I have been using RedHat since RH 5.0, and now use RH 8.0. RH distros have really been stable and user friendly, with support for easy install of many third party software which a power users want on their linux, such as oracle DB, Jrun, etc... But with their release of Enterprise version, they seem to ignore normal users (Fudora is a namesake). They have increased the prices, which is out of reach of many users.
Seeing this shift in RedHat policy, makes me feel many users are going to turn away from RedHat and embrace sone other stable linux, which promises not to play such politics with users, who just want a stable, easy to use, and highly functional Linux distro.
I for one want to run commercial softwares like oracle DB, and many other third party softwares on my linux distro, and be able to install these software with ease. RedHat did this but it is now more commercial oriented. Hope cAos will fill this void.

I think that you are right on here.
There are several reasons that we choose to use a library core that is similar with RHEL. One is management, I surely don't want to maintain glibc! But the other is compatibility! When third party vendors certify a product against a particular distribution, they are actually certifying against particular packages and the package versions (ie. glibc-XYZ or a particular kernel revision/patch). Sharing a common low level core helps facilitate binary compatibility and makes it easy for a 3rd party vendor to support another distribution.

I would be interested to know how cAos works for you, and your opinions of it. Thanks for your comments!

question for life_captain: cant fedora do what you want it to? i mean it is essentially RH9 that has been turned over to the community which is where almost all other strong distros have come from or get the most out of. fedora can only get better. i agree with you about RH's policy and their prices, it almost seems as if they have become the M$ of the Linux world.

back to cAos - is it base on fedora or another distro? or completely built from the ground up?

cAos has its roots in pristine community sources with several major exceptions (ie. glibc and some other core libraries) which were taken from the distributable sources in RHEL.

So to answer the question, it has a low level core similar as RHEL, and the rest is built from the ground up.

cool, thanks