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I'm sure other commenters will put it much better than I could, but for those people that use CentOS for the purpose of a stable long term release, surely it is

I'm sure other commenters will put it much better than I could, but for those people that use CentOS for the purpose of a stable long term release, surely it is dead. The distribution now being called "CentOS" is almost at the opposite ends of the scale in terms of stability. The fact they've called this other thing the same name is purely marketing. If you destroy something then create something entirely different with the same name then the fact remains that you still destroyed the original thing. That's not dramatising or hyperbole.

freedomben 6y ago
> The distribution now being called "CentOS" is almost at the opposite ends of the scale in terms of stability. No, this is totally wrong (which is why I'm trying to correct it). CentOS will be where RHEL used to be. It is trading places with RHEL. It's not "the opposite end of the scale in terms of stability." CentOS will be roughly a single minor point release ahead of RHEL. Please read more about because that is super misleading and others are seeing things like this and propagating them: 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...
- ikiris 6y ago
  Saying this repeatedly does nothing to make it actually true.
  - freedomben 6y ago
    I agree! Saying it's false repeatedly likewise doesn't make it false. Where am I wrong? Can you point out my error and make a case for your position? What makes you think RHEL is still "stable" but suddenly a distro a tiny bit ahead is now wildly unstable?
    - ikiris 6y ago
      Go be a child somewhere else. Your responses show a clear lack of understanding of the point of using CentOS and becoming petulant when someone calls you on it just makes it worse. CentOS was binary compatible because the point was expecting it to be the same environment for application layer and testing. The change being described throws all that in the trash and its intellectually dishonest at best or just obtuse ignorance at worst to "misunderstand" the difference here, and how big of a change switching to a "Beta" effect release schedule is when there was an existing 10 year commitment to release schedule that was also thrown in the trash. Don't try to insult the userbase by then gaslighting after the fact.
  - kcb 6y ago
    Don't you understand. He made a picture and swapped places between RHEL and CentOS. Clearly this proves that CentOS Stream is replacing RHEL.
- wizee 6y ago
  It’s swapping places with RHEL beta, not RHEL. Not calling it a beta doesn’t not make it a beta. It’s directly taking the role that RHEL beta releases used to have (ie. be a point release ahead, and be for the public to test and report issues before going to stable RHEL). Regardless of what your blog post says, RHEL was not a beta for old CentOS. Old CentOS was a rebuild/copy of RHEL, bugs and all included. RHEL will not be a copy/rebuild CentOS Stream, so it’s not a reversal of roles. Using outdated packages doesn’t make a distribution stable. It’s stable when its combination of packages and configuration has already been tried by a bunch of people, and confirmed to work, or has had its issues thoroughly documented with effective workarounds.
ghaff 6y ago
Rather than "stable long term release," I would phrase it as a "dot release frozen in time as much as possible modulo serious bugs and security fixes." Which is not the general direction that software is headed in. Changes going into CentOS Stream will have gone through QE tests. So, yes, it is different but, increasingly, most of the software you use will be using this type of model. Certainly SaaSs don't let you choose a dot release for the most part.
- cesarb 6y ago
  > Rather than "stable long term release," I would phrase it as a "dot release frozen in time as much as possible given serious bugs and security fixes." Which is exactly what we want. > So, yes, it is different but, increasingly, most of the software you use will be using this type of model. Certainly SaaSs don't let you choose a dot release for the most part. Not all of us are happy with having to follow the update treadmill. Software is a tool, like an electric drill; one doesn't update their electric drill every day, otherwise we would be wasting all our time updating and dealing with the fallout of updates, instead of drilling holes in wood. If you develop (or do anything) on top of software, you want a stable base, instead of one shifting all the time; one builds castles in rock, not in quicksand.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Absolutely fair that you desire that, but it's not where the software world in general is headed and it's at least understandable that software companies are skating to where the puck is headed. (ADDED: Of course, with open source, you have no requirement to upgrade. It's just that folks want to make certain upgrades--like security fixes--and for serious bugs but no others.) The nice thing about open source--rather than cloud SaaSs--is that there are more backward-looking options from a variety of sources. I'd also encourage users who need or feel they need that sort of option to contribute to such efforts so that they're sustainable.
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  > Which is not the general direction that software is headed in. You could be right. But "we got rid of this thing (and gave something totally different the same name) because that's not the direction the software is heading" would be a different comment from the one I replied to, which was "this thing still exists, honest!"

