Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 14:57:46 -0400
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@schwartz-pr.com>
To: <lwn@lwn.net>
Subject: Open Source-Based Publishing: The Next Frontier

***MEDIA ALERT***

Open Source-Based Publishing:
The Next Frontier

Red Hat Offering Free Download of Maximum RPM v.2

Today, Red Hat takes open source development to another level—open source-based
publishing. The availability of Maximum RPM Version 2 (the definitive reference book
for the RPM Package Manager), expands the open source principles by allowing for
community development on a widely used community resource. Red Hat is offering
Maximum RPM v.2 for free download at http://www.rpm.org. What you’ll find at
www.rpm.org is the original copy of Maximum RPM in postscript format. Remember,
Maximum RPM v.2 is just starting, so what you can download is a work in progress.

Maximum RPM v.2 is an update of the official, definitive technical reference to the RPM
system. It provides accurate and detailed coverage of RPM’s history, philosophy, usage,
and internals, from both the user and packager perspectives.

With Maximum RPM now in a format to which people can more easily make
contributions, Red Hat looks forward to working on future Maximum RPM Versions in
close collaboration with the open source community at large, each author taking a small
part in helping Linux users understand RPM from any level, thus creating a self-
sustaining reference document that will provide up-to-the-minute information. From
basic install and upgrade packages, to performing sophisticated RPM database queries, or
even building a different RPM system, Maximum RPM guides users step by step.

RPM stands for RPM Package Manager. It is an open packaging program that enables the
installation, upgrading and removal of packages. It is freely available for anyone to use. It
allows users to take source code for new software and package it into source and binary
form such that binaries can be easily installed and tracked, and source can be rebuilt
easily.

RPM also maintains a database of all packages and their files that can be used for
verifying packages and querying for information about files and/or packages. Packages
are files that contain software, and are written in a particular format that enables the
software to be easily installed and removed. RPM is the first and most widely used
automated install and package management system for Linux. RPM was developed by
Red Hat, Inc. and remains a core technology for Red Hat Linux.

For more information on Maximum RPM v.2, please contact:

Melissa London 		        Laura Ackerman
Red Hat, Inc. (East) 		Schwartz Communications for Red Hat
919/547-0012 			781/684-0770
melissa@redhat.com 	    redhat@schwartz-pr.com