Casting My Vote for Fedora 14

As a long-time user of Fedora, I always look forward to trying out the latest release of the distribution. Fedora 14 follows in the tradition of previous releases, showcasing new innovations in a Linux operating system anyone can download and use. In the United States, we held mid-term elections this week with millions of people casting votes for their favorite candidates. In the world of open source computing, Fedora 14 gets my vote for advancing the latest in free and open source software.

I’ve been impressed with the stability and performance of each new release of Fedora. The community’s tight collaboration has continually upped the bar for the distribution’s quality, and it shows. That’s why I’m always excited to try out the new release and check out some of the latest technologies.

I’m happy to see that even while Fedora is more useful than ever for desktop productivity users, it’s also got a number of improvements for techies as well. With support for up and coming programming languages, and new debugging features created with the help of Red Hat engineers, I expect that Fedora will surely catch the eye of many a developer. I’m also happy to see Fedora images available again on Amazon EC2™, so anyone can try new technologies and contribute to their progress.

I’ve also seen the marvelous job done by the Fedora community on its website. The new website design does a great job of highlighting what makes Fedora the operating system that it is today. I found the fresh new look easier to navigate, and I think the new site will help people find their way around the Fedora community and learn how they can help contribute as well.

The release of Fedora 14 is more than just a collection of bits and bytes on a DVD – it shows that the “open source way” is alive and well. Fedora is a large and thriving community, and I’d like to take the opportunity to recognize the individuals that put time and effort into making Fedora what it is today. Fedora is not just programmers - Fedora literally has an army of developers, packagers, designers, marketers, ambassadors, translators, testers and writers from all walks of life that come together to build a new release approximately every six months. Red Hat’s proud to help sponsor the work that goes into Fedora, in part because open source projects like Fedora form the foundation of Red Hat’s commercial offerings. Fedora’s work allows Red Hat to bring its products to market more rapidly, and to get early feedback on emerging technologies. At the same time, Fedora is yet another way for Red Hat to give back to the open source community, by providing a platform for transparent collaboration and innovation that anyone can join.

If you’re not already a member of the Fedora community, I encourage you to join with us and help build the software and community of the future. Download Fedora 14 today!