The Fedora Project is a community-supported open source project formed in 2003 as a partnership between Red Hat and volunteers. Its mission is to lead advancement of free and open source software through collaboration. Fedora releases occur every six months and include over 15,000 software packages. Contributors include software engineers, artists, and others who help advance free software.

1. The Fedora Project Open Source Evolved

2. What is The Fedora Project The Fedora Project is a Red Hat sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration project. Formed in 2003 as a partnership between Red Hat and volunteer participants from around the world, the Fedora Project supports a growing and thriving open source community with thousands of project members

3. Our Mission The Fedora Project's mission is to lead the advancement of free and open source software and content as a collaborative community.

4. Elements of Fedora's Mission The three elements of this mission are clear: The Fedora Project always strives to lead, not follow. The Fedora Project consistently seeks to create, improve, and spread free/libre code and content. The Fedora Project succeeds through shared action on the part of many people throughout our community.

5. Our Core Values The Fedora Project's core values, or Foundations, are set out on their own wiki page. We strongly believe in the bedrock principles that created all the components of our operating system, and because of this we guarantee that Fedora will always be free for anybody, anywhere, to use, modify and distribute.

6. Our Community Fedora is more than just software, though. It is a community of contributors from around the world, including volunteers and Red Hat employees, who work with each other to advance the interests of the free culture movement. Everyone is invited to join, and no matter what your skills are, we have a place for you in our community! The Fedora community includes software engineers, artists, system administrators, web designers, writers, speakers, and translators -- all of whom will be happy to help you get started. We believe that all contributors should "be excellent to each other." By creating an environment for constructive contribution, we can more effectively and successfully compare and challenge different ideas to find the best solutions for advancement, while building the size of our community, diversity, and strength of our community

7. Our Method Fedora is a center for innovation in free and open source software, and creates a community where contributors of all kinds -- developers, documenters, artists, system administrators, and other free software and open source enthusiasts -- come together to advance the ecosystem for the benefit of everybody. The Fedora community contributes everything it builds back to the free and open source world and continues to make advances of significance to the broader community, as evidenced by the regular and rapid incorporation of its features into other Linux distributions. Regardless of which Linux distribution you use, you are relying on code developed within the Fedora Project.

8. Fast Facts New releases of Fedora come out every six months Fedora is free to copy, modify and redistribute without any cost and license fees Red Hat is the primary sponsor for the Fedora Project and a major contributor There are over 17,000 Fedora Account System members who have signed the Contributor License Agreement that allows them to edit and provide new code and content in Fedora.

9. Fast Facts-Cont’d Around 65% of Fedora's code is maintained by volunteers Fedora serves as a community R+D lab, where ideas can be turned into reality quickly Innovation through Fedora often forms the basis for many Red Hat open source projects There are over 15,000 installable software packages in Fedora 12

10. Why Is the Fedora Project Different? We try to always do the right thing, and provide only free and open source software. We will fight to protect and promote solutions that anyone can use and redistribute. To this end, we use only free and open source software to power the Fedora infrastructure itself. With this in mind, all of our developers are focused on working closely with upstream, so everyone can benefit from our work and get access to our changes as soon as possible. Due to the huge amount of innovation that Fedora drives, this focus has had significant and long lasting effects. Some of the recent developments in free and open source software that Fedora has driven include:

11. Why Is the Fedora Project Different? Network Manager D-Bus Policy Kit Package Kit Console Kit Device Kit Free IPA SE Linux Pulse Audio

12. MoreDifferences The reverse is also true: by sticking close to upstream development teams, Fedora often gets the latest software before anybody else. Not only does this benefit our community, but it also benefits the upstream teams by providing a much larger audience and more feedback for them. Another striking difference of Fedora is our goal to empower others to pursue their vision of what a free operating system should be like. Fedora now forms the basis for derivative distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the One Laptop Per Child XO, and Creative Commons' Live Content DVDs.

13. Other Differences And that's not all. It is just as easy for individuals to create their own distribution, thanks to Fedora's easy remixing tools. These tools allow you to quickly select the packages you want, and create live images for CD/DVD or USB, or installation discs. Some official versions, or what we call "spins," of Fedora have grown up this way, including: Fedora Electronic Lab (installable Live DVD) Fedora Xfce Spin (installable Live CD) Fedora Games Spin (installable Live DVD)

14. Joining the Fedora Project Like what you see and want to help out? That's easy too! And don't forget that all our contributors get access to some awesome tools to help them get their work done: Fedora People provides free web space for hosting Fedora related content Fedora Planet is an aggregation of contributor blogs so you can see what everyone is up to Fedora Hosted is the perfect location for hosting your free and open source projects Fedora's own Gobby server, so we can collaboratively work on documents in real time Fedora Build System to build your software across multiple architectures The skills and experience of hundreds of fellow Fedora contributors! Fedora Talk is a free hosted Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephone system

15. What is the Fedora Distribution? Fedora is a Linux based operating system that provides users with access to the latest free and open source software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form. Fedora is the largest of many free software creations of the Fedora Project. Because of its predominance, the word "Fedora" is often used interchangeably to mean both the Fedora Project and the Fedora operating system.

16. How do I get the Fedora Distribution? Easy, just go to http://www.getfedora.org. You can try it without installing anything on your computer, thanks to our Live images on the CD Otherwise you can contact me after the presentation*

17. More information How can Fedora give away all of the code that people have contributed? There are over 17,000 Fedora contributors that have signed the Contributor License which is an agreement that allows them to contribute to the Fedora Project. Further, all code and content produced in the Project is provided under a free and open source software license that preserves users' rights to copy, distribute and make derivative works. What benefit does a contributor gain from participating in the Fedora community? There are multiple benefits, and individual contributors sometimes realize very different individual benefits through their involvement. One major benefit contributors often cite is in the act of collaborating itself. Fedora community members enjoy working on new features, solving problems and interacting with other folks that share a common interest. Because Fedora is an open and transparent project, it also provides a way for people to demonstrate their skills at work to potential partners, customers, or employers. Why such a short development cycle? The development cycle is purposely restricted to six months to encourage rapid innovation and collaboration between thousands of Fedora project contributors worldwide. Six months gives us the best balance between providing the latest software with the quality that users expect from a release.