RedHat, Fedora future?

[Bevan C. Bennett]

Austin Isler wrote:

> Why drop the the RHL line if you just turn around and have products like 
> RHPW. RHL became a familiar line, and I think it would have just been 
> better to implement the features of RHPW into RHL and package it as 
> that. (IMO)

Primarily because general end-users tend to want a very different sort 
of distribution than corporate users.

End users want an rpm for the latest stable KDE/postfix/whatever ready 
for download ASAP (See this list for plenty of examples) -and- serious 
bugs and security issues addressed quickly.

Corporate users want/need a more consistant and stable platform with bug 
and security fixes backported in, but no major disruptions or version 
changes. Software vendors in particular need to have a stable 'target 
platform' (for both servers and client systems) to compile and test 
their software on.  Both want any updates to be carefully tested to 
ensure that currently deployed software continues to work.

It's nearly impossible to get ISV certifications on an ever-changing 
platform, which Fedora needs to be to satisfy many of us. This is the 
inherent dichotomy leading to the split of RHEL from Fedora and their 
decision to change the name and more clearly differentiate the two.

See also:

http://www.redhat.com/software/rhelorfedora/

Where they describe the differences perhaps more eloquently than I can.

Disclaimer: My theories and opinions are completely my own.