Fedora 7 Test 4 was launched last week and I’m excited! Right now I’m downloading the ISO to try it out and, although I’m aware that there are plenty of new features for me to explore in the distribution itself, many of the elements that have me most excited are changes relating to their infrastructure: they are setting out to empower the community more than any other distribution has.

Chief among the changes to Fedora for the project’s seventh release is the merger of Core and Extras. The reason for this is that they intend to make all of the tools used to build the releases available to the wider community, with some functionality even being let loose from Red Hat’s internals. This, they hope, will help to encourage greater community involvement and also make it easier for individuals and organizations to spin their own versions and releases. The other benefit of this merger is that it will remove any perceived distinction between the quality of packages in the old repositories, which has long since disappeared.

Another related feature of Fedora 7 is the introduction of an official Live CD spin.

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