To avoid misunderstandings, this repository is about a project at Cornell University named the Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (FEDORA), not a Red Hat one.
It took me far too long to figure this out from their site, but when I did, the project looked far less interesting.
For a while there, I thought the "been in existence for 20+ years and our users represent an engaged, supportive and invested global community of users focused on sustainability and growth" was the Fedora Project extending their expertise in file organization and distribution to other use cases.
But on the bright side, I now have a link I can use to confuse my students with (to keep them out of their comfort zone and promote deep research).
It seems that in 2003 (when Fedora Linux first launched) this project was pretty obscure and early-stage, so it's hard to blame Red Hat for not having known about it then. This kind of thing just happens sometimes.
Fedora and Red Hat aren't super common or easily accessible anymore either, since they've made their choice as they're entitled to move towards enterprise.
I feel like fedora is pretty accessible at this point. The main speedbump is enabling non-free repos but if you're helping someone install linux for the first time you just tell them to check that box during setup.
Both. '...all parties settled on a co-existence agreement that stated that the Cornell-UVA project could use the name when clearly associated with open source software for digital object repository systems and that Red Hat could use the name when it was clearly associated with open source computer operating systems.'
> The transferable agreement stipulated that each project must display the following text on their web site: [...]
Looks like Cornell-UVA satisfied this by placing it on their about page. Red Hat on the other hand hid it on a dedicated legalese page nobody will read: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/legal/
So first of all IAARHL (and I do a lot of work supporting Fedora) but IANARHTL. That said, I have seen the actual agreement (but many years ago), which predates my arrival at Red Hat by some years, but don't have immediate access to it and am disinclined to hunt down a copy solely because of this thread. However, my recollection of it is that it was quite a bit more specific than the Cornell-UVA paraphrase as to where the parties expected the notice to appear. My further recollection is that it was the Cornell-UVA FEDORA that was not really complying with the letter of the agreement as to that issue, rather than the Fedora Linux Fedora, essentially the opposite of what you're saying. To settle this we'd have to get the agreement and do some Wayback Machine research, which I'm also disinclined to do at the moment.
Now, as to why it's on the Fedora Legal Docs site today, that's because a few years ago we undertook a significant migration of all "legal" content from the basically deprecated Fedora Project wiki to the newly created Fedora Legal Docs site. In general, such material is now much easier to find than it was in the wiki era (where it was spread across multiple wiki pages). I don't know when the trademark notice first came to be placed on the Fedora wiki, which itself didn't always exist, but I believe when Cornell-UVA and Red Hat signed the agreement, Fedora may have still been using a redhat.com site.
Yeah, I believe this is correct from the legal standpoint, and as long as both parties are okay with it, it’s alright with me.
My point is: Fedora is a great project, but it’s also so much more popular than FEDORA (I assume a lot of HN readers haven’t even heard about this second one before). It would be nice to mention them in just a tiny bit more prominent way – say, at the bottom of about page. But it’s really not a big deal either way.
Due to their comparative popularity, it makes complete sense to me. You don't have people in HN comments for a new Fedora release going "Wait is this about the Digital Access Project?"
What does "not a good look" even mean in this context? Getting tired of this phrase's overuse tbh. "Think of the optics" fell into disuse and I can't wait for this one to join it.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying they’re being assholes. Fedora is a nice project after all. It’s just a bit sad to see the asymmetry here, especially since Fedora is so much more well known than FEDORA.
A sibling commenter is right though: the Legal page is linked from the footer, I was looking in the wrong place.
There is no issue except the one third-parties (such as HN commenters) are making out of it.
Fedora and FEDORA reached an agreement a long time ago. Unless I missed something, neither party has disparaged the other in that time. The parent comment is making drama out of literally nothing. Neither side cares so why is parent OP trying to stir shit up?
I stand corrected. I got lost in a huge amount of links in the footer of the homepage, but it is indeed linked to from another footer (which is, indeed, present on every page).
> associated with open source software for digital object repository systems and that Red Hat could use the name when it was clearly associated with open source computer operating systems.'
If it's as worded, I'm surprised Fedora Directory Server didn't end up being a problem for RedHat, as its not an OS, and you could call it a digital object repository system, I guess.
Or maybe thats why they re-branded it as 389 Directory Server?
I'm pretty sure it's not why it was rebranded; the timing doesn't make sense since the rebranding occurred several years after the trademark coexistence agreement.
The curious question though is why 389 was formerly called Fedora Directory Server. From what I've been told by someone who was around at the time (as I wasn't), it's because Red Hat went through a very brief period where it experimented with using the "Fedora" brand as a sort of general "upstream of Red Hat, sponsored by Red Hat" sort of community brand. This was I think quickly rejected as a bad idea but Fedora Directory Server was apparently the one (for a while) surviving example of the experiment. I imagine that the reason for the rebranding was that it was confusing to use the "Fedora" name at a certain point because the directory server project never really had anything particularly to do with Fedora (apart from the connection to Red Hat).
Are there any images (or actual demos) of the actual user interface?
