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Having a more "front runner" distro for RHEL (RedHat Enterprise) is great for RedHat. Since bugs will probably be caught in CentOS and don't end up in RHEL. Thi

Having a more "front runner" distro for RHEL (RedHat Enterprise) is great for RedHat. Since bugs will probably be caught in CentOS and don't end up in RHEL. This front runner role was actually intended for Fedora however Fedora contains way too much experimental changes for anyone to seriously try to run it on servers. I don't want to sound too "tin-foil headed" but I guess now that RedHat has hired the main CentOS dev(s?) this change comes from RedHat. I can't imagine the CentOS user base wants this direction for the CentOS project (or maybe thats just my lack of imagination...). People who use CentOS want a boring Linux distro like RHEL. They just don't want to pay for RHEL subscriptions.

fogihujy 6y ago
> People who use CentOS want a boring Linux distro like RHEL. They just don't want to pay for RHEL subscriptions. There's a lot of people using CentOS indirectly, through CloudLinux. Whatever happens there, a lot of people will be affected.
- Galanwe 6y ago
  And Scientific Linux, and Amazon Linux, etc.
  - em500 6y ago
    SL never released version 8 (they switched to CentOS8). Amazon (correct me if I'm wrong) does not release installer ISOs. AFAIK, closest to a plain free RHEL8 clone is Oracle Linux.
    - zxspectrum1982 6y ago
      There's also Springdale Linux.
      - kasabali 6y ago
        Wow I forgot it existed. I must've erased it from my mind along with Scientific Linux. Nice to see they've kept it up-to-date so far.
em500 6y ago
If they just want a free (beer) RHEL clone, the best choice might turn out to be ... Oracle Linux. Who would have thought?
- m3adow 6y ago
  Isn't Amazon Linux basically the same? Or is that a fork of CentOS in the first place?
  - em500 6y ago
    Can I download and run Amazon Linux at home (non-vm)?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - zxspectrum1982 6y ago
      Not really. You can use Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 like that if you want but why would you do that? Oracle Linux, CloudLinux, Debian or openSUSE Leap are better choices.
  - Twirrim 6y ago
    CentOS is how RedHat releases their sources in compliance with open source licenses (Presumably they're going back to releasing them as a consequence for this). My familiarity with Amazon Linux is about 4 years out-of-date these days, but it was a RHEL/CentOS clone with a number of the core libraries like glibc being updated and maintained by Amazon on an independent life cycle.
- acqq 6y ago
  > might turn out to be ... Oracle Linux Is CentOS the upstream for Oracle Linux? Instead of which comes CentOS Stream and then the question is what will Oracle do? Would they even try to keep the old CentOS concept alive?
  - 6y ago
codetrotter 6y ago
> Having a more "front runner" distro for RHEL (RedHat Enterprise) is great for RedHat. Since bugs will probably be caught in CentOS and don't end up in RHEL. I thought that Fedora was already serving this role
- dralley 6y ago
  Not really. RHEL / CentOS is basically a hardened snapshot of Fedora taken every few years, with a few bespoke changes on top. So in that sense you could argue that Fedora is a front-runner for "the next RHEL" but at any point in time it is too far ahead of the current RHEL to be a useful testbed in any respect for those users. Although I guess you could argue that it helps knock down bugs in packages like GNOME that do get updated regularly in RHEL. CentOS Stream is basically "the next x.y release of RHEL". Some updates, like GNOME updates and new hardware enablement, will be present in CentOS Stream a few months before they are released to RHEL and CentOS as part of a new x.y-release.
  - mattdm 6y ago
    Yes, this is exactly it. The conspiracy theories about buying-CentOS-to-kill it are understandable but totally off-base. Red Hat brought CentOS in-house at a time when the company was trying to grow from being a single-product company to a portfolio one, and it became clear that Fedora wasn't working for what at the time RH called "layered products". The hope was that CentOS would provide a more-RHEL-like community place for work like RDO to happen. That was partially successful, but the plan wasn't really realized — and speaking from a Fedora point of view, that "Fedora is failing at a thing we need so we'll turn to CentOS" wasn't a healthy dynamic for either project. CentOS Stream serves the initial purpose better, and now RH's distro ecosystem story is actually linear rather than a crazy MC Escher contortion.
syshum 6y ago
>>Since bugs will probably be caught in CentOS That is only true if CentOS continues to be widely adopted, with this move by RedHat i do not see that continuing, I am sure many org's right now are looking for options to move off CentOS / RHEL stacks.
AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
> People who use CentOS want a boring Linux distro like RHEL. They just don't want to pay for RHEL subscriptions. How dare they want a free operating system?
- omniglottal 6y ago
  How dare tens of thousands of developers produce a free operating system, and it gets sold by one business who added graphics of a trademarked hat?
  - jamespo 6y ago
    Sounds straightforward to maintain your own fork in that case.
  - tomnipotent 6y ago
    You do realize that a non-trivial number of contributions to Linux come from professional developers working at companies like Google, IBM, and RH?
    - 1_player 6y ago
      Agreed, a significant part of Linux's graphical stack (GNOME, mesa, pipewire, etc.) is maintained by people whose email end in @redhat.com
      - kcb 6y ago
        For now. As with all acquisitions it's only a matter of when.
        tomnipotent 6y ago
        Except acquisitions work out just as often as they don't.
Twirrim 6y ago
RHEL bought CentOS 6 years ago. Note that the announcement blog post points folks to using RedHat instead. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish succeeded?
ilovetux 6y ago
> People who use CentOS want a boring Linux distro like RHEL. They just don't want to pay for RHEL subscriptions. I use CentOS a lot for prototyping projects destined to be put on RHEL servers. I like it as a try-before-you-buy version of RHEL, and this change makes that use case a lot less useful.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  I think that your use-case matches perfectly with RHEL free developer license.
  - jsiepkes 6y ago
    The free RHEL development license doesn't allow for even a whim of something that could be considered production usage. So you can't make a proof of concept with the RHEL developer license in which you let "the business", customers, etc. toy around for a while.
- acomjean 6y ago
  A group of us was sent to Red Hat for a kernel class (week long, excellent) over 10 years ago. We were moving off HP-UX which offered really excellent real time extensions (disabling interups on a per cpu basis...processor sets, and other fun) The instructor told us if we wanted to try some of the things we were doing in class to experiment more, we could try it on CentOS. it was the practically the same. This was before Red Hat “ acquired” them.

