5 ms·

So, what I don’t understand is that I thought the whole point of CentOS was that RedHat didn’t control it? I guess I missed the acquisition announcement, but a

So, what I don’t understand is that I thought the whole point of CentOS was that RedHat didn’t control it? I guess I missed the acquisition announcement, but a RedHat-owned CentOS makes a lot less sense to me.

pushrax 6y ago
The whole point was that it was free. I’m not aware of anyone choosing CentOS over RHEL because of the governance structure. The feature set of CentOS directly depended on decisions by Red Hat anyway.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  I would be suspicious of running essential business operations on a free version of a product the company also sells licenses for: I’d always be wondering if they’re going to change strategy on me.
  - wmf 6y ago
    Beggars can't be choosers and I don't know of another free distro providing 10 years of updates.
bombcar 6y ago
CentOS was dying and RedHat was a no-brainer to take over maintenance. Dying as in lacking resources and developers - not users. They err really starting to lag upstream.
marcinzm 6y ago
The point as I saw it was that CentOS didn't require a licensing fee. RedHat decided to make them into an official free version whose users they could then upsell onto licenses. IBM seems to have decided that they'd make more money in this segment by squeezing licenses out of existing users and killing the product.
- bonzini 6y ago
  CentOS was never officially an "official free version". After Red Hat acquired CentOS, they positioned as a base for open source projects to develop on RHEL (which was what Red Hat needed and why they hired the developers in the first place). Of course, users that just needed a free RHEL kept using it that way with the added bonus of corporate backing, so much that Scientific Linux said "screw it we'll just use CentOS".
- freedomben 6y ago
  IBM had nothing to do with it, unless you think every Red Hat employee would lie about it. I would think if anything RH would like to blame IBM :-) They legitimately believe this is better. Maybe not for everybody, but for most. And for those who it's not better for they are announcing options in the next month or two for free RHEL access. I just blogged about it if you are interested. There's a lot of inaccurate info out there as a result of poor initial messaging. I attempt to clear things up here: https://freedomben.medium.com/centos-is-not-dead-please-stop-saying-it-is-at-least-until-you-read-this-4b26b5c44877?sk=e500c2f16403d634ff8a4ea17d705252 https://freedomben.medium.com/centos-is-not-dead-please-stop...
znpy 6y ago
I wonder why the CentOS people agreed to this and did not walk away. Does red hat own the CentOS brand?
- kcb 6y ago
  Most of the "CentOS Governing Board" are Red Hat employees.
- IceWreck 6y ago
  Yes. RedHat bought the CentOS brand afew years ago
- marcinzm 6y ago
  >I wonder why the CentOS people agreed to this and did not walk away. Cynical answer of money aside, someone else mentioned the project was running into resource issues so they may have chosen RedHat over a slow inevitable death.
  - freedomben 6y ago
    I suspect this too. I've been watching the community response to Rocky and it's mind blowing. hundreds and hundreds of volunteers spring up. How come these people didn't help with CentOS? AFAIK it's been like two or three people doing almost all of the maintenance. I'm not casting blame, I haven't helped much with CentOS either besides maintaining some small packages. But it's interesting to think about.
    - marcinzm 6y ago
      >hundreds and hundreds of volunteers spring up. >How come these people didn't help with CentOS? And in six months there will be 3 left.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  RedHat hired[0] all the CentOS developers/maintainers almost seven years ago. [0] https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2014-January/020100.html https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2014-Janu...

pushrax 6y ago

The whole point was that it was free. I’m not aware of anyone choosing CentOS over RHEL because of the governance structure. The feature set of CentOS directly depended on decisions by Red Hat anyway.

fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
I would be suspicious of running essential business operations on a free version of a product the company also sells licenses for: I’d always be wondering if they’re going to change strategy on me.
- wmf 6y ago
  Beggars can't be choosers and I don't know of another free distro providing 10 years of updates.

bombcar 6y ago

CentOS was dying and RedHat was a no-brainer to take over maintenance. Dying as in lacking resources and developers - not users. They err really starting to lag upstream.

marcinzm 6y ago

The point as I saw it was that CentOS didn't require a licensing fee. RedHat decided to make them into an official free version whose users they could then upsell onto licenses. IBM seems to have decided that they'd make more money in this segment by squeezing licenses out of existing users and killing the product.

bonzini 6y ago
CentOS was never officially an "official free version". After Red Hat acquired CentOS, they positioned as a base for open source projects to develop on RHEL (which was what Red Hat needed and why they hired the developers in the first place). Of course, users that just needed a free RHEL kept using it that way with the added bonus of corporate backing, so much that Scientific Linux said "screw it we'll just use CentOS".
freedomben 6y ago
IBM had nothing to do with it, unless you think every Red Hat employee would lie about it. I would think if anything RH would like to blame IBM :-) They legitimately believe this is better. Maybe not for everybody, but for most. And for those who it's not better for they are announcing options in the next month or two for free RHEL access. I just blogged about it if you are interested. There's a lot of inaccurate info out there as a result of poor initial messaging. I attempt to clear things up here: https://freedomben.medium.com/centos-is-not-dead-please-stop-saying-it-is-at-least-until-you-read-this-4b26b5c44877?sk=e500c2f16403d634ff8a4ea17d705252 https://freedomben.medium.com/centos-is-not-dead-please-stop...

znpy 6y ago

I wonder why the CentOS people agreed to this and did not walk away. Does red hat own the CentOS brand?

kcb 6y ago
Most of the "CentOS Governing Board" are Red Hat employees.
IceWreck 6y ago
Yes. RedHat bought the CentOS brand afew years ago
marcinzm 6y ago
>I wonder why the CentOS people agreed to this and did not walk away. Cynical answer of money aside, someone else mentioned the project was running into resource issues so they may have chosen RedHat over a slow inevitable death.
- freedomben 6y ago
  I suspect this too. I've been watching the community response to Rocky and it's mind blowing. hundreds and hundreds of volunteers spring up. How come these people didn't help with CentOS? AFAIK it's been like two or three people doing almost all of the maintenance. I'm not casting blame, I haven't helped much with CentOS either besides maintaining some small packages. But it's interesting to think about.
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    >hundreds and hundreds of volunteers spring up. >How come these people didn't help with CentOS? And in six months there will be 3 left.
nobody9999 6y ago
RedHat hired[0] all the CentOS developers/maintainers almost seven years ago. [0] https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2014-January/020100.html https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2014-Janu...