Red Hat has announced the first release of a free
operating system derived from the Fedora Project - Fedora Core
1.
Sponsored by Red Hat and supported by the open-source community,
the Fedora Project and the Fedora Core 1 is a complete Linux
platform built solely from open-source software.
Brian Stevens, vice-president of OS development, said Red Hat’s
Linux was very much developed under a proprietary model, where new
releases were put out every 12 to 15 months.
He added that the company wanted to participate in a more
community-based initiative, which is why it started the Fedora
project about six months ago.
Unlike commercial offerings, Fedora Core 1 will be released on a
fixed schedule - every four to six months - and anyone is free to
kick-start their own project based on Fedora. However, Red Hat will
build new capabilities from Fedora into its own Enterprise
edition.
Nicholas Petreley, an analyst with Evans Group, and author of
the Fedora user manual, said the project could remedy the
perception in the open-source community that Red Hat was taking and
not giving back.
"It helps Red Hat be perceived as building something that is
managed and driven more by the community than by Red Hat. Red Hat
does have the power of veto and does have the final say of what
goes in Fedora, but they’re really turning a lot more of the
control over to the community," he said.
Petreley added that Fedora solves a problem some Linux users
had: they did not like using Red Hat because its infrequent release
schedule meant they did not have access to the latest technology
associated with Linux.
One thing users will find with Fedora is that it is completely
devoid of any proprietary technology, Petreley said. It will not
include MP3 players or Macromedia Flash and, even though he said it
is a fully graphical user-friendly platform, it might not appeal to
some users because it will be harder to get plug-ins for software
that is not open source.
In the next edition, Fedora Core 2 will make it easier for users
to get these plug-ins, Petreley said. For example, a button will be
included so users can go to the site where they can download a
needed plug-in. It will also integrate the new Linux 2.6
kernel.
The Fedora Project is online at
http://fedora.redhat.com.
Earlier this week, Red Hat said it would stop providing Red Hat
Linux for free in favour of its Enterprise product
Rebecca Reid writes for ITWorldCanada.com