“Not all major software versions carry the same weight. Consider
the last two releases of the Fedora distribution. Fedora 7 offered
little that was obvious to desktop users, despite some
behind-the-scenes improvements and the opening of the release
process to public scrutiny. By contrast, if Test 3 of Fedora 8 is
any indication, the upcoming release, scheduled for next month,
returns to the distribution’s tradition of introducing a variety of
innovations. Some of these innovations, like the new firewall tool,
are minor, if still welcome. Others, like the IcedTea version of
Java and Codec Buddy, are flawed, but may eventually find their way
into other distributions.“After seven releases of its own and the previous Red Hat
releases, Fedora has most aspects of putting a distribution
together down to a routine…”