The goal of the Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general-purpose operating system exclusively from open source software. Development is done in a public forum. The project produces releases of Fedora approximately 2 times a year, with a public release schedule available at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Schedule. The Red Hat engineering team continues to participate in building Fedora and invites and encourages more outside participation than was possible in the past. By using this more open process, we hope to provide an operating system more in line with the ideals of free software and more appealing to the open source community. For more information, refer to the Fedora Project website at http://fedoraproject.org.

The Fedora Project is driven by the individuals that contribute to it. As a tester, developer, documenter, or translator, you can make a difference. See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Join for details. For information on the channels of communication for Fedora users and contributors, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate.

In addition to the website, the following mailing lists are available:

To subscribe to any of these lists, send an email with the word "subscribe" in the subject to <listname>-request, where <listname> is one of the above list names. Alternately, you can subscribe to Fedora mailing lists through the Web interface at http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/.

The Fedora Project also uses several IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels. IRC is a real-time, text-based form of communication, similar to Instant Messaging. With it, you may have conversations with multiple people in an open channel, or chat with someone privately one-on-one. To talk with other Fedora Project participants via IRC, access the Freenode IRC network. Refer to the Freenode website at http://www.freenode.net/ for more information.

Fedora Project participants frequent the #fedora channel on the Freenode network, while Fedora Project developers may often be found on the #fedora-devel channel. Some of the larger projects may have their own channels as well. This information may be found on the webpage for the project, and at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate.

In order to talk on the #fedora channel, you need to register your nickname, or nick. Instructions are given when you /join the channel.

	IRC Channels
	The Fedora Project and Red Hat have no control over the Fedora Project IRC channels or their content.