History records a number of Linux distributions that were touted as \\\"enterprise-ready,\\\" but the first one to be engineered from start to finish for enterprise adoption was Red Hat Advanced Server version 2.1.  That process of engineering established an 18-24 month major release cycle as well as a 5 year (extended to 7 year) maintenance lifespan and catalyzed a new technology ecosystem with open source at the core.  With each successive major release, Red Hat has introduced major new capabilities that have reshaped how CIOs think about enterprise architecture and how CEOs think about technology-enabled innovation.  This talk will explain with specific examples how the Fedora project has freed Red Hat to fail faster so that we can succeed sooner, and how this method can be successfully used by others, whether in the for-profit or non-profit sectors, and whether in private industry or in public administration.

Michael Tiemann has been involved with Free Software and Open Source Software since 1987, when he downloaded the GNU C compiler, made some hacks, and released the GNU C++ compiler later that year. He founded the world\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s first company to commercialize free software (in 1989) and sold that company to Red Hat (in 2000).

In addition to writing over 100,000 lines of code for the GNU project, he has submitted patches to dozens of other free and open source software, advised open source projects, companies, and consortia, co-authored new free and open source licenses, has advised national governments on free and open source software licensing, technology, and policy issues, and has given testimony in court about the negative effects of abusive software monopolies.