Users of Red Hat Fedora, one of the most popular implementations of the Linux operating system, are still guessing about the origins of a week-long "maintenance" problem that has forced the open-source project to reinstall its systems.

In an online alert to the Fedora community last Thursday, Paul Frields, head of the Fedora project, reported "an issue in the [project's] infrastructure systems."

The issues caused service outages in Fedora, and Frields recommended that users not install any new packages until the problem was resolved. Some observers say that Frields's language strongly suggests a security problem with the operating system.

In an update about the Fedora outage issued yesterday, Frields said that the project would restore service to Fedora's "critical path" by the end of the day. But he still wasn't giving any hints on the source of the problem.

"We know the community is awaiting more detail on the past week's activities and their causes," Frields said. "We're preparing a timeline and details and will make them available in the near future."

— Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading