Red Hat will close the Fedora Foundation as it restructures its end-user-focused Fedora Project, the company announced Tuesday in an e-mail.

In a message sent to Red Hat’s Fedora mailing list, Fedora Project Leader Max Spevack said the Foundation was not helping the company to achieve its goals for the total project.

The Fedora Project is designed as a vehicle for Red Hat to engage the open-source development community and provide for continuing development of free-use open-source products.

Originally designed to be the holder of open-source patents and guarantee the public’s right to use them, "the scope of the Foundation quickly became too large for efficient progress," Spevack said.

He gave five reasons why the Foundation was not successful as originally conceived, including the Open Invention Network (OIN), which Red Hat also backs, doing a better job of aggregating business open-source patents commons, and insufficient legal standing to defend related copyrights.

OIN was founded by several companies with open-source interests, including IBM and Sony.

Instead of the Foundation, Red Hat will strengthen the board of the Fedora Project, and authorize it to address the concerns and provide support to its development community, Spevack said. He also said Red Hat will keep its promise of "once free, always free" on Fedora.

-Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service

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