Every variant of search for "Fedora repository screen shot" just brings back instructions for taking a desktop screen shot on the Fedora operating system.
Wow. Java 11. Looks like a great project for an update. Anybody know where we can get a group of CS students to update the code with a modern toolset? Used to be MIT, Clarkson, Cornell, Berkeley, RIT, etc cranked this stuff out.
Total tangent from the OP, but neat to see RIT listed here (among some excellent universities)! What kind of things has RIT done like this? Just a curious alum.
It is interesting to me that I came across this project earlier this week (MLS student, procrastinating via browsing Awesome-Lists), and now it's here on YN.
Do they have a separate website for a git repo, e.g. Github? Between me reading the page in bed this morning and then driving to work, the website seems to have gone down.
Were they so unoriginal that they had to steal the "fc" abbreviation from the Linux distro as well? (In the Linux distro, it comes from the original name "Fedora Core"; the abbreviation is most visible in package versions.)
In 1997 a research project at Cornell University was named the Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (FEDORA). In 1998, Payette and Lagoze published an article about their work referencing Fedora, and later that year software with the same name was released to the public.
To avoid misunderstandings, this repository is about a project at Cornell University named the Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (FEDORA), not a Red Hat one.
It took me far too long to figure this out from their site, but when I did, the project looked far less interesting.
For a while there, I thought the "been in existence for 20+ years and our users represent an engaged, supportive and invested global community of users focused on sustainability and growth" was the Fedora Project extending their expertise in file organization and distribution to other use cases.
But on the bright side, I now have a link I can use to confuse my students with (to keep them out of their comfort zone and promote deep research).
And predates Fedora by about 6 years.
I was ready to be mad in the comments, now I'm mad but in the other direction.
It seems that in 2003 (when Fedora Linux first launched) this project was pretty obscure and early-stage, so it's hard to blame Red Hat for not having known about it then. This kind of thing just happens sometimes.
Fedora and Red Hat aren't super common or easily accessible anymore either, since they've made their choice as they're entitled to move towards enterprise.
I feel like fedora is pretty accessible at this point. The main speedbump is enabling non-free repos but if you're helping someone install linux for the first time you just tell them to check that box during setup.
Don't be mad, they are clearly distinct — one is FEDORA and the other is Fedora!
Right or wrong, who owns the trademark?
Both. '...all parties settled on a co-existence agreement that stated that the Cornell-UVA project could use the name when clearly associated with open source software for digital object repository systems and that Red Hat could use the name when it was clearly associated with open source computer operating systems.'
https://fedorarepository.org/about/our-history/
> The transferable agreement stipulated that each project must display the following text on their web site: [...]
Looks like Cornell-UVA satisfied this by placing it on their about page. Red Hat on the other hand hid it on a dedicated legalese page nobody will read: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/legal/
Not a good look IMO.
So first of all IAARHL (and I do a lot of work supporting Fedora) but IANARHTL. That said, I have seen the actual agreement (but many years ago), which predates my arrival at Red Hat by some years, but don't have immediate access to it and am disinclined to hunt down a copy solely because of this thread. However, my recollection of it is that it was quite a bit more specific than the Cornell-UVA paraphrase as to where the parties expected the notice to appear. My further recollection is that it was the Cornell-UVA FEDORA that was not really complying with the letter of the agreement as to that issue, rather than the Fedora Linux Fedora, essentially the opposite of what you're saying. To settle this we'd have to get the agreement and do some Wayback Machine research, which I'm also disinclined to do at the moment.
Now, as to why it's on the Fedora Legal Docs site today, that's because a few years ago we undertook a significant migration of all "legal" content from the basically deprecated Fedora Project wiki to the newly created Fedora Legal Docs site. In general, such material is now much easier to find than it was in the wiki era (where it was spread across multiple wiki pages). I don't know when the trademark notice first came to be placed on the Fedora wiki, which itself didn't always exist, but I believe when Cornell-UVA and Red Hat signed the agreement, Fedora may have still been using a redhat.com site.
Yeah, I believe this is correct from the legal standpoint, and as long as both parties are okay with it, it’s alright with me.
My point is: Fedora is a great project, but it’s also so much more popular than FEDORA (I assume a lot of HN readers haven’t even heard about this second one before). It would be nice to mention them in just a tiny bit more prominent way – say, at the bottom of about page. But it’s really not a big deal either way.
Due to their comparative popularity, it makes complete sense to me. You don't have people in HN comments for a new Fedora release going "Wait is this about the Digital Access Project?"
What does "not a good look" even mean in this context? Getting tired of this phrase's overuse tbh. "Think of the optics" fell into disuse and I can't wait for this one to join it.
> What does "not a good look" even mean in this context?
it's a kind way of saying they're being assholes?
I wouldn’t go as far as saying they’re being assholes. Fedora is a nice project after all. It’s just a bit sad to see the asymmetry here, especially since Fedora is so much more well known than FEDORA.
A sibling commenter is right though: the Legal page is linked from the footer, I was looking in the wrong place.
