Red Hat will create an independent foundation to oversee the open source Linux distribution it adopted last fall to replace its erstwhile free Linux distribution, eWEEK reports. The company hopes the Fedora Foundation will legitimize Fedora Linux's vendor-neutrality, increasing developer appeal and community participation.

Linux developers have shied away from involvement in the Fedora Project because of its close ties to Red Hat, according to eWEEK. Red Hat hopes the greater autonomy afforded by an independent foundation will increase community participation.

The Fedora Project began in February of 2003 as an open source Linux distribution based on Red Hat Linux but operating independently of Red Hat. In November of that year, Red Hat decided to stop maintaining its freely downloadable distribution, announcing that it had instead integrated Red Hat Linux into the Fedora Project, which it then began sponsoring.

Since then, Red Hat has remained closely involved with Fedora. Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik said today at the Red Hat Summit where the Foundation was announced that “every single engineer [at Red Hat] works on Fedora,” according to eWEEK.

Reaction at the Summit was mixed, with some attendees expressing skepticism about Red Hat's motives, eWEEK reports.

Learn more about the Foundation announcement and community reaction in the full eWEEK story:

 
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