Bonum Certa Men Certa

Fedora: Where a Lot of GNU/Linux Originally Comes From

Boy with Red Hat
Photo credit: GCJKAGC



Summary: Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Fedora project and its 20th release as well

THE FEDORA project is one of the most innovative projects in the GNU/Linux world simply because a lot of effort and investment go into it. Red Hat pours money into Fedora in order to elevate strategic goals, e.g. [1,2], and 10 years after Fedora was officially born [3,4] we have a 20th release with new -- and mostly unique -- features [5]. Watch who GNOME 3.10 Test Day is tied to [6] and recall where a lot of graphics on our desktops come from [7]. Fedora is a silent giant in the GNU/Linux development world. Don't forget Red Hat's/Fedora's role in KDE, GNOME, a lot of Linux (kernel) development and even Anaconda [8]. Aside from technical work there is also community work [9]. Rather than disparage distributions which only take and hardly give, let's remember to celebrate Fedora's often-forgotten contributions to the GNU/Linux desktop. Fedora is renowned for being relatively reluctant to put convenience above freedom (it preloads no blobs where these are easily avoidable) and it develops many Free/Open Source alternatives where there is urgent need to replace proprietary software, e.g. graphics drivers.



Related/contextual items from the news:



  1. Adventures in Dockerland
    Docker is a server application/container deployment system, which nicely sidesteps a lot of the complexity with desktop apps (not having to integrate deeply with the desktop) which makes it a lot easier to deploy. Additionally, docker is more than a deployment system, it also has some interesting ideas about how to create and distribute applications.


  2. Open source engine Docker teams up with the Fedora Project
    Docker (previously dotCloud) made a big splash this year when they open-sourced their software for creating "lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers" that powers their Platform-As-A-Service offering.


  3. Fedora, Red Hat's community Linux, turns 10
    Fedora is now 10 years old and is now one of the most beloved Linux distributions. When it was started, it was hated.
  4. Fedora – 10 years of leading Linux development
    Fedora is one of the most respected GnuLinux distributions around. It’s been used by leading Linux developers including the father of Linux, Linus Torvalds himself.

    There are so many different elements that sets Fedora apart from the rest of the GnuLinux distributions – one of the most notable features of Fedora is innovation. Fedora is a cutting edge operating system which keeps it users at the edge by offering latest packages.

    Second beauty of Fedora is heavy contribution to upstream – unlike many other GnuLinux projects which make changes downstream to benefit their own users, Fedora developers prefer working upstream so that everyone benefits from their work including products like Ubuntu.


  5. Red Hat Fedora 20 Linux: New Networking, ARM Features


    Fedora 20, the next version of the open source operating system sponsored by Red Hat, will bring several feature updates to the world of desktop Linux when it debuts December 17.


  6. User guide for open source project bug submissions
    I recently announced a call to action for GNOME 3.10 Test Day for Fedora 20 on Facebook and I got a response that caused me to think about how everyone from the general public to developers submit and fix bugs for an open source project.


  7. Interview: The Fedora Project's Máirín Duffy
    My first digital painting program was the Smurfs Paint 'n Play for the Coleco ADAM. When we finally got a PC with a VGA card, I used Deluxe Paint II and the Disney Animation Studio painting programs. I used Photoshop and Gimp when I was in high school and was introduced to the Macromedia tools in college. My tools of choice in college were Macromedia Fireworks for almost everything, and Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Director, and Macromedia Flash for everything else. I followed sodipodi and I switched over 100% to FLOSS tools around Inkscape 0.39.


  8. A Partitioner's Tale
    As you may know, Fedora totally redid their Anaconda installer starting with Fedora 18. There are many reasons for it and I'll not go into that here but one perception out there in Internet land is that the partitioning section of the newer Anaconda installer is a pain to use. I must admit that when I first started using it (installing Fedora 18 alpha and beta releases), I really did not like the changes. This dislike persisted for some time until I finally got used to it. Then time passed. Fedora 19 development started, ran its course, and then Fedora 19 was released. It offered some Anaconda refinements. Now Fedora 20 is approaching its beta release and there are yet more Anaconda refinements.
  9. Fedora Outreach Program for Women Internships – Apply Now!
    Are you or do you know of a woman who is interested in getting involved in open source and would be available for a full-time internship running from Dec 10, 2013 to March 10, 2014?


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