On 06/01/2012 05:02 PM, Paul W. Frields wrote:
On Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 02:03:19AM +0000, "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" wrote:
On 05/31/2012 03:27 PM, Paul W. Frields wrote:
Red Hat people who contribute to Fedora are community too. There's
not a dividing line with the community on one side, and Red Hat on the
other.
This is a very positive viewpoint and I'm glad that it gets expressed
here and other places. Still, there are some ways, of course also due to
history, in which the Fedora Project and Red Hat are not completely
independent.
Red Hat ultimately controls the Fedora trademark and the Fedora domain
names, and pays for the Fedora infrastructure. What is shown on Fedora
websites, and what is called Fedora, is ultimately under Red Hat
control. This leaves Red Hat in an unique 'negotiation position' for
influencing the direction of the project that other contributors do not
have.
Complete independence would mean that the trademark, domain names, and
infrastructure are under the control of a legally and functionally
separate entity, which is donation funded. I am not necessarily taking
the position that such an arrangement would be beneficial to Fedora,
just saying that such a level of independence would be subtly, yet
significantly, different from the current situation.
It would take explicit marketing effort from both Red Hat and Fedora
Project for 'the public' to see Fedora as larger than Red Hat; to see
Red Hat as a community member, a small contributor, working to the
larger whole of Fedora. Especially considering that this is, in several
important senses, not true.
Let's take a step back. Most of the negative influence of the Red Hat
relationship on the Fedora brand is the idea that Fedora is a lower
quality product than RHEL, which Fedora is eventually 'distilled to'.
That perspective is crucial for Red Hat's business positioning, and is
probably true for Red Hat's customers, but it is not true in general.
Fedora and Red Hat serve vastly different purposes, and for many
purposes, RHEL is the inferior product. To whom is Fedora the better
quality product and do those users read the inquirer?
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