4 ms·

Out of curiosity, what makes this notable?

spicyusername 3y ago
It's another link in the Red-Hat-CentOS-drama chain. I think many IT employees have a vested interest in Red Hat and the direction of "enterprise Linux". Seeing an organization like NASA show a willingness to use a Red Hat alternative gives credibility to that alternative.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- osigurdson 3y ago
  Of course, if we do get an established leader, it will ultimately see the same fate as Centos.
  - _joel 3y ago
    It's by the guy who setup CentOS originally, no?
- dralley 3y ago
  Giving users the ability to have a choice in the direction of "enterprise linux" is a large part of the reason that CentOS Stream exists. Previously if you wanted some bug fixed or some feature added you needed to beg Red Hat for it or hope that a paying customer needed it too. Now external parties can contribute to the future release of RHEL (and Rocky, Alma, etc.) So let's say that some Rocky or Alma Linux user or developer wants to make a change. They are RHEL clones, so they can't do that. But they can now contribute the change to CentOS Stream, which is the upstream for both RHEL and their own distro. That change can be reviewed and tested by the community + Red Hat, and then land in RHEL a few months later. This isn't theoretical, to use one example, Facebook uses CentOS Stream in production and contributes back a significant amount. Disclosure: I do work for Red Hat. But it never made sense to me why people say that the "CentOS community was destroyed" when it didn't really have much of a community, it had _users_, which is different. It has more of a "community" now than it did previously, because the development is actually open as opposed to Android-style "throwing bundles of code over the wall".
  - adql 3y ago
    > Giving users the ability to have a choice in the direction of "enterprise linux" is the entire reason CentOS Stream exists. Pretty sure it's just for free beta testing
    - freedomben 3y ago
      More than one thing can be true at a time. GP's explanation is one of the reasons. IMHO it's not the primary reason, but it is a legit entry in the "pro" column
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
candiddevmike 3y ago
If Red Hat hadn't sunset CentOS/RHEL parity, none of this would have happened, maybe. Rocky wouldn't exist.
- Covzire 3y ago
  Would this have happened if IBM hadn't bought Redhat?
  - away271828 3y ago
    Probably. Red Hat acquiring and then maintaining a failing CentOS was one of those solved a problem at a couple times things that just didn't make a lot of sense in the long run (and was almost certainly a mistake).
    - axus 3y ago
      CentOS was great and I'm still using CentOS 7 until EOL. I learned a lot from "the mouse" in the CentOS support forum, and I hope the CentOS people made a living from the deal. I've got no bad feelings towards Red Hat, as long as they weren't coercing anyone against their will. For new systems I use both Red Hat and Rocky.
Atreiden 3y ago
I think this is notable because in the wake of RedHat changing CentOS model changing from stable to bleeding-edge, there has been a niche to fill in the enterprise-grade Linux space. Esp for people running on-prem infra e.g. HPC. Do we settle on Rocky? Alma? Amazon Linux2? NASA seems to be taking the lead here and saying "we're going with Rocky". I think this move will encourage others on the fence to do the same, and build more of a community around the product not owned/maintained by Amazon.
- dralley 3y ago
  >bleeding-edge CentOS Stream is not "bleeding edge". Every update that goes into CentOS Stream has already gone through the Red Hat QA process, and the updates are restricted to only the kinds of things which previously would have gone into RHEL. That is, mostly security updates and bugfixes. It's a little bit ahead of RHEL, but it's not like Fedora, much less Rawhide.
- anyoneamous 3y ago
  > Esp for people running on-prem infra e.g. HPC. Do we settle on Rocky? Alma? Amazon Linux2? Given the stage of the lifecycle, you'd be pretty silly to adopt AL2 on-prem at this point. AL2023 probably won't be appropriate either. Rocky is the way to go.
- freedomben 3y ago
  > in the wake of RedHat changing CentOS model changing from stable to bleeding-edge CentOS is now bleeding edge? Would you describe Debian Stable as bleeding edge also? On your contiunuum, where would you place Arch and Fedora?

