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I'd say it's a two-sided sword. There's no question RH employs/founds large parts of Linux development, with only Suse being remotely as involved (maybe histori

I'd say it's a two-sided sword. There's no question RH employs/founds large parts of Linux development, with only Suse being remotely as involved (maybe historically). OTOH, RH has pushed "innovations" such as systemd purely in their own interest, fragmenting a once-strong and user-centric F/OSS Unix community also including the BSDs into a Linux-only cloud slavedom. Plus, it was IBM/RH who cancelled the CentOS roadmap (after having bought-out the CentOS project and community); they can't now expect to be treated as trusted bona-fide Linux steward or something.

freedomben 4y ago
IBM had nothing to do with the CentOS decision. It was long time Red Hat people who made the decision. I don't agree with everything about the decision, but I don't think it's as bad as most people say it is[1]. You are definitely right that RH has pushed things in their own interest, but if those things don't offer value to the broader community, then the community won't adopt them. Red Hat can't force Debian or Ubuntu or Arch to adopt anything. They can push it through Fedora Cent and RHEL, but that's it. The other distros adopted systemd because it offered benefits/improvements over existing things like Upstart. I like firewalld, but that's a good example of something that is only on RH despite RH pushing it. If systemd was really such a negative, then you'd see distros like Devuan take off. A frequent criticism is things like, "Red Hat made Gnome dependent on systemd" which isn't wrong, but they didn't just do it because they could. There were real benefits there. I think the reality of life is that there will always be people who want things to change, and those who don't want the change. To succeed you have to find a balance. Also important to remember when decrying "fragmentation" (which I decry also btw), in a massive heterogeneous community like open source, you're gonna have users who have completely different needs and use cases, and both are valid. The beauty of it is the code is open and free, so people can serve niche use cases as well as standard. [1]: Query string gets you past the "monthly limit" paywall that sometimes pops up: 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...
- gh02t 4y ago
  While I agree with you, it is fair to say RH has an unusual amount of leverage with respect to forcing things. They directly control a lot of big ticket projects, and have powerful leadership positions in others. They can coordinate major changes across the board and the momentum they can throw behind some decisions can certainly exert a LOT of pressure. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though - as you note it can be good to have a leader, but it's also something that can be detrimental too.
  - freedomben 4y ago
    Agreed!
- jmnicolas 4y ago
  > I don't agree with everything about the decision, but I don't think it's as bad as most people say it is[1]. It was bad because when I chose CentOS for servers at work I thought I could count on letting them live their lives for about 10 years without worrying about them. I have a lot of things to do and taking care of those servers is a very low priority. Thank God there was a script to convert my CentOSes to Rocky and that it went great, otherwise it would have taken time I don't have to reinstall those servers.
  - freedomben 4y ago
    Yes I will 100% grant on that one. Pulling the plug so early on CentOS was low and I don't think they should have done that. The whole "we never put an EOL date on it" excuse was really weak. It looks to nearly everyone like just an unintentional omission, not a legal hedge. It ended up working out well like you said thanks to Alma and Rocky, but the panic and uncertainty it caused was wholly unnecessary.
js4ever 4y ago
They also created quay.io and fragmented docker global public repo by asking sponsored FOSS project to publish ONLY on quay. I really dislike redhat and won't touch anything related with them. I really don't understand why companies would pay thousands per server for support. I'm working with Linux systems since 2 decades and never needed to pay a cent in licenses or support.
- gnufied 4y ago
  Hmm, quay came via coreos acquisitions. Can you point me to examples where Red Hat pushed projects to push ONLY to quay.io?
- freedomben 4y ago
  Red hat didn't create quay, they acquired it. But even if they had made it, I think that's an important and healthy thing to have. You could call it fragmentation, but I see it as taking on a monopoly by offering choice. Docker fully supports alternative registries, so I wouldn't consider that fragmentation either. Remind me a lot of when Apache was the only http server, and nginx came out. Some people said fragmentation, but most said, "cool, we have a choice and some market competition, without which development tends to stagnate" There are things to dislike about red hat, but quay is one I would praise them for instead.

freedomben 4y ago

IBM had nothing to do with the CentOS decision. It was long time Red Hat people who made the decision. I don't agree with everything about the decision, but I don't think it's as bad as most people say it is[1]. You are definitely right that RH has pushed things in their own interest, but if those things don't offer value to the broader community, then the community won't adopt them. Red Hat can't force Debian or Ubuntu or Arch to adopt anything. They can push it through Fedora Cent and RHEL, but that's it. The other distros adopted systemd because it offered benefits/improvements over existing things like Upstart. I like firewalld, but that's a good example of something that is only on RH despite RH pushing it. If systemd was really such a negative, then you'd see distros like Devuan take off. A frequent criticism is things like, "Red Hat made Gnome dependent on systemd" which isn't wrong, but they didn't just do it because they could. There were real benefits there. I think the reality of life is that there will always be people who want things to change, and those who don't want the change. To succeed you have to find a balance. Also important to remember when decrying "fragmentation" (which I decry also btw), in a massive heterogeneous community like open source, you're gonna have users who have completely different needs and use cases, and both are valid. The beauty of it is the code is open and free, so people can serve niche use cases as well as standard. [1]: Query string gets you past the "monthly limit" paywall that sometimes pops up: 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...

gh02t 4y ago
While I agree with you, it is fair to say RH has an unusual amount of leverage with respect to forcing things. They directly control a lot of big ticket projects, and have powerful leadership positions in others. They can coordinate major changes across the board and the momentum they can throw behind some decisions can certainly exert a LOT of pressure. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though - as you note it can be good to have a leader, but it's also something that can be detrimental too.
- freedomben 4y ago
  Agreed!
jmnicolas 4y ago
> I don't agree with everything about the decision, but I don't think it's as bad as most people say it is[1]. It was bad because when I chose CentOS for servers at work I thought I could count on letting them live their lives for about 10 years without worrying about them. I have a lot of things to do and taking care of those servers is a very low priority. Thank God there was a script to convert my CentOSes to Rocky and that it went great, otherwise it would have taken time I don't have to reinstall those servers.
- freedomben 4y ago
  Yes I will 100% grant on that one. Pulling the plug so early on CentOS was low and I don't think they should have done that. The whole "we never put an EOL date on it" excuse was really weak. It looks to nearly everyone like just an unintentional omission, not a legal hedge. It ended up working out well like you said thanks to Alma and Rocky, but the panic and uncertainty it caused was wholly unnecessary.

js4ever 4y ago

They also created quay.io and fragmented docker global public repo by asking sponsored FOSS project to publish ONLY on quay. I really dislike redhat and won't touch anything related with them. I really don't understand why companies would pay thousands per server for support. I'm working with Linux systems since 2 decades and never needed to pay a cent in licenses or support.

gnufied 4y ago
Hmm, quay came via coreos acquisitions. Can you point me to examples where Red Hat pushed projects to push ONLY to quay.io?
freedomben 4y ago
Red hat didn't create quay, they acquired it. But even if they had made it, I think that's an important and healthy thing to have. You could call it fragmentation, but I see it as taking on a monopoly by offering choice. Docker fully supports alternative registries, so I wouldn't consider that fragmentation either. Remind me a lot of when Apache was the only http server, and nginx came out. Some people said fragmentation, but most said, "cool, we have a choice and some market competition, without which development tends to stagnate" There are things to dislike about red hat, but quay is one I would praise them for instead.