Fedora 31 Will Likely Be Cancelled Or Significantly Delayed To Focus On Retooling

Following the release of Fedora 30 in May, there might not be another major Fedora Linux release for about one year's time.

No, it doesn't have anything to do with IBM acquiring Red Hat who leads Fedora and contributes a majority of its resources, but rather, it's about trying to re-tool the distribution and restructure the way its developed to rely more upon automated testing, improving the release processes, and related infrastructure to make it more scalable and better for the longer-term.

To achieve this massive, low-level undertaking, key Fedora Project developers/leaders/managers are in favor of skipping the Fedora 31 release cycle and leaving Fedora 30 in place longer while the time is invested in working out changes around testing and tooling. The end goal is to make Fedora a more reliable operating system and reducing manual efforts in producing it while increasing transparency.

Some of the current Fedora release challenges are outlined on this Fedora Wiki page. There is also now a mailing list discussion on the planned change.

Going about one year without a new Fedora release isn't entirely unprecedented: from Fedora 20 to 21 was twelve months between releases while working on the "Fedora.Next" initiative.

Update: A decision has now been made and they have altered their plans around re-tooling - Fedora 31 Isn't Expected To Be Delayed After All.