6 ms·

I knew what CentOS was, but never followed it because I've never personally had use for it. Still, I appreciate what it did and was glad to have it as an optio

I knew what CentOS was, but never followed it because I've never personally had use for it. Still, I appreciate what it did and was glad to have it as an option should I ever need a super stable distro in the future. That said, I think the FAQ is missing an answer for a critical question: What ultimately drove CentOS to its regrettable fate and what will Rocky Linux do to avoid a similar misfortune?

teknopaul 6y ago
IBM. Rocky will not be be IBM.
- CivBase 6y ago
  I don't think CentOS ever intended to be IBM either.
  - flatline 6y ago
    I always thought it was more than a little incestuous for RH to acquire and maintain the RH clone, but it did fill a niche.
    - rnd0 6y ago
      Centos was broke. Otherwise it's doubtful that they would have sold to Redhat.
- nickysielicki 6y ago
  The most frustrating thing about this is that Redhat was making a profit before IBM bought them. They had existed for 20 some years on a business model that business people didn’t understand, and they were able to do that because they understood what open source would become and how they could play a role in that. One of the things that YC is always talking about is that founders looking for ideas should look to identify situations where most people think it’s going to turn out one way, but most people are wrong and it’s actually going to turn out another way. In the context of the late 90s, where virtually all software was proprietary, they bet on open source software and support plans, and made a sustainable company on it. They contributed to open source so that they would have the expertise, gave all the software away for free, and then sold the expertise through support plans. And then the business people came along and they’re showing a deep misunderstanding of why Redhat was able to sell support plans in the first place. People on RHEL are going to stay on RHEL, but people on CentOS — the market of people who are not paying customers but could theoretically become customers, are almost certainly going to go to Canonical. This will kill Redhat.
  - syshum 6y ago
    No the most frustrating part is all the Red Hat employees attempting 1. Claim "IBM has no influence, this was all our own independent action, honest, believe use guys.... 2. Red Hat employees instance that "CentOS 8 was never officially supported until 2029 so we did not go back on anything" if people believe either of those I really need to get in real estate and start selling bridges
    - strenholme 6y ago
      >CentOS 8 was never officially supported until 2029 so we did not go back on anything The thing though is that RedHat is responsible for that impression. Every previous version of CentOS before 8 has been supported until the upstream RHEL pulled the plug. CentOS’s official page said it would be supported until 2029 ( https://archive.is/7Qmtw https://archive.is/7Qmtw ). A reasonable person would infer that CentOS (now controlled by RedHat, so, yes, RedHat) made the same promise that they made (and kept) with every previous version of CentOS: That it would be supported for 7-10 years. Not just over 2 years. I definitely inferred a decade of support. If I would had known that CentOS 8 would be cut off at the end of 2021 this summer, I would not had installed it. I would had installed Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Indeed, replacing my CentOS 8 installs with Ubuntu 20.04 is exactly what I have been spending all last week doing.
      - dralley 6y ago
        It's a wiki page. An official wiki page, perhaps, but still a wiki page that anyone can edit.
        hvdijk 6y ago
        Okay, so who made that edit? Was it someone in a position to speak in an official capacity?
  - Shorel 6y ago
    Hopefully. Canonical needs the profit.
thr0w3345 6y ago
Redhat acquired it, then ibm acequired redhat and then game over.
- em500 6y ago
  Obvious next question: what drove the CentOS devs to sell to Redhat. From previous discussions, I understood that it came down to lack of resources / devs to maintain and support it. So OP's question is on point: what will Rocky Linux do to avoid a similar misfortune?
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    What drives anyone to sell anything? Money.
- circularfoyers 6y ago
  There isn't any evidence that I'm aware of that this decision was influenced by IBM (correlation doesn't equal causation).
  - konjin 6y ago
    There isn't any evidence anything causes anything else. Cartesian dualism is irrefutable. So for all we know we live in a world where IBM destroying everything they touch is purely the will of a malevolent daemon who wants to tarnish the good name of the company that enabled the holocaust.
    - tubularhells 6y ago
      big OOF
  - eraser215 6y ago
    People are negging this comment with absolutely no evidence to suggest that it's wrong.

teknopaul 6y ago

IBM. Rocky will not be be IBM.

