F9 talking points
From FedoraProject
Fedora 9 Talking Points
- Fedora features the first persistent, nondestructive LiveUSB. Your USB key can become a fully booting and functional Fedora you can carry with you anywhere, to use on any system that can boot on USB (most computers made in the last five years). Persistence means you can change the system, updating it with new software, and saving your own work as well. Nondestructive means you can turn any already-used USB key with 1+ GB free space into this kind of "computer in your pocket," without any messy backing up, reformatting, repartitioning, or other contortions.
- Fedora 9 is the first major Linux distro to feature KDE 4 by default -- The K Desktop Environment (KDE) recently introduced a major new revision with many sweeping changes both in the user interface and in its many back-end subsystems. The Fedora KDE team, which is driven mainly by volunteer community members, did all the work to integrate KDE 4 into Fedora for this release. The group set up its own roadmap and milestones, working in coordination with the upstream KDE project where appropriate, and as a result users of Fedora will be able to use the latest technology for their KDE desktop. This is a great example of how the Fedora community is completely empowered to take initiative on bringing compelling new features into the distribution.
- Fedora 9 uses the new PackageKit by default -- PackageKit is an extremely flexible yet simple method for managing software in any Linux distribution. It integrates well with many existing package management systems and provides easy-to-use graphical tools for installing and updating software. By providing one package management tool that works across all Linux distributions, PackageKit improves the lives of all Linux users, since there's no need to memorize different commands or tools based on one's personal choice of Linux distribution.
- Fedora offers the new FreeIPA -- IPA is "Identity, Policy, and Auditing" -- which is a way for system administrators to easily manage security information, such as authentication for people and computers in a larger, mixed environment. In the past, sysadmins would have to build their own solutions to some extent, configuring directory services, domain names, security settings, making their services talk to Microsoft Windows domains and Active Directory, etc., all separately and using a lot of different command-line tools. FreeIPA's goal is to have a single toolset with an easy Web interface and command-line utilities that allow a sysadmin to easily provision and run all these services. Right now we the "I" (identity) features are complete, and work has started on the "P" and "A" (policy and auditing) features. This is an example of a technology that has great potential impact for the enterprise, and people might see this in future Red Hat Enterprise Linux offerings. (http://freeipa.org/ for more info)
- Fedora contributor Dan Williams has extended NetworkManager to new heights of functionality. It now plays well with static IP addressing, allows multiple connections and connection sharing, features easy connection editing, and supports mobile broadband, among other features. Thanks to diligent upstream work, NetworkManager can now be activated in Fedora 9 by default, as has been planned for some time since its initial release.
- There are many ways to get involved in Fedora that allow people to contribute back to open source. We have community powered groups that do artwork, documentation, website design, system administration, marketing, bug triage, packaging, and more. With our new easier joining process, it's never been easier to get involved in Fedora. Just go to http://join.fedoraproject.org/ to get started.
- Fedora's Artwork project is a shining success of the Fedora philosophy. Every release cycle, a team of talented artists start with by proposing theme ideas. They sketch, photograph, and brainstorm ideas for how to turn these themes about Fedora into an elegant design. The digital artists on the team then go through an iterative process turning the designs into reality, including desktop backgrounds and other thematic elements for the release. For Fedora 9, the theme was "waves," showing the spreading effect that Fedora's innovative and dedicated community has on all of free and open source software through our hard work and devotion to working well with upstream projects.
- Fedora's KDE team is a perfect example of getting involved to make something happen in Fedora from a development standpoint. The KDE team is made up mostly of volunteer community members. For Fedora 9, they did all the packaging work, bug identification and triage, and upstream coordination to bring KDE 4.0.3, the newest edition of the popular dekstop environment, into Fedora. The Fedora KDE team coordinated their work and milestones to ensure that Fedora 9 could be the first distribution to have KDE 4 available as the default for KDE users. KDE 4 includes a huge number of new features, and including it in Fedora will give it wider exposure to a broad range of users and developers.
- In Fedora, the community runs our distribution. Community governance, from the various project steering communities to the Fedora Project Board, results in a true working meritocracy. The people who devote their time to advancing free and open source software in Fedora have the power to determine what we do next.
- Because we insist on working with upstream providers, the code produced in Fedora has a track record of better developer community acceptance, long-term maintainability, and relevance to the entire free and open source ecosystem. The work Fedora community members do is reused in many other Linux distributions, and we're proud to see Fedora's features reproduced elsewhere. Fedora contributors have produced such innovations as:
*NetworkManager *PulseAudio *OpenJDK integration (both 7 and 6) *PackageKit *PolicyKit *AIGLX *func and cobbler *libvirt, virt-manager, and oVirt *HAL *udev *D-Bus *Frysk and SystemTap *SELinux
- The Fedora Users and Developers Conference, or FUDCon, goes global this year. FUDCon events bring contributors together regionally in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. FUDCon events feature everything from hackfests -- where contributors get together to brainstorm, design, prototype, and improve free and open source software -- to conference sessions where contributors can learn from each other. And unlike other similar conferences, FUDCon is FREE FOR EVERYONE. These events are truly community events where everyone from new users to Linux luminaries meet, mingle, and work on cool new stuff.
