Re: Red Hat / Fedora relationship (was: The Inquirier on F17)

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



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?
--
marketing mailing list
marketing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing



[Index of Archives]     [Fedora Mentors]     [Kernel Developers]     [Fedora Packaging]     [Fedora Desktop]     [PAM]     [Gimp Users]     [Yosemite Camping]

  Powered by Linux