Fedora Core is a distribution of Linux, an open source operating system which is backed by Red Hat. There are many other commercially backed linux distributions such SUSE Linux (backed by Novell), Ubuntu (backed by Canonical Ltd.) and Mandriva Linux. Community projects such as Debian and Gentoo also exist. At the time of writing this article, there are over 300 different linux distributions or "flavours" of linux.

Linux distributions take a variety of forms from fully featured desktop and server operating systems to minimal environments for use in embedded systems or for booting from a floppy.

The Fedora Project has been recently shifting its focus to its new site at fedoraproject.org. The website sums up Fedora itself:

The Fedora Project is a Red Hat sponsored and community supported open source project. Its goal? The rapid progress of Free and Open Source software and content. Public forums. Open processes. Rapid innovation. Meritocracy and transparency. All in pursuit of the best operating system and platform that Free software can provide.