freedomben 6y ago

> The distribution now being called "CentOS" is almost at the opposite ends of the scale in terms of stability. No, this is totally wrong (which is why I'm trying to correct it). CentOS will be where RHEL used to be. It is trading places with RHEL. It's not "the opposite end of the scale in terms of stability." CentOS will be roughly a single minor point release ahead of RHEL. Please read more about because that is super misleading and others are seeing things like this and propagating them: 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...

ikiris 6y ago
Saying this repeatedly does nothing to make it actually true.
- freedomben 6y ago
  I agree! Saying it's false repeatedly likewise doesn't make it false. Where am I wrong? Can you point out my error and make a case for your position? What makes you think RHEL is still "stable" but suddenly a distro a tiny bit ahead is now wildly unstable?
  - ikiris 6y ago
    Go be a child somewhere else. Your responses show a clear lack of understanding of the point of using CentOS and becoming petulant when someone calls you on it just makes it worse. CentOS was binary compatible because the point was expecting it to be the same environment for application layer and testing. The change being described throws all that in the trash and its intellectually dishonest at best or just obtuse ignorance at worst to "misunderstand" the difference here, and how big of a change switching to a "Beta" effect release schedule is when there was an existing 10 year commitment to release schedule that was also thrown in the trash. Don't try to insult the userbase by then gaslighting after the fact.
- kcb 6y ago
  Don't you understand. He made a picture and swapped places between RHEL and CentOS. Clearly this proves that CentOS Stream is replacing RHEL.
wizee 6y ago
It’s swapping places with RHEL beta, not RHEL. Not calling it a beta doesn’t not make it a beta. It’s directly taking the role that RHEL beta releases used to have (ie. be a point release ahead, and be for the public to test and report issues before going to stable RHEL). Regardless of what your blog post says, RHEL was not a beta for old CentOS. Old CentOS was a rebuild/copy of RHEL, bugs and all included. RHEL will not be a copy/rebuild CentOS Stream, so it’s not a reversal of roles. Using outdated packages doesn’t make a distribution stable. It’s stable when its combination of packages and configuration has already been tried by a bunch of people, and confirmed to work, or has had its issues thoroughly documented with effective workarounds.

ghaff 6y ago

Rather than "stable long term release," I would phrase it as a "dot release frozen in time as much as possible modulo serious bugs and security fixes." Which is not the general direction that software is headed in. Changes going into CentOS Stream will have gone through QE tests. So, yes, it is different but, increasingly, most of the software you use will be using this type of model. Certainly SaaSs don't let you choose a dot release for the most part.

cesarb 6y ago
> Rather than "stable long term release," I would phrase it as a "dot release frozen in time as much as possible given serious bugs and security fixes." Which is exactly what we want. > So, yes, it is different but, increasingly, most of the software you use will be using this type of model. Certainly SaaSs don't let you choose a dot release for the most part. Not all of us are happy with having to follow the update treadmill. Software is a tool, like an electric drill; one doesn't update their electric drill every day, otherwise we would be wasting all our time updating and dealing with the fallout of updates, instead of drilling holes in wood. If you develop (or do anything) on top of software, you want a stable base, instead of one shifting all the time; one builds castles in rock, not in quicksand.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Absolutely fair that you desire that, but it's not where the software world in general is headed and it's at least understandable that software companies are skating to where the puck is headed. (ADDED: Of course, with open source, you have no requirement to upgrade. It's just that folks want to make certain upgrades--like security fixes--and for serious bugs but no others.) The nice thing about open source--rather than cloud SaaSs--is that there are more backward-looking options from a variety of sources. I'd also encourage users who need or feel they need that sort of option to contribute to such efforts so that they're sustainable.
quietbritishjim 6y ago
> Which is not the general direction that software is headed in. You could be right. But "we got rid of this thing (and gave something totally different the same name) because that's not the direction the software is heading" would be a different comment from the one I replied to, which was "this thing still exists, honest!"