As a precaution the Project converted to new package signing keys.[9][10]

Fedora published the full details on March 30, 2009.[11]

Governance

The Fedora Project is not a separate legal entity or organization; Red Hat retains liability for its actions.[12] The Fedora Council is currently the top-level community leadership and governance body. The Council is composed of a mix of representatives from different areas of the project, named roles appointed by Red Hat, and a variable number of seats connected to medium-term project goals.[13] The previous governance structure (Fedora Board) comprised five Red Hat appointed members and five community-elected members. Additionally, Fedora Project leader had a veto power over any board decision; in the current model, all voting members can block on issues, with a valid reason.[13] Red Hat at one point announced intentions to create a separate Fedora Foundation to govern the project,[14] but after consideration of a variety of issues, canceled it in favor of the board model currently in place.[15][16]

The community is also involved in organizing lower levels of leadership, both the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) and the Mindshare Committee (responsible for technical and community oversight, respectively) are community-elected bodies which manage significant portions of the project.

The project facilitates online communication among its developers and community members through public mailing lists and wiki pages. It also coordinates two main events, known as the Fedora Users and Developers Conference (FUDCon) and Flock (or Flock to Fedora). FUDcon is a free software event held at different locations in the two designated regions of Latin America and Asia/Pacific. Typically, it revolves around some combination of conferencing, social events, and a hackathon.[17] Flock is a similar event which replaced FUDCon in North America and Europe/the Middle East.[18] Task-specific, flexibly scheduled events known as Fedora Activity Days also gather many project contributors together in various regions.[19]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Foundations". Fedora Project. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
  2. ↑ "Projects". FedoraProject. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  3. 1 2 "Vision Statement". Fedora Project. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
  4. ↑ "EPEL". Fedora Project. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
  5. ↑ "State of Fedora August 2016" (PDF). Matthew Miller. August 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Announcement: Red Hat Linux Merging with Fedora Linux". Archived from the original on October 1, 2003.
  7. ↑ "Red Hat Professional Workstation: More Expensive, Fewer features". Linux.com. February 14, 2004. Retrieved December 21, 2007.
  8. ↑ Larabel, Michael. "Fedora Drafts A New Mission Statement". Phoronix. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  9. ↑ "Security Breach—securityfocus.com".
  10. ↑ "Security Breach—Red Hat Mailing list".
  11. ↑ "Update and Report on Fedora August 2008 Intrusion—Red Hat Mailing list".
  12. ↑ "Fedora Project Leader Max Spevack Responds to Slashdot Questions". August 18, 2006. Retrieved February 12, 2007.
  13. 1 2 "Council - FedoraProject". fedoraproject.org. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
  14. ↑ Peter Galli (June 3, 2005). "Red Hat Creates Fedora Foundation". Retrieved March 29, 2014.
  15. ↑ "The Fedora Foundation". Retrieved February 6, 2007.
  16. ↑ Max Spevack (April 4, 2006). "Fedora Foundation". Retrieved February 6, 2007.
  17. ↑ "FUDCon". Archived from the original on October 8, 2007. Retrieved February 12, 2007.
  18. ↑ "Flock to Fedora". Fedora Project. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
  19. ↑ "Fedora Activity Day". Fedora Project. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
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