7 ms·

It sounds like they have two different mechanisms they can pull from currently, which will get them to parity with RHEL releases. Red Hat would need to shift a

It sounds like they have two different mechanisms they can pull from currently, which will get them to parity with RHEL releases. Red Hat would need to shift a few knobs and probably offend quite a few people running UBI images at least (including a zillion folks in the OpenShift community who rely on them) to cut off this current approach to getting the sources. I wonder if Red Hat is willing to play this game of whack a mole? And IMO, was it worth it?

ss48 3y ago
Could they not just leave these alternate channels a few weeks or months behind the current release that only the subscribers have access to? That would keep them as the most current, up-to-date source over Rocky Linux.
- mst 3y ago
  "Approximately the same lag as you used to get with CentOS" would seem pretty fair to me - I'm aware people grumbled about it and understandably so, but it was still a relatively stable and relatively co-operative situation. I feel like returning to that apparent Schelling Point could quite easily be an improvement over the Red Queen's Race that I worry is developing here.
soneil 3y ago
> And IMO, was it worth it? I suspect they're playing with unintended consequences now. One of the nice "features" of buying CentOS, is that it meant CentOS was never going to compete - there was a clear line between community and professional, and CentOS were never going to sell you professional services. Pushing everyone to non-RH builds has removed that line, and there's a strong chance that non-RH builds selling professional services, is going to have a higher opportunity-cost than publishing CentOS did.
- bonzini 3y ago
  That wasn't relevant in buying CentOS, plenty of people were selling personal services for CentOS. IBM itself was doing it, and perhaps Kyndryl is still doing the same for the newfangled RHEL rebuilds. And even now, technically RESF is the one producing the distro and it's also not selling professional services. Who produces the distro has no effect on who sells the services.
  - soneil 3y ago
    "technically" is a really thin veneer though. The founder of Rocky is also the CEO of CIQ. That's not exactly six degrees of Kevin Bacon. (to be clear: I don't consider this a problem. But I do consider that for RH, this may be an unintended side-effect.)
- nequo 3y ago
  > and there's a strong chance that non-RH builds selling professional services, is going to have a higher opportunity-cost than publishing CentOS did. Could you clarify what you mean by opportunity cost here? Who faces this cost and why?
  - denimnerd42 3y ago
    IBM faces this cost. Before they created this fracture in the EL community there wasn't all this interest and support behind centos alternatives. People just used centos for free or rhel for support. now you could potentially use EL with support from another vendor without IBM seeing a dime.
bonzini 3y ago
My guess is that they will be content with: 1) having something to show their customers who has the actual expertise 2) making it clear that the Red Hat of today is significantly more open than the Red Hat of 2014 when neither CentOS Stream nor UBI existed and CentOS releases were months late despite the SRPMs being on ftp.redhat.com 3) making it obvious that they are respecting the GPL, and that no one gives a flying f**k about "free as in freedom" because all the uprising was always about either the free beer or the clicks/likes.
- geerlingguy 3y ago
  It's cute how many people think the uproar is about whiny freeloaders or clickbait influencers.
  - totallywrong 3y ago
    No it's mostly from people with a commercial interest. I can't take Rocky seriously when they are selling support for a thing they don't make, but demand it's readily provided for free and no hassle.
    - geerlingguy 3y ago
      According to Rocky Linux devs they aren't: https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/vague-accusations-about-shady-business-dealings/10505/6 https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/vague-accusations-about-shad...
      - totallywrong 3y ago
        That's one guy saying he doesn't know what's up. I have no doubt he doesn't get paid. What counts though, is this: https://rockylinux.org/support https://rockylinux.org/support
        tgmux 3y ago
        I'm one of the board members who replied on the forum thread. Rocky has never sold support or any other product. We make an OS for the community, that's it. The link to the support providers page simply is that, a list of other third party providers who offer paid support services.
mackca 3y ago
Here's a thought, maybe Red Hat was being honest when they said that they were not under an obligation to make it easy for rebuilders, and that's it? Maybe they weren't out to immediately kill the clones because they know that they can't? We have actually heard very little communication from Red Hat most of it has been speculation from people on what they might or could do, but as you point out there are ways around the changes Red Hat made. Honestly this from this post Rocky conflicts with the "RHEL is closed source/proprietary/paywalled" narrative that people are trying to push. If RHEL was truly any of those things Rocky wouldn't have been able to continue on, but they were able to quickly find a solution, though to me it seems a bit hacky. If Rocky is pulling packages from the supposedly untested, beta of RHEL CentOS Stream, and UBI and some EC2 instance, why would I use that over something that was build cohesively in one place like Stream?
- femiagbabiaka 3y ago
  If they don’t care, then why make it more difficult?
  - mackca 3y ago
    Because it is extra effort on Red Hat's part that corporate backed projects can compensate for if they choose to ?
    - bubblethink 3y ago
      There is no extra effort here. The binary comes from the source. You don't have immaculate conception for RHEL. RHEL uses the source, and use to provide a link to the said source. Now they don't. And nobody is even asking RH to post sources publicly. People will happily take that burden off of them. They don't have to post the source, they can let their customers do so, but they forbid their customers. So this argument fails.
      - mackca 3y ago
        RHEL source according to Red Hat is CentOS Stream. CentOS Stream is publicly available. Red Hat cannot deprive you of your right to sources and to redistribute them under the GPL. But Red Hat can also determine who they want to do business with.

