www.centos.org - The Community ENTerprise Operating System

http://www.centos.org/

CentOS stands for "Community ENTerprise Operating System. The goal is "Our purpose is to provide stable Linux solutions for organizations and individuals who do not need strong commercial support to achieve successful operation." essentially an enterprise level Open Source OS. Interestingly enough one of the key technologys is the self updating feature. As members of the CentOS community produce updates (as I understand it), the OS will self update, Not patch.
* easy maintenance
* self hosting distribution (one that can build on itself)
* suitability for long term use in production environments
* friendly environment for users and package maintainers
* long-term support of the core
* active development
* community infrastructure
* open management
* open business model
* commercial support - offered by partner vendors

It would appear that we are moving (in spite of the Corporate over-masters) toward an open source Social model. I say this in light of Ebay's purchase of Skype, AOL's purchase of ICQ and the latest news...Yahoo's announcement of the release of a VOIP service intended to undercut skype. we're talking long distance @ 0.02 per minute or less and incoming calls for 29.95 per year or 2.99 a month. the last strangle hold is the cell phone companies control of mobile connectivity...