On Thu, Apr 01, 2010 at 11:23:48PM -0400, Marcel Rieux wrote: > As a matter of fact, as Fedora is mainly financed by Red Hat as a test > bench for RHEL. Fedora is more than a test bench for RHEL. > I can hardly see how Fedora could stand as "a completely > separate entity". Legally, Fedora (the trademark) is owned by Red Hat, and the Fedora Project Board is given the authority to manage it. Red Hat is also the largest (but by no means the only) Fedora sponsor. http://fedoraproject.org/sponsors The Fedora EMEA group does stand as a completely separate entity, with its own governance, membership, income, expenses, etc. In the US however, that isn't as feasible for a not-for-profit with one primary sponsor, so we didn't do that. > CentOS and Scientific Linux are separate entities from > Red Hat, not Fedora. > > Maybe this should be made clearer so that developers understand what kind > of project they're involved in. There are advantages working for a major > Linux distribution such as Red Hat. Are there enough, I don't know. This > is a question I raise in the case study I'm about to submit. Unless you receive a paycheck directly from Red Hat as an employee, you are not "working for a major Linux distribution" when you contribute to Fedora. You are contributing to Fedora, or one of the upstream projects that Fedora draws from. Red Hat may be one additional beneficiary of that work, but the Red Hat productized software starts as a subset of the Fedora software, and then adjusted to best suit Red Hat's customers (in Red Hat's opinion). Nothing is stopping someone else from doing likewise - which, as you note, CentOS and SL do similarly. The Fedora Project Board is comprised of 4 appointed, 5 community-elected seats, and the chair (FPL) is by definition a Red Hat employee. > It's not time to discuss this here but I certainly believe that > developers' contribution should be more fully acknowledged, and I mean > this not only in an abstract manner. For the unrest to cease -- because > there is some unrest -- the relation between development and management > will have to evolve, just to make sure that it's impossible from now on > for a CEO and his wife to run away with hundreds of millions $, leaving > developers sixpence none the richer(1). > > (1) Of course, this is now impossible, but a sense of balance must still > be established. What are you proposing, exactly? > When you ask developers to work, at least at the beginning, for free, you > must play an honest game. Otherwise, you won't get the best. There should > be a dynamic way to define when the beginning is being stretched too far, > without tying development and management by any obligation. > > Investors also will gain from a development model that works. I'm confused. If you want Red Hat to treat you as an employee, that seems to be here: http://www.redhat.com/about/careers/ If you want to create your own commercial Linux distribution, using Fedora as your upstream, you're welcome to do that too. It's easy to create a new distro (just look at the lwn.net list of distros page). It's much harder to sustain one, build a following, and figure out a business model that will be self sufficient. A few companies have done so. And if you have other goals, and by participating in Fedora you can achieve them, fantastic. -- Matt Domsch Technology Strategist Dell | Office of the CTO -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
