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That was to be expected for a long time. Embrace (financing most of Linux development, with SuSE historically a close 2nd), Extend (introduce Linuxisms such as

That was to be expected for a long time. Embrace (financing most of Linux development, with SuSE historically a close 2nd), Extend (introduce Linuxisms such as systemd, containers), Extinguish (make putting together all the F/OSS amounting to a complete O/S an art, make changes for the sake of it, sell "support"). What's not answered is why now, in the middle of an active CentOS release cycle? Smells like IBM/RH doesn't see growth in new enterprise customers/startups coming to Linux (going to clouds/k8s instead and focusing on creating Docker images for workloads). RedHat surely must've been fully aware that discontinuing CentOS would create a giant backlash. I guess, like me, few people haven't used CentOS as base for new builds anyway; OTOH corporate clouds (OpenShift, k8s) for big customers seems like an attractive market for IBM/RH. Edit: a good outcome of this catastrophe might be to shift focus towards POSIX, LSB, and other means for portability which historically had strong following in the Linux and BSD communities

senko 6y ago
Financing development of Linux is a bad thing? Introducing Linuxisms in ... Linux? And the only thing they're extinguishing is a free (as in beer) distro that they controlled anyway (and choose not to continue putting resources into).
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > Financing development of Linux is a bad thing? When they do it by screwing over their users, yes. > Introducing Linuxisms in ... Linux? Introducing non-portable ways of doing things that were previously portable to non-Linux OSs, yes. It's certainly a minor point since if anything some of those changes increased portability within the Linux ecosystem, but I can sorta see "introducing Linuxisms in areas that previously weren't Linux-specific" (ex. `service foo start` did the same thing on RHEL and FreeBSD; `systemctl start foo` isn't going to be a thing on any BSD).
  - senko 6y ago
    > When they do it by screwing over their users, yes. I agree that screwing over your users is a bad thing, but I do think RH contribute a lot of time, money and effort in a way that benefits a larger Linux user base. Just by looking at Linux kernel contributions, RH are one of the largest companies contributing developer time. > Introducing non-portable ways of doing things that were previously portable to non-Linux OSs. I think SysVinit was going to be replaced sooner than later. There's a lot to be desired in a way that some systemd developers evangelized it, but the other major alternative (upstart) was also a Linuxism. Even BSD systems are moving (or considering moving) away from it. From all the "standard" Unixisims, I think that's one of the parts that's aged the worst, and it was a matter of time before various operating systems (BSDs, Linux distros,...) replaced it.

senko 6y ago

Financing development of Linux is a bad thing? Introducing Linuxisms in ... Linux? And the only thing they're extinguishing is a free (as in beer) distro that they controlled anyway (and choose not to continue putting resources into).

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> Financing development of Linux is a bad thing? When they do it by screwing over their users, yes. > Introducing Linuxisms in ... Linux? Introducing non-portable ways of doing things that were previously portable to non-Linux OSs, yes. It's certainly a minor point since if anything some of those changes increased portability within the Linux ecosystem, but I can sorta see "introducing Linuxisms in areas that previously weren't Linux-specific" (ex. `service foo start` did the same thing on RHEL and FreeBSD; `systemctl start foo` isn't going to be a thing on any BSD).
- senko 6y ago
  > When they do it by screwing over their users, yes. I agree that screwing over your users is a bad thing, but I do think RH contribute a lot of time, money and effort in a way that benefits a larger Linux user base. Just by looking at Linux kernel contributions, RH are one of the largest companies contributing developer time. > Introducing non-portable ways of doing things that were previously portable to non-Linux OSs. I think SysVinit was going to be replaced sooner than later. There's a lot to be desired in a way that some systemd developers evangelized it, but the other major alternative (upstart) was also a Linuxism. Even BSD systems are moving (or considering moving) away from it. From all the "standard" Unixisims, I think that's one of the parts that's aged the worst, and it was a matter of time before various operating systems (BSDs, Linux distros,...) replaced it.