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Someone care to explain why did CentOS switch from downstream to upstream builds? I guess there is a reason.

gvb 6y ago
Money. RHEL requires expensive licenses. CentOS was RHEL without the RedHat branding and without the expensive licensing. By design, there was a nearly complete overlap between RHEL and CentOS. By "repurposing" CentOS into a "rolling release", RedHat (IBM) has broken the overlap so CentOS (free licensing) no longer competes directly against RHEL (expensive licensing).
- Spivak 6y ago
  This is so misinformed it's funny. CentOS and RHEL will now be down to the compiler flags compatible since RHEL minor releases will now just be point-in-time forks of CentOS with security fixes and backports from, you guessed it, CentOS.
  - gvb 6y ago
    CentOS and RHEL will only be exactly the same at the moment when RHEL is a point-in-time fork of CentOS. As soon ad RHEL forks from CentOS, CentOS will roll forward and will no longer be exactly the same as RHEL. Previously, CentOS was a rebuild of RHEL. In between RHEL releases, CentOS was exactly the same as RHEL. When RHEL had a release/fix/backpoint, CentOS trailed until it was rebuilt from the new RHEL source. The "old" CentOS was exactly the same nearly always (nearly perfect overlap) and the "new" CentOS is exactly the same nearly never (almost no overlap).
    - Spivak 6y ago
      You act like RHEL 7.1 is a fixed artifact — it’s constantly receiving updates, security patches, and backports. And CentOS always trails behind on those updates so it’s never exactly the same as RHEL either. This change makes CentOS so much closer to RHEL that it’s weird that people are acting like the opposite is happening.
      - quicklyfrozen 6y ago
        That's the whole point -- it's continually receiving updates that never break binary compatibility with existing apps/packages. For example, it's a safe target for vendors to target with binary packages, whereas CentOS stream won't be.
        Spivak 6y ago
        That's true of all RHEL major versions. You can safely target RHEL 6 or RHEL 7 without having to worry what minor version they might be running. The same will be true of CentOS Stream which is the upstream for the next minor release of RHEL. CentOS Stream isn't going to suddenly jump major versions. If the current RHEL release is 7.x then you can think of CentOS Stream as 7.(x+1). You don't have to worry about it suddenly being 8.0. Fedora plays the role of the future RHEL 8.0.
  - digitalsushi 6y ago
    Right but I use CentOS cause it's the Cyberpunk from April 2021, not December 2020.
hnarn 6y ago
To make people pay for RHEL.
Spivak 6y ago
The old model went something like this. - Fedora does its thing informed by but somewhat independently of RHEL. - Red Hat chooses a Fedora release to be the base of RHEL, forks it, and starts working on it. - This eventually becomes RHEL X. - Red Hat then forks RHEL X to create the RHEL X.0 Beta and eventually the RHEL X.0 release. RHEL X keeps getting work done on it which eventually lead to another fork which creates RHEL X.1 Beta and RHEL X.1. - After each RHEL X.y is released CentOS starts the process of rebuilding it from the sources and tracking upstream changes. The new model puts CentOS where RHEL X is and so RHEL X.y are actually forks of CentOS. This change matters a lot to you if you care a lot about the difference between the minor releases of RHEL because there won't be CentOS 7.1 CentOS 7.3 but just CentOS 7. If you just yum update on CentOS then you probably don't care since by default it will move you up minor versions. You have to try to stay on a specific minor version. What's nice about this change is that anyone can peel off releases from CentOS the same way Red Hat will do to make RHEL and new features become available when they're ready instead of being batched.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  There is a use-case for CentOS Stream, and if all Red Hat did was announced CentOS Stream and kept CentOS proper NO ONE would have any issue with that. There is also a use case for a production fork of RHEL as well. That's now gone. People who migrated to CentOS 8 because they thought they were getting a decade of support - that's now gone. So what are you arguing, that the second group somehow doesn't get it?
  - Spivak 6y ago
    I can’t defend cutting support for CentOS 8. That’s super shitty and I don’t really understand the move. The part I don’t think people really get is that if your goal was to have a fork of RHEL that was as close as possible to RHEL itself in absolute value that CentOS Stream is much better than CentOS is/was. CentOS always tracked far behind RHEL and now CentOS Stream will track closely in front of RHEL.
    - quicklyfrozen 6y ago

gvb 6y ago

Money. RHEL requires expensive licenses. CentOS was RHEL without the RedHat branding and without the expensive licensing. By design, there was a nearly complete overlap between RHEL and CentOS. By "repurposing" CentOS into a "rolling release", RedHat (IBM) has broken the overlap so CentOS (free licensing) no longer competes directly against RHEL (expensive licensing).