CivBase 6y ago
I don't think CentOS ever intended to be IBM either.
- flatline 6y ago
  I always thought it was more than a little incestuous for RH to acquire and maintain the RH clone, but it did fill a niche.
  - rnd0 6y ago
    Centos was broke. Otherwise it's doubtful that they would have sold to Redhat.
nickysielicki 6y ago
The most frustrating thing about this is that Redhat was making a profit before IBM bought them. They had existed for 20 some years on a business model that business people didn’t understand, and they were able to do that because they understood what open source would become and how they could play a role in that. One of the things that YC is always talking about is that founders looking for ideas should look to identify situations where most people think it’s going to turn out one way, but most people are wrong and it’s actually going to turn out another way. In the context of the late 90s, where virtually all software was proprietary, they bet on open source software and support plans, and made a sustainable company on it. They contributed to open source so that they would have the expertise, gave all the software away for free, and then sold the expertise through support plans. And then the business people came along and they’re showing a deep misunderstanding of why Redhat was able to sell support plans in the first place. People on RHEL are going to stay on RHEL, but people on CentOS — the market of people who are not paying customers but could theoretically become customers, are almost certainly going to go to Canonical. This will kill Redhat.
- syshum 6y ago
  No the most frustrating part is all the Red Hat employees attempting 1. Claim "IBM has no influence, this was all our own independent action, honest, believe use guys.... 2. Red Hat employees instance that "CentOS 8 was never officially supported until 2029 so we did not go back on anything" if people believe either of those I really need to get in real estate and start selling bridges
  - strenholme 6y ago
    >CentOS 8 was never officially supported until 2029 so we did not go back on anything The thing though is that RedHat is responsible for that impression. Every previous version of CentOS before 8 has been supported until the upstream RHEL pulled the plug. CentOS’s official page said it would be supported until 2029 ( https://archive.is/7Qmtw https://archive.is/7Qmtw ). A reasonable person would infer that CentOS (now controlled by RedHat, so, yes, RedHat) made the same promise that they made (and kept) with every previous version of CentOS: That it would be supported for 7-10 years. Not just over 2 years. I definitely inferred a decade of support. If I would had known that CentOS 8 would be cut off at the end of 2021 this summer, I would not had installed it. I would had installed Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Indeed, replacing my CentOS 8 installs with Ubuntu 20.04 is exactly what I have been spending all last week doing.
    - dralley 6y ago
      It's a wiki page. An official wiki page, perhaps, but still a wiki page that anyone can edit.
      - hvdijk 6y ago
        Okay, so who made that edit? Was it someone in a position to speak in an official capacity?
- Shorel 6y ago
  Hopefully. Canonical needs the profit.

thr0w3345 6y ago

Redhat acquired it, then ibm acequired redhat and then game over.

em500 6y ago
Obvious next question: what drove the CentOS devs to sell to Redhat. From previous discussions, I understood that it came down to lack of resources / devs to maintain and support it. So OP's question is on point: what will Rocky Linux do to avoid a similar misfortune?
- cortesoft 6y ago
  What drives anyone to sell anything? Money.
circularfoyers 6y ago
There isn't any evidence that I'm aware of that this decision was influenced by IBM (correlation doesn't equal causation).
- konjin 6y ago
  There isn't any evidence anything causes anything else. Cartesian dualism is irrefutable. So for all we know we live in a world where IBM destroying everything they touch is purely the will of a malevolent daemon who wants to tarnish the good name of the company that enabled the holocaust.
  - tubularhells 6y ago
    big OOF
- eraser215 6y ago
  People are negging this comment with absolutely no evidence to suggest that it's wrong.