Red Hat is the bigger party here. Their minimization of this issue seems a little like bullying.
There is no issue except the one third-parties (such as HN commenters) are making out of it.
Fedora and FEDORA reached an agreement a long time ago. Unless I missed something, neither party has disparaged the other in that time. The parent comment is making drama out of literally nothing. Neither side cares so why is parent OP trying to stir shit up?
As the kids say, "not a good look."
> not a good look
Directly linked from every page as Legal in the footer. What do you try to say; it almost feels you imply docs.fp.o is obscuring it?
I stand corrected. I got lost in a huge amount of links in the footer of the homepage, but it is indeed linked to from another footer (which is, indeed, present on every page).
> associated with open source software for digital object repository systems and that Red Hat could use the name when it was clearly associated with open source computer operating systems.'
If it's as worded, I'm surprised Fedora Directory Server didn't end up being a problem for RedHat, as its not an OS, and you could call it a digital object repository system, I guess.
Or maybe thats why they re-branded it as 389 Directory Server?
I'm pretty sure it's not why it was rebranded; the timing doesn't make sense since the rebranding occurred several years after the trademark coexistence agreement.
The curious question though is why 389 was formerly called Fedora Directory Server. From what I've been told by someone who was around at the time (as I wasn't), it's because Red Hat went through a very brief period where it experimented with using the "Fedora" brand as a sort of general "upstream of Red Hat, sponsored by Red Hat" sort of community brand. This was I think quickly rejected as a bad idea but Fedora Directory Server was apparently the one (for a while) surviving example of the experiment. I imagine that the reason for the rebranding was that it was confusing to use the "Fedora" name at a certain point because the directory server project never really had anything particularly to do with Fedora (apart from the connection to Red Hat).
The hat!
> The term fedora was in use as early as 1891.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora#History)
Thanks for that explanation. Totally threw me for a minute.
Didn't think about the Linux distro at all because the software was clearly described as otherwise.
And they have Fedora Slack(ware)!
Wait - I saw a link to a Slack chat workspace. Do they have something for Slackware Linux as well?
No, sorry it was that I meant. Also confusing when you are primed to think RedHat -> Fedora -> Slackware :)
Perhaps also of interest is the storage format that Fedora 6/7 uses.
https://ocfl.io/
Are there any images (or actual demos) of the actual user interface? Every variant of search for "Fedora repository screen shot" just brings back instructions for taking a desktop screen shot on the Fedora operating system.
Wow. Java 11. Looks like a great project for an update. Anybody know where we can get a group of CS students to update the code with a modern toolset? Used to be MIT, Clarkson, Cornell, Berkeley, RIT, etc cranked this stuff out.
https://fedorarepository.org/232540-2/
> Upgrades for over 40 dependency libraries, including upgrading Java 11 to Java 21.
Total tangent from the OP, but neat to see RIT listed here (among some excellent universities)! What kind of things has RIT done like this? Just a curious alum.
They were big in software for the one laptop per child project:
https://www.rit.edu/news/rit-class-develops-applications-sup...
And, while not open source, built this: https://dirsig.cis.rit.edu/
Also, I remember some kind of early realtime music accompaniment software, the guy played trumpet and the software played realtime accompaniment.
Also, MIT built X11, which later turned into a bureaucratic exercise instead of software project.
Berkeley, well BSD Unix.
Early web projects came out of Michigan, like gopher.
Not much lately though.
Gopher came out of the U of Minnesota. Their teams are the “Golden Gophers.”
Aah yes, that’s right
Hello fellow RIT alum! :-D
It is interesting to me that I came across this project earlier this week (MLS student, procrastinating via browsing Awesome-Lists), and now it's here on YN.
Maybe some stoner can vibe-rebase this with Rust.
Do they have a separate website for a git repo, e.g. Github? Between me reading the page in bed this morning and then driving to work, the website seems to have gone down.
Their Github is https://github.com/fcrepo/fcrepo
Thank you. Have a specific project at work that it might be relevant towards.
Were they so unoriginal that they had to steal the "fc" abbreviation from the Linux distro as well? (In the Linux distro, it comes from the original name "Fedora Core"; the abbreviation is most visible in package versions.)
FEDORA is years older than Fedora.
FTP was better.
FTP is great for the hackers who want to sniff cleartext user passwords over insecure public wifi.
FTPs used to have anonymous logins unless one was on a LAN, so sniffing passwords was not very relevant.
SFTP
[dead]
[flagged]
Wrong Fedora
It's not RH/IBM, but you wouldn't know that because you didn't read anything about it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46244011
From the website;
Name History
In 1997 a research project at Cornell University was named the Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (FEDORA). In 1998, Payette and Lagoze published an article about their work referencing Fedora, and later that year software with the same name was released to the public.
How to not name your project, exhibit 1
It's older than Fedora Linux.
if your little company was still named Google would you keep it? they just seem petty (the ™ on their logo lol)
Nothing petty about it: https://www.ridetenet.com/pages/a-letter-from-nolan
Wow! Like Christopher Nolan more now!