Fedora 18 Beta has been released

The much-delayed beta release of Fedora 18 is finally ready for testing: "The Fedora project team is excited to announce the beta release of its free, fully-functional Linux operating system, Fedora 18, code-named 'Spherical Cow.' Explore what's new in the Fedora 18 beta, including these highlighted release features: Fedora 18 offers a brand-new version of the GNOME desktop, version 3.6, straight from the upstream development process; updates have also been made to the KDE, Xfce and Sugar desktop environments; additionally, the MATE desktop is available for the first time in Fedora; Fedora's new installer user interface enhances the anaconda installer with improvements in ease of use and installation."

The Fedora Project is an openly-developed project designed by Red Hat, open for general participation, led by a meritocracy, following a set of project objectives. The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software. Development will be done in a public forum. The project will produce time-based releases of Fedora about 2-3 times a year, with a public release schedule. The Red Hat engineering team will continue to participate in building Fedora and will invite and encourage more outside participation than in past releases. By using this more open process, we hope to provide an operating system more in line with the ideals of free software and more appealing to the open source community.