Red Hat gives up on Fedora Foundation
In an open letter distributed to the Fedora community earlier this week, Red Hat employee and Fedora project leader Max Spevack states that Red Hat is no longer interested in establishing an autonomous, nonprofit foundation to manage the Fedora project. Instead, Red Hat will revive the Fedora Project Board, which will include five Red Hat representatives, four members of the Fedora community, and a chairman appointed by Red Hat who will possess veto power. Dominated by Red Hat, the Fedora Project Board will now have complete authority over the Fedora project, including budgetary control.
Initially announced at the 2005 Red Hat Summit in New Orleans by Red Hat general counsel Mark Webbink, the Fedora Foundation was going to be a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization responsible for managing volunteers and fundraising. The Fedora Foundation was also supposed to protect the intellectual property of participants by establishing a system for copyright assignment that would imbue the Foundation with the legal standing required to protect the freedom of contributed content. In October, Red Hat issued a concise update informing Fedora contributors that the foundation had been officially established as a legal entity, but had not yet established nonprofit status. That progress report was the last public statement issued on behalf of the foundation until this past Tuesday.
