On Sat, 2006-01-21 at 15:25 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
I don't buy that. It's a key process for RH to be able to provide sufficient stability for RHEL.
Of course it is but its also a Free and open source community operating system. Win-win.
I am still waiting for RH to act community-oriented, i.e. to let the community participate actively in their decision processes, to let the community actively work on packages in FC, etc., etc.
You can actively work on packages by providing patches.
I could do (and did) that upstream, I could do so (and did) with RHL, before Fedora, I could do so with RHEL.
In comparison to RHL, nothing has changed for me, except that I am building and shipping packages through the FE build system, instead of building them myself. Both situations have/had pros and cons, which approximately balance each other.
So, in the end, nothing much has changed "by Fedora having been introduced".
The development methodology of "Release early, Release often" combined with donations from Red Hat combined with the many community sub projects within the Fedora Foundation is what provides value for Fedora.
The community did not implement the Fedora Foundation.
Community cannot implement a foundation.
Well, the question is: Does it need a foundation?
Reducing costs/spare taxes usually is the reason for founding foundations (I've been working for one for >10 years).
You might not understand the law in the US to determine tax savings.
Right, I am not familiar with US tax law.
In Germany, donations to a "non-profit foundation" are tax deducable up to a certain amount, and are commonly used by enterprises to reduce their taxable income.
Working principle: Enterprises found a foundation, thereby reduce their taxable income and delegate employees/resources to the foundation. Somewhat oversimplified, the only thing a foundation must prove is it not to work "ROI-oriented". Typically this is basic research and long term R'n'D. Fedora probably would comply to the tax laws' criterions.
Ralf