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> That in no way explains why they don't continue to have both Because they don't need it anymore. CentOS Linux or other rebuilds can still exist (just not usi

> That in no way explains why they don't continue to have both Because they don't need it anymore. CentOS Linux or other rebuilds can still exist (just not using the name; I disagree with that but I can understand Red Hat doesn't want its name attached to something that might have large delays in security fixes in the future) if somebody funds it or volunteers to do it, just like CentOS still supports Xen but RHEL does not. Also for what is worth there have been lots of engineering changes to RHEL in the past couple of years that make nightlies (and CentOS Stream) much more stable than they used to be, especially with respect to regressions. Running CentOS Stream is not going to be like Fedora Rawhide or Debian sid.

kbenson 6y ago
>>> it's a change that has strictly technical motives. I understand the business reasons for doing so. I don't agree with anyone branding this as done for purely technical reasons. Having CentOS Stream may be needed for technical reasons. Stopping CentOS 8 is in no way a technical decision. They are unrelated in any technical sense. If Red Hat just doesn't want to put resources towards CentOS as it traditionally existed anymore, that's their option, but they deserve any flak they get for taking over an open source project just to extinguish it, since CentOS is in no way really needs to be linked to their Stream product. They could just as easily called it RHEL Stream and said it's free, and it would be a less confusing and more direct funnel of people that want RHEL stability into RHEL subscriptions. Using the CentOS name is just a mind-share grab and screwing over an open source community. They control it so can do it, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to call them out for doing so.
- bonzini 6y ago
  The thing is, Red Hat never considered the distro more than a side effect of providing a base for developing "things" that will run on RHEL. It's even written on the centos.org home page, the distro is not why CentOS existed in 2020. So the fact that users (including myself!!) enjoyed a free distro as a result was not a part of Red Hat's RHEL strategy in any way.
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    IBM is all about expensive support contracts. We cannot afford RHEL. So we went with CentOS 7 and recently CentOS 8. I migrated some machines from 7 to 8. Turns out I did that for one year. My boss wasted precious money there, and it isn't getting us closer to RHEL. My take is its getting us closer to Debian Stable instead. Which is RedHat's loss because a migration to RHEL is then more out of the picture. They know this. They thought of the above. And they are fine with it. That is not a technical decision, as you said. It is a business decision.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    That only makes sense if Red Hat started CentOS. They didn't. The fact that they took control of it then changed it, even the web page, and then are not effectively killed the reason people are using it, is the thing I'm upset about. If I effectively took control of the EFF and then a couple years later changed the website copy to say that the EFF is a vehicle for litigating cases that kbenson thinks are important, and then actually changed its actions to do so, would you argue the same points? How is this any different? Something that was a net good for many people has been taken over and eventually killed. I think we're all worse off for that.
    - bonzini 6y ago
      > I think we're all worse off for that. I don't disagree.
Koshkin 6y ago
> Because they don't need it anymore. Isn’t that the crux of the problem? CentOS used to be about “us” (the users), not “them.”
- bonzini 6y ago
  Fire up the wayback machine and find when the centos.org home page changed the mission statement. At this point it started to be about a different "us" than you think, an "us" that doesn't include you and me and presumably doesn't mind CentOS Stream at all. In particular I started doing that and I got to the Sep 2019-Dec 2019 range, around the time CentOS Stream was launched. At that time this: > For users, we offer a consistent manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, we offer a solid, predictable base to build upon was changed to this: > CentOS Linux is a consistent, manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For some open source communities, it is a solid, predictable base to build upon.

kbenson 6y ago

>>> it's a change that has strictly technical motives. I understand the business reasons for doing so. I don't agree with anyone branding this as done for purely technical reasons. Having CentOS Stream may be needed for technical reasons. Stopping CentOS 8 is in no way a technical decision. They are unrelated in any technical sense. If Red Hat just doesn't want to put resources towards CentOS as it traditionally existed anymore, that's their option, but they deserve any flak they get for taking over an open source project just to extinguish it, since CentOS is in no way really needs to be linked to their Stream product. They could just as easily called it RHEL Stream and said it's free, and it would be a less confusing and more direct funnel of people that want RHEL stability into RHEL subscriptions. Using the CentOS name is just a mind-share grab and screwing over an open source community. They control it so can do it, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to call them out for doing so.

bonzini 6y ago
The thing is, Red Hat never considered the distro more than a side effect of providing a base for developing "things" that will run on RHEL. It's even written on the centos.org home page, the distro is not why CentOS existed in 2020. So the fact that users (including myself!!) enjoyed a free distro as a result was not a part of Red Hat's RHEL strategy in any way.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  IBM is all about expensive support contracts. We cannot afford RHEL. So we went with CentOS 7 and recently CentOS 8. I migrated some machines from 7 to 8. Turns out I did that for one year. My boss wasted precious money there, and it isn't getting us closer to RHEL. My take is its getting us closer to Debian Stable instead. Which is RedHat's loss because a migration to RHEL is then more out of the picture. They know this. They thought of the above. And they are fine with it. That is not a technical decision, as you said. It is a business decision.
- kbenson 6y ago
  That only makes sense if Red Hat started CentOS. They didn't. The fact that they took control of it then changed it, even the web page, and then are not effectively killed the reason people are using it, is the thing I'm upset about. If I effectively took control of the EFF and then a couple years later changed the website copy to say that the EFF is a vehicle for litigating cases that kbenson thinks are important, and then actually changed its actions to do so, would you argue the same points? How is this any different? Something that was a net good for many people has been taken over and eventually killed. I think we're all worse off for that.
  - bonzini 6y ago
    > I think we're all worse off for that. I don't disagree.

Koshkin 6y ago

> Because they don't need it anymore. Isn’t that the crux of the problem? CentOS used to be about “us” (the users), not “them.”

bonzini 6y ago
Fire up the wayback machine and find when the centos.org home page changed the mission statement. At this point it started to be about a different "us" than you think, an "us" that doesn't include you and me and presumably doesn't mind CentOS Stream at all. In particular I started doing that and I got to the Sep 2019-Dec 2019 range, around the time CentOS Stream was launched. At that time this: > For users, we offer a consistent manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, we offer a solid, predictable base to build upon was changed to this: > CentOS Linux is a consistent, manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For some open source communities, it is a solid, predictable base to build upon.