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The CentOS/Rocky debate was about release targets and never about the Open Source nature of it. This seems simply another case of using something as the backbo

The CentOS/Rocky debate was about release targets and never about the Open Source nature of it. This seems simply another case of using something as the backbone of a business and demanding it to be free (as in beer).

jeltz 4y ago
The issue with Redhat in my experience is not having to pay money for it (when I worked with Redhat it was for the government who had bought some huge bulk license and had no issues with paying that, still cheaper than many other licenses), it is that the license servers, etc always have broken while CentOS just have worked. More moving parts which can break. The act of checking licenses makes the product worse than the free one. And I have had similar issues with OpenShift. Edit: This reminded me of another story. I once had a long fight with Gitlab's support due to an issue with their billing. They failed to fix it so now we run on the community edition which just works. My preferens for free is due to there often being bugs in the billing/license checking.
- loudmax 4y ago
  Absolutely this. Even if you've written off the cost of the licenses, you're still better off avoiding their licensing system entirely. Red Hat seems to have engineered a situation where their paid product is worse than the free product, even ignoring the price tag. Red Hat's business model was to both support and profit from open source. That is not an easy path, but they were mostly successful, at least until they were swallowed by IBM. If IBM manages to destroy Red Hat's value proposition, this opens a business opportunity for a company that takes a less antagonistic approach to its customers.
curt15 4y ago
How about product life? CentOS used to be supported for ten years, just like RHEL. Each stream version only lasts five.
- rvieira 4y ago
  All those points are separate from the OSS claim (or OSS "purity test"). Is Debian-Testing any less "true Open Source" than Debian-Stable?
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    And is Debian Sid the openest sourcest of them all?
    - toyg 4y ago
      It effectively requires updates every few minutes and breaks every other day, so... yes?
      - rbanffy 4y ago
        It was like that in the early 2000's. It's much better now.

jeltz 4y ago

The issue with Redhat in my experience is not having to pay money for it (when I worked with Redhat it was for the government who had bought some huge bulk license and had no issues with paying that, still cheaper than many other licenses), it is that the license servers, etc always have broken while CentOS just have worked. More moving parts which can break. The act of checking licenses makes the product worse than the free one. And I have had similar issues with OpenShift. Edit: This reminded me of another story. I once had a long fight with Gitlab's support due to an issue with their billing. They failed to fix it so now we run on the community edition which just works. My preferens for free is due to there often being bugs in the billing/license checking.

loudmax 4y ago
Absolutely this. Even if you've written off the cost of the licenses, you're still better off avoiding their licensing system entirely. Red Hat seems to have engineered a situation where their paid product is worse than the free product, even ignoring the price tag. Red Hat's business model was to both support and profit from open source. That is not an easy path, but they were mostly successful, at least until they were swallowed by IBM. If IBM manages to destroy Red Hat's value proposition, this opens a business opportunity for a company that takes a less antagonistic approach to its customers.

curt15 4y ago

How about product life? CentOS used to be supported for ten years, just like RHEL. Each stream version only lasts five.

rvieira 4y ago
All those points are separate from the OSS claim (or OSS "purity test"). Is Debian-Testing any less "true Open Source" than Debian-Stable?
- rbanffy 4y ago
  And is Debian Sid the openest sourcest of them all?
  - toyg 4y ago
    It effectively requires updates every few minutes and breaks every other day, so... yes?
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      It was like that in the early 2000's. It's much better now.