Red Hat to Name New Leader for Fedora Project

Last Updated on January 1, 2024 by David Both

After getting rid of many employees in April of 2023, Red Hat now seems to be attempting to back-fill some of the more critical positions that whatever algorithm they used randomly left empty. Those “rebalanced” then included the project leader for Fedora, Ben Cotton. Although the community nature of the projects and its other leaders keeps it going, a strong leader is important to ensure that Fedora schedules are kept and discussions moderated so that all opinions are heard in a safe environment. Cotton was exceptional at this and Fedora thrived under his leadership.

I use Fedora on all 12 of the computers in my home and have convinced others to move to Fedora from Windows. All five of my books are based on Fedora. Those of us who have been in the Fedora ecosystem for many years have been concerned about the future of this popular Linux distribution. Some of the discussion groups I frequent have even broached the subject of changing to a different distro.

I overheard some discussion by knowledgeable insiders today, Sunday, October 15, at the Inclusion and Diversity day of All Things Open (ATO) in Raleigh. NC. Although many questions are still unanswered, I do know that Red Hat is bringing in an experienced employee from an overseas location to meet with management here in Raleigh on Monday and Tuesday. It is my understanding that an announcement will be made later this week to confirm this addition to the Fedora team.

I have requested an interview with the new Fedora leader through a friend of mine who is on the Fedora team at Red Hat. I will post that interview here – assuming that I am able to make it happen. We are all interested to know about the future of our favorite Linux distro.