We’re working on Fedora Strategy 2028 — our next five-year plan. We are now reviewing those Objectives and their associated Impact. Read this guide for details on the current planning phase.
Focus Area: Editions, Spins, and Interests
“Fedora Editions” are a key component of our previous big strategic plan, Fedora.next. Rather than thinking of Fedora Linux as a single general-purpose operating system with a lot of options, this asked us to think in terms of solutions tailored to different audiences. We started wtih three different Editions, intentionally designed to serve specific and distinct use cases: Workstation, Server, and Cloud. Instead of giving users a bag of Lego bricks, we decided to offer pre-assembled sets — while still offering piles of bricks for folks who prefer that.
And, this worked. Of course, it’s hard to isolate all of the factors, but just from the basic updates-mirror statistics, we can see an abrupt turn for the better right when this was implemented.
But wasn’t without controversy — choosing to provide a particular technology to solve a problem means something else isn’t chosen. Specifically, it meant that the Working Group for the Workstation Edition needed to choose a desktop environment, and they selected GNOME. This wasn’t arbitrary — we can discuss all of the reasons separately. But nonetheless, people who prefer and who work on other desktop environments have felt a little left out, and that’s not what we want.
This Focus Area is part of the Theme We build on the success of Fedora.next. We want to increase and improve the benefits we’ve gotten from Fedora Editions, while also expanding to better invest in and better present other Fedora deliverables — the things we’ve called “Spins” and “Labs”.
When we make Fedora a good place for people to build on the technology they’re interested in and enjoy, we make it easy for those people to bring their energy to the rest of the project as well. This is another area where a project like Fedora is very different from a company: we’re not competing for resources, and it’s okay to explore different things.
Empowering contributors with specific and even niche interests has another benefit: we bring new people and new ideas from adjacent communities into the Fedora world. (Look at the amazing impact of the design-team and Creative Freedom Summit for just one example!)
Objectives & Impact
| Objective | Impact |
|---|---|
| Each Edition has a story for each release. | Better fuel for marketing, leading to more interest and press. |
| It’s trivial to create and maintain a new Fedora Spin or Remix. | Niche environments bring enthusiasm greater than their size — and allow experimentation which may power future growth. |
| More (active) SIGs, fewer images. | We grow strong special-interest teams and networks into other communities — neuroscientists, roboticists, teachers… |
The work at hand:
- In this topic, discuss the overall focus area and how the three Objective / Impact pairs fit in. If you think we should re-word or re-orient “Reaching the World” to better describe the concept, this is the place. It’s also where we want to identify any crucial alternate or missing Objective / Impact ideas that fit the focus. Please review “What if something is missing?” — we already have an ambitious plan, so ideally we should now be looking at adjusting alignment and scope rather than brainstorming new ideas. But if there’s something very important that we’re missing, now is definitely better than later.
- In separate topics per Objective (and associated Impact), discuss and validate each:
As outlined in the roadmap, this post will close in one month.