The Fedora Project is an independent project to coordinate the development of Fedora Linux, a

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

-based

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

, operating with the mission of creating "''an innovative platform for hardware, clouds, and containers that enables software developers and community members to build tailored solutions for their users''". The project also oversees Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux, a special interest group which maintains the eponymous packages. The project was founded in 2003 as a result of a merger between the Red Hat Linux (RHL) and Fedora Linux projects. It is sponsored by

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...

primarily, but its employees make up only 35% of project contributors, and most of the over 2,000 contributors are unaffiliated members of the community.

History

The Fedora Project was founded in November 2003 when Red Hat decided to split Red Hat Linux into

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial Linux distribution developed by Red Hat. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version for x86-64. Fedora Linux and ...

(RHEL) and a community-based operating system, Fedora
Red Hat Professional Workstation
was created at this same time.

Fedora operating system

Fedora Linux, then known as "Fedora Core," was a fork of RHL launched in 2003. It was introduced as a free-of-cost, community-supported alternative intended for home use, shortly after Red Hat discontinued RHL in favor of

(RHEL). RHEL branches its releases from versions of Fedora. Since the release of Fedora 21 in December 2014, three editions have been made available:

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

, server and

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

. This was expanded to five editions for

containerization Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers (also called shipping containers, or International Organization for Standardization, ISO containers). Containerization, also referred as container stuf ...

and

Internet of Things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

(IoT) as of the release of Fedora 37 in November 2022. A new version of Fedora Linux is released every six months. The current release is Fedora 42, which was released on 15 April 2025.

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 In Greek mythology, the Trojan Horse () was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer, Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending ...

had been introduced into the software. As a precaution the project converted to new package signing keys. Fedora published the full details on March 30, 2009.

Governance

The Fedora Project is not a separate legal entity or organization; Red Hat retains liability for its actions. The Fedora Council is 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. The previous governance structure (Fedora Board) comprised five Red Hat appointed members and five community-elected members. Additionally, Fedora Project leader had a

veto A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president (government title), president or monarch vetoes a bill (law), bill to stop it from becoming statutory law, law. In many countries, veto powe ...

power over any board decision; in the current model, all voting members can block on issues, with a valid reason. Red Hat at one point announced intentions to create a separate ''Fedora Foundation'' to govern the project, but after consideration of a variety of issues, canceled it in favor of the board model currently in place. 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 A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest, datathon or codefest; a portmanteau of '' hacking'' and ''marathon'') is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 h ...

. Flock is a similar event which replaced FUDCon in North America and Europe/the Middle East. Task-specific, flexibly scheduled events known as Fedora Activity Days also gather many project contributors together in various regions.

Sub-projects

Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL)

EPEL is a repository of extra packages published by the Fedora project, which can be expected to work in

(RHEL) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivatives systems. EPEL is organised by
Fedora Special Interest Group
EPEL packages are usually based on their Fedora counterparts and will never conflict with or replace packages in the base Enterprise Linux distributions. EPEL uses much of the same infrastructure as Fedora, including buildsystem, Bugzilla instance, updates manager, mirror manager and more.

References

External links

* {{Authority control *