Spivak 6y ago
This is so misinformed it's funny. CentOS and RHEL will now be down to the compiler flags compatible since RHEL minor releases will now just be point-in-time forks of CentOS with security fixes and backports from, you guessed it, CentOS.
- gvb 6y ago
  CentOS and RHEL will only be exactly the same at the moment when RHEL is a point-in-time fork of CentOS. As soon ad RHEL forks from CentOS, CentOS will roll forward and will no longer be exactly the same as RHEL. Previously, CentOS was a rebuild of RHEL. In between RHEL releases, CentOS was exactly the same as RHEL. When RHEL had a release/fix/backpoint, CentOS trailed until it was rebuilt from the new RHEL source. The "old" CentOS was exactly the same nearly always (nearly perfect overlap) and the "new" CentOS is exactly the same nearly never (almost no overlap).
  - Spivak 6y ago
    You act like RHEL 7.1 is a fixed artifact — it’s constantly receiving updates, security patches, and backports. And CentOS always trails behind on those updates so it’s never exactly the same as RHEL either. This change makes CentOS so much closer to RHEL that it’s weird that people are acting like the opposite is happening.
    - quicklyfrozen 6y ago
      That's the whole point -- it's continually receiving updates that never break binary compatibility with existing apps/packages. For example, it's a safe target for vendors to target with binary packages, whereas CentOS stream won't be.
      - Spivak 6y ago
        That's true of all RHEL major versions. You can safely target RHEL 6 or RHEL 7 without having to worry what minor version they might be running. The same will be true of CentOS Stream which is the upstream for the next minor release of RHEL. CentOS Stream isn't going to suddenly jump major versions. If the current RHEL release is 7.x then you can think of CentOS Stream as 7.(x+1). You don't have to worry about it suddenly being 8.0. Fedora plays the role of the future RHEL 8.0.
- digitalsushi 6y ago
  Right but I use CentOS cause it's the Cyberpunk from April 2021, not December 2020.

hnarn 6y ago

To make people pay for RHEL.

Spivak 6y ago

The old model went something like this. - Fedora does its thing informed by but somewhat independently of RHEL. - Red Hat chooses a Fedora release to be the base of RHEL, forks it, and starts working on it. - This eventually becomes RHEL X. - Red Hat then forks RHEL X to create the RHEL X.0 Beta and eventually the RHEL X.0 release. RHEL X keeps getting work done on it which eventually lead to another fork which creates RHEL X.1 Beta and RHEL X.1. - After each RHEL X.y is released CentOS starts the process of rebuilding it from the sources and tracking upstream changes. The new model puts CentOS where RHEL X is and so RHEL X.y are actually forks of CentOS. This change matters a lot to you if you care a lot about the difference between the minor releases of RHEL because there won't be CentOS 7.1 CentOS 7.3 but just CentOS 7. If you just yum update on CentOS then you probably don't care since by default it will move you up minor versions. You have to try to stay on a specific minor version. What's nice about this change is that anyone can peel off releases from CentOS the same way Red Hat will do to make RHEL and new features become available when they're ready instead of being batched.

macspoofing 6y ago
There is a use-case for CentOS Stream, and if all Red Hat did was announced CentOS Stream and kept CentOS proper NO ONE would have any issue with that. There is also a use case for a production fork of RHEL as well. That's now gone. People who migrated to CentOS 8 because they thought they were getting a decade of support - that's now gone. So what are you arguing, that the second group somehow doesn't get it?
- Spivak 6y ago
  I can’t defend cutting support for CentOS 8. That’s super shitty and I don’t really understand the move. The part I don’t think people really get is that if your goal was to have a fork of RHEL that was as close as possible to RHEL itself in absolute value that CentOS Stream is much better than CentOS is/was. CentOS always tracked far behind RHEL and now CentOS Stream will track closely in front of RHEL.
  - quicklyfrozen 6y ago