fogihujy 6y ago

> People who use CentOS want a boring Linux distro like RHEL. They just don't want to pay for RHEL subscriptions. There's a lot of people using CentOS indirectly, through CloudLinux. Whatever happens there, a lot of people will be affected.

Galanwe 6y ago
And Scientific Linux, and Amazon Linux, etc.
- em500 6y ago
  SL never released version 8 (they switched to CentOS8). Amazon (correct me if I'm wrong) does not release installer ISOs. AFAIK, closest to a plain free RHEL8 clone is Oracle Linux.
  - zxspectrum1982 6y ago
    There's also Springdale Linux.
    - kasabali 6y ago
      Wow I forgot it existed. I must've erased it from my mind along with Scientific Linux. Nice to see they've kept it up-to-date so far.

em500 6y ago

If they just want a free (beer) RHEL clone, the best choice might turn out to be ... Oracle Linux. Who would have thought?

m3adow 6y ago
Isn't Amazon Linux basically the same? Or is that a fork of CentOS in the first place?
- em500 6y ago
  Can I download and run Amazon Linux at home (non-vm)?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - zxspectrum1982 6y ago
    Not really. You can use Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 like that if you want but why would you do that? Oracle Linux, CloudLinux, Debian or openSUSE Leap are better choices.
- Twirrim 6y ago
  CentOS is how RedHat releases their sources in compliance with open source licenses (Presumably they're going back to releasing them as a consequence for this). My familiarity with Amazon Linux is about 4 years out-of-date these days, but it was a RHEL/CentOS clone with a number of the core libraries like glibc being updated and maintained by Amazon on an independent life cycle.
acqq 6y ago
> might turn out to be ... Oracle Linux Is CentOS the upstream for Oracle Linux? Instead of which comes CentOS Stream and then the question is what will Oracle do? Would they even try to keep the old CentOS concept alive?
- 6y ago

