A LinuxDistribution. More generally RockLinux is a distribution build kit you can build your own Linux distribution by choosing the software (packages) you want to include and specifying the compilation optimization options, the custom GNU configure options etc.
Mostly oriented towards system administrators. Rock Linux aims to be easily specialized to many special-purpose targets like single-disk routers, embedded systems, CD-based, cluster node, etc.
RockLinux is made from scratch, it is not based on other major distributions like RedHat or DebianGnuLinux.