I am learning about community-based Linux distros as they are my preferred choice compared to corporate ones. And when I get to Fedora, what I see from the fence is a sofisticated, well-supported OS.

However, seeing that it is sponsored by the Red Hat corporation, the question arises: could Red Hat eventually take control of the project? I suppose the answer comes down to how much weight Red Hat actually has on the development of said distro. From what I know, it has employees dedicated full-time to it.

Let’s rephrase the question and say that the Fedora project ditched Red Hat from its development due to some irrepairable decision; how viable would the continuation of the OS development be as compared to, for example, Debian, which is also community-based but, as far as I know, has no such backing from a corporation?

Please, note that, while I am indeed a Debian user, I am not trying in any way to shit on Fedora. I myself am curious to try it out as I have recently arrived to Linux.

  • pheusie@programming.dev
    8·
    1 day ago

    There are already many good answers in the comments, so I don’t feel the need to add much to it. But perhaps the following is worth mentioning:

    • Fedora has got enough agency to continue efforts in what has been abandoned by Red Hat. Or, vice versa.
      • For example: it has continued to offer Btrfs as the default file system, while Red Hat has long since deprecated it.
      • Or, conversely, Red Hat has big plans for bootc. And while Fedora has done a decent job with Fedora Atomic, it certainly does not enjoy the resources and commitment it deserves; a pretty bad regression for (at least one of) the Fedora Atomic images was not considered a blocker for one of the more recent major release updates. Heck, it has become so bad that even the likes of both CentOS Stream and GNOME OS have shown to be more receptive when it comes to addressing problems and whatnot.
    • It has been pointed out that Fedora would probably not survive in the event that Red Hat would cease ‘its support’.