What Red Hat has done

Fall 2003, Red Hat announces The Fedora Project
Merger of the Red Hat Linux Project and Fedora Linux, a repository of third party rpms (http://fedora.us/)
Red Hat Linux Project not a product of Red Hat?
Ever so slightly relaxed trademark rules
No guarenteed security errata
Minimal backporting of security fixes
Short 4-6 month release cycle
Updates (not "errata") thru only 2 months after next release
Freely downloadable, including isos, but no boxed set
RHEL line of products to feed off of Fedora Project