codetrotter 6y ago

> Having a more "front runner" distro for RHEL (RedHat Enterprise) is great for RedHat. Since bugs will probably be caught in CentOS and don't end up in RHEL. I thought that Fedora was already serving this role

dralley 6y ago
Not really. RHEL / CentOS is basically a hardened snapshot of Fedora taken every few years, with a few bespoke changes on top. So in that sense you could argue that Fedora is a front-runner for "the next RHEL" but at any point in time it is too far ahead of the current RHEL to be a useful testbed in any respect for those users. Although I guess you could argue that it helps knock down bugs in packages like GNOME that do get updated regularly in RHEL. CentOS Stream is basically "the next x.y release of RHEL". Some updates, like GNOME updates and new hardware enablement, will be present in CentOS Stream a few months before they are released to RHEL and CentOS as part of a new x.y-release.
- mattdm 6y ago
  Yes, this is exactly it. The conspiracy theories about buying-CentOS-to-kill it are understandable but totally off-base. Red Hat brought CentOS in-house at a time when the company was trying to grow from being a single-product company to a portfolio one, and it became clear that Fedora wasn't working for what at the time RH called "layered products". The hope was that CentOS would provide a more-RHEL-like community place for work like RDO to happen. That was partially successful, but the plan wasn't really realized — and speaking from a Fedora point of view, that "Fedora is failing at a thing we need so we'll turn to CentOS" wasn't a healthy dynamic for either project. CentOS Stream serves the initial purpose better, and now RH's distro ecosystem story is actually linear rather than a crazy MC Escher contortion.

syshum 6y ago

>>Since bugs will probably be caught in CentOS That is only true if CentOS continues to be widely adopted, with this move by RedHat i do not see that continuing, I am sure many org's right now are looking for options to move off CentOS / RHEL stacks.

AdmiralAsshat 6y ago

> People who use CentOS want a boring Linux distro like RHEL. They just don't want to pay for RHEL subscriptions. How dare they want a free operating system?

omniglottal 6y ago
How dare tens of thousands of developers produce a free operating system, and it gets sold by one business who added graphics of a trademarked hat?
- jamespo 6y ago
  Sounds straightforward to maintain your own fork in that case.
- tomnipotent 6y ago
  You do realize that a non-trivial number of contributions to Linux come from professional developers working at companies like Google, IBM, and RH?
  - 1_player 6y ago
    Agreed, a significant part of Linux's graphical stack (GNOME, mesa, pipewire, etc.) is maintained by people whose email end in @redhat.com
    - kcb 6y ago
      For now. As with all acquisitions it's only a matter of when.
      - tomnipotent 6y ago
        Except acquisitions work out just as often as they don't.

Twirrim 6y ago

RHEL bought CentOS 6 years ago. Note that the announcement blog post points folks to using RedHat instead. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish succeeded?

ilovetux 6y ago

> People who use CentOS want a boring Linux distro like RHEL. They just don't want to pay for RHEL subscriptions. I use CentOS a lot for prototyping projects destined to be put on RHEL servers. I like it as a try-before-you-buy version of RHEL, and this change makes that use case a lot less useful.

vbezhenar 6y ago
I think that your use-case matches perfectly with RHEL free developer license.
- jsiepkes 6y ago
  The free RHEL development license doesn't allow for even a whim of something that could be considered production usage. So you can't make a proof of concept with the RHEL developer license in which you let "the business", customers, etc. toy around for a while.
acomjean 6y ago
A group of us was sent to Red Hat for a kernel class (week long, excellent) over 10 years ago. We were moving off HP-UX which offered really excellent real time extensions (disabling interups on a per cpu basis...processor sets, and other fun) The instructor told us if we wanted to try some of the things we were doing in class to experiment more, we could try it on CentOS. it was the practically the same. This was before Red Hat “ acquired” them.