Fedora Project

Fedora Project

The Fedora Project logo
Motto Freedom. Friends. Features. First.[1]
Founded September 22, 2003
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
Volunteers
 ~27,000 (2010)[3]
Website fedoraproject.org
Formerly called
 Fedora Linux Project

The Fedora Project is a project sponsored by Red Hat to co-ordinate the development of the Linux-based Fedora operating system. The project was founded in 2003 as a result of a merger between the Red Hat Linux (RHL) and Fedora Linux projects. The project consists not only of Red Hat employees, with community members worldwide making up 75% of all contributors within the Fedora Project.[4]

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.[5] 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.[6] This option quickly fell to 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.

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.[7][8]

Fedora published the full details on 30 March 2009.[9]

Governance

The Fedora Project is not a separate legal entity or organization; Red Hat retains liability for its actions.[10] The Fedora Project Board is responsible for the direction of the Fedora Project and comprises four Red Hat appointed members and five community-elected members. Additionally, Red Hat appoints a chairman who has veto power over any board decision.[11] Within Red Hat, this chairman holds the position of "Fedora Project Leader". Red Hat at one point announced intentions to create a separate Fedora Foundation to govern the project,[12] but after consideration of a variety of issues, canceled it in favor of the board model currently in place.[13][14]

The project facilitates online communication amongst its developers and community members through public mailing lists and wiki pages. It also coordinates an event known as the Fedora Users and Developers Conference (FUDCon). FUDCon is a free software event held in various regions around the world, usually annually per region.[15]

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ "What is Fedora and what makes it different?". Fedora Project. Retrieved 2013-07-09.
  2. ↑ "Projects". FedoraProject. Retrieved 2013-07-09.
  3. ↑ "Statistics". FedoraProject. Retrieved 2013-07-09.
  4. ↑ "Ride the Wave with Fedora 9". 2008-05-28. Retrieved 2009-11-24.
  5. ↑ "Announcement: Red Hat Linux Merging with Fedora Linux". Archived from the original on October 1, 2003.
  6. ↑ "Red Hat Professional Workstation: More Expensive, Fewer features". Linux.com. 2004-02-14. Retrieved 2007-12-21.
  7. ↑ "Security Breach—securityfocus.com".
  8. ↑ "Security Breach—Red Hat Mailing list".
  9. ↑ "Update and Report on Fedora August 2008 Intrusion—Red Hat Mailing list".
  10. ↑ "Fedora Project Leader Max Spevack Responds to Slashdot Questions". 2006-08-18. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
  11. ↑ "The Fedora Project Board". Retrieved 2007-02-11.
  12. ↑ Peter Galli (2005-06-03). "Red Hat Creates Fedora Foundation". Retrieved 2014-03-29.
  13. ↑ "The Fedora Foundation". Retrieved 2007-02-06.
  14. ↑ Max Spevack (2006-04-04). "Fedora Foundation". Retrieved 2007-02-06.
  15. ↑ "FUDCon". Archived from the original on 2007-10-08. Retrieved 2007-02-12.