The Fedora Project Governing Council (Fedora Council) withdrew the previously made decision to create the Fedora AI Developer Desktop – the official edition of the distribution for developers using AI tools. Initially, all 6 members of the governing council voted for the creation of the project, but after reading the criticism expressed during discussion in the community, a few days later two participants changed their votes and spoke out against. Since unanimity was not reached, approval of the decision was postponed. The issue is planned to be resolved before the Flock 2026 conference, which will be held from June 14 to 16.
The dissatisfaction is associated with the intention to use third-party kernel modules and proprietary components in Fedora AI Developer Desktop to support NVIDIA CUDA technology. The supply of third-party modules violates the consensus established in the project regarding the policy for the supply of third-party kernel modules, and the supply of CUDA goes against the ideology of the project, which does not welcome the promotion of proprietary software and the tying of solutions to one manufacturer. In addition, the new edition proposed delivering LTS branches of the kernel, but it is not clear who will support them separately from the regular, constantly updated kernel packages maintained in Fedora.
According to the member of the governing council who changed his vote, the change in strategy regarding the supply of modules for the kernel in Fedora requires additional approval and expert opinions from engineers and lawyers. It is assumed that the problem can be resolved through the transition to supplying the standard Nova driver instead of third-party open modules from NVIDIA, which is expected to be ready closer to the end of the year.
Initially it was assumed that community members would contact representatives of the governing council in case of concerns about certain upcoming decisions, but in fact the council was not notified of possible problems and voted on the basis of information provided by the author of the initiative. In order to prevent future council decisions that go against the community’s opinion, Jef Spaleta, leader of the Fedora project,