The Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCO) is responsible for the technical development of the Fedora distribution. Linux, approved the transition to the RPM 6 package manager in the fall release of Fedora 43. The release of RPM 6.0 is scheduled for Q3 2025.
The RPM 6 branch is notable for its support of a new format (RPM 6), which allows packages larger than 4 GB (overcoming this limitation is important, since the SRC package with Chromium is close to the limit and is 3.7 GB). The RPM 6 format uses 64-bit size fields, modernizes cryptographic structures, and adds MIME information about files. RPM 5 was skipped to avoid overlap with the RPM5 project, which is not related to Red Hat's RPM and was developed by independent developers.
Support for the RPM 4 format using cpio will be retained in full. Moreover, the RPM 6 branch does not impose a transition to the new package format, and distributions will be able to remain on the RPM 4 format at their own discretion. For example, Fedora 43 will be supplied with the RPM 6.0 package manager, but the package format will remain RPM 4 for now. For those who wish to switch to the new format, support for reading and installing packages in the RPM 4 format has been added to the RPM 6.x branch.
Another significant change in RPM 6 is the inclusion of digital signature verification by default. To ensure that mandatory signature verification does not complicate the installation of self-built packages, RPM 6 adds support for automatic generation of local signatures during the build to the rpmbuild utility. There is also a "--nosignature" option that allows you to force a package to be installed without signature verification.
Among other changes: C++ code (C++20) is now allowed in development; multiple OpenPGP signatures are now possible for each package; MD5, SHA1, and DSA hashes are no longer supported; and the legacy RPM 3 format is no longer supported. The rpmkeys utility has expanded its key management capabilities, such as the ability to use the "rpmkeys --import" command to update OpenPGP keys. The rpmkeys utility itself is now considered the primary tool for managing the RPM keystore in Fedora (using gpg-pubkey has been deprecated). The Sequoia-sq toolkit, written in Rust, is now available as an alternative to GnuPG.
Additionally, it is worth noting the appointment of a new leader for the Fedora project. Matthew Miller, who has held the position since 2014, has been replaced by Jef Spaleta, who has been involved in the work since the Fedora project was not yet taken over by Red Hat. In the past, Jef served on the Fedora Governing Council for several years as a representative of the community.
The Fedora leader is an official position at Red Hat. The leader is not elected by a vote of the community, but is nominated by the previous project leader and approved by Red Hat. The development of the distribution is coordinated by a steering committee consisting of 4 representatives from RedHat and 5 from the independent developer community. A number of requirements are imposed on the project leader, such as high qualifications, experience working in the community, the ability to make decisions and listen to the wishes of others.
Source: opennet.ru
