Fedora 12: a conversation with Paul Frields

Last week, just before the final release of Fedora 12 was announced, I had the opportunity to speak with Fedora Project Leader Paul Frields. The following article is based on that conversation.

Although F12 had a slightly shorter release cycle than F11, there are more new and improved features in this release. Support has been added for many models of wireless and video cards. Paul was particularly excited about the newly-added support for bluetooth tethering, which allows him to connect his laptop to the internet through his mobile phone.

Of course there are also new desktop productivity applications, and new artwork for this release. Thanks to the Fit and Finish project there are clearer menus, and tooltips and notifications are better positioned and easier to read. PackageKit, a system designed to make installing and updating software on your computer easier, can be used with shell commands or GUIs. It uses PolicyKit for fine-grained permissions.

For Java programmers there's NetBeans 6.7 and SystemTap users will be happy to see it integrated with Eclipse. System administrators and software testers should appreciate the virtualization features. These include the kernel shared memory (KSM) feature, which allows better performance for more guests using less RAM. The introduction of libguestfs and the interactive tool guestfish allow easy access to virtual machine disk images.

We spoke briefly about the What is Fedora? debate and Fedora's target audience. Paul was looking forward to discussing these and other topics at the upcoming FUDCon in Toronto, December 5-7, 2009. Paul went on to say that Fedora already has thousands of contributors, but they are always interested in encouraging more people to contribute. Of course there are many ways to contribute. Developers, artists, translators, bug reporters, wiki editors, etc. should all feel comfortable in contributing to the Fedora Project. The Fedora Project seeks to cultivate a community of contributors with open ideas. By designing a better system for contributors they hope to create a better system for consumers as well.

We also talked about the future of rawhide. Jesse Keating has proposed a significant change to rawhide, which is Fedora's development branch. "So my plans are really funny. I plan to make rawhide more unstable more of the time, and I plan to make "rawhide" more stable more of the time. Crazy eh? How can I do this? By splitting "rawhide" in two."

In this proposal rawhide will not be an installable tree. Instead it will become a repository of developmental and experimental packages. People who want the latest versions of their favorite software can install all the packages they want from rawhide, but the base system will be more stable. On the other hand, there will also be a "pending release" installable tree. The installable tree will spawn F13 alpha, beta, and any snapshots that are released for testing until the final F13 release. Meanwhile developers can work on bringing the latest features to the rawhide versions of these packages, without stopping for feature freezes. There is more information about this proposal on the wiki. There was also a recent meeting about this proposal, and this meeting summary provides an overview with a look at some of the obstacles.

Fedora elections are coming up, the nomination period is over and candidates have started campaigning. Seats are open on the Fedora Advisory Board, FESCo (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee), and FAmSCo (Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee). A short list of release names for Fedora 13 is out now, and voting will begin soon.

Fedora is free software and it is built using free software. Paul likes to think of it as "drinking your own champagne". Fedora 12 is available now, along with several official spins. Download Fedora 12 from a mirror near you, and check out the new features for yourself.