It's another link in the Red-Hat-CentOS-drama chain. I think many IT employees have a vested interest in Red Hat and the direction of "enterprise Linux". Seeing an organization like NASA show a willingness to use a Red Hat alternative gives credibility to that alternative.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
osigurdson 3y ago
Of course, if we do get an established leader, it will ultimately see the same fate as Centos.
- _joel 3y ago
  It's by the guy who setup CentOS originally, no?
dralley 3y ago
Giving users the ability to have a choice in the direction of "enterprise linux" is a large part of the reason that CentOS Stream exists. Previously if you wanted some bug fixed or some feature added you needed to beg Red Hat for it or hope that a paying customer needed it too. Now external parties can contribute to the future release of RHEL (and Rocky, Alma, etc.) So let's say that some Rocky or Alma Linux user or developer wants to make a change. They are RHEL clones, so they can't do that. But they can now contribute the change to CentOS Stream, which is the upstream for both RHEL and their own distro. That change can be reviewed and tested by the community + Red Hat, and then land in RHEL a few months later. This isn't theoretical, to use one example, Facebook uses CentOS Stream in production and contributes back a significant amount. Disclosure: I do work for Red Hat. But it never made sense to me why people say that the "CentOS community was destroyed" when it didn't really have much of a community, it had _users_, which is different. It has more of a "community" now than it did previously, because the development is actually open as opposed to Android-style "throwing bundles of code over the wall".
- adql 3y ago
  > Giving users the ability to have a choice in the direction of "enterprise linux" is the entire reason CentOS Stream exists. Pretty sure it's just for free beta testing
  - freedomben 3y ago
    More than one thing can be true at a time. GP's explanation is one of the reasons. IMHO it's not the primary reason, but it is a legit entry in the "pro" column
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

candiddevmike 3y ago

If Red Hat hadn't sunset CentOS/RHEL parity, none of this would have happened, maybe. Rocky wouldn't exist.

Covzire 3y ago
Would this have happened if IBM hadn't bought Redhat?
- away271828 3y ago
  Probably. Red Hat acquiring and then maintaining a failing CentOS was one of those solved a problem at a couple times things that just didn't make a lot of sense in the long run (and was almost certainly a mistake).
  - axus 3y ago
    CentOS was great and I'm still using CentOS 7 until EOL. I learned a lot from "the mouse" in the CentOS support forum, and I hope the CentOS people made a living from the deal. I've got no bad feelings towards Red Hat, as long as they weren't coercing anyone against their will. For new systems I use both Red Hat and Rocky.

Atreiden 3y ago

I think this is notable because in the wake of RedHat changing CentOS model changing from stable to bleeding-edge, there has been a niche to fill in the enterprise-grade Linux space. Esp for people running on-prem infra e.g. HPC. Do we settle on Rocky? Alma? Amazon Linux2? NASA seems to be taking the lead here and saying "we're going with Rocky". I think this move will encourage others on the fence to do the same, and build more of a community around the product not owned/maintained by Amazon.

dralley 3y ago
>bleeding-edge CentOS Stream is not "bleeding edge". Every update that goes into CentOS Stream has already gone through the Red Hat QA process, and the updates are restricted to only the kinds of things which previously would have gone into RHEL. That is, mostly security updates and bugfixes. It's a little bit ahead of RHEL, but it's not like Fedora, much less Rawhide.
anyoneamous 3y ago
> Esp for people running on-prem infra e.g. HPC. Do we settle on Rocky? Alma? Amazon Linux2? Given the stage of the lifecycle, you'd be pretty silly to adopt AL2 on-prem at this point. AL2023 probably won't be appropriate either. Rocky is the way to go.
freedomben 3y ago
> in the wake of RedHat changing CentOS model changing from stable to bleeding-edge CentOS is now bleeding edge? Would you describe Debian Stable as bleeding edge also? On your contiunuum, where would you place Arch and Fedora?