ss48 3y ago

Could they not just leave these alternate channels a few weeks or months behind the current release that only the subscribers have access to? That would keep them as the most current, up-to-date source over Rocky Linux.

mst 3y ago
"Approximately the same lag as you used to get with CentOS" would seem pretty fair to me - I'm aware people grumbled about it and understandably so, but it was still a relatively stable and relatively co-operative situation. I feel like returning to that apparent Schelling Point could quite easily be an improvement over the Red Queen's Race that I worry is developing here.

soneil 3y ago

> And IMO, was it worth it? I suspect they're playing with unintended consequences now. One of the nice "features" of buying CentOS, is that it meant CentOS was never going to compete - there was a clear line between community and professional, and CentOS were never going to sell you professional services. Pushing everyone to non-RH builds has removed that line, and there's a strong chance that non-RH builds selling professional services, is going to have a higher opportunity-cost than publishing CentOS did.

bonzini 3y ago
That wasn't relevant in buying CentOS, plenty of people were selling personal services for CentOS. IBM itself was doing it, and perhaps Kyndryl is still doing the same for the newfangled RHEL rebuilds. And even now, technically RESF is the one producing the distro and it's also not selling professional services. Who produces the distro has no effect on who sells the services.
- soneil 3y ago
  "technically" is a really thin veneer though. The founder of Rocky is also the CEO of CIQ. That's not exactly six degrees of Kevin Bacon. (to be clear: I don't consider this a problem. But I do consider that for RH, this may be an unintended side-effect.)
nequo 3y ago
> and there's a strong chance that non-RH builds selling professional services, is going to have a higher opportunity-cost than publishing CentOS did. Could you clarify what you mean by opportunity cost here? Who faces this cost and why?
- denimnerd42 3y ago
  IBM faces this cost. Before they created this fracture in the EL community there wasn't all this interest and support behind centos alternatives. People just used centos for free or rhel for support. now you could potentially use EL with support from another vendor without IBM seeing a dime.

bonzini 3y ago

My guess is that they will be content with: 1) having something to show their customers who has the actual expertise 2) making it clear that the Red Hat of today is significantly more open than the Red Hat of 2014 when neither CentOS Stream nor UBI existed and CentOS releases were months late despite the SRPMs being on ftp.redhat.com 3) making it obvious that they are respecting the GPL, and that no one gives a flying f**k about "free as in freedom" because all the uprising was always about either the free beer or the clicks/likes.

geerlingguy 3y ago
It's cute how many people think the uproar is about whiny freeloaders or clickbait influencers.
- totallywrong 3y ago
  No it's mostly from people with a commercial interest. I can't take Rocky seriously when they are selling support for a thing they don't make, but demand it's readily provided for free and no hassle.
  - geerlingguy 3y ago
    According to Rocky Linux devs they aren't: https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/vague-accusations-about-shady-business-dealings/10505/6 https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/vague-accusations-about-shad...
    - totallywrong 3y ago
      That's one guy saying he doesn't know what's up. I have no doubt he doesn't get paid. What counts though, is this: https://rockylinux.org/support https://rockylinux.org/support
      - tgmux 3y ago
        I'm one of the board members who replied on the forum thread. Rocky has never sold support or any other product. We make an OS for the community, that's it. The link to the support providers page simply is that, a list of other third party providers who offer paid support services.

mackca 3y ago

Here's a thought, maybe Red Hat was being honest when they said that they were not under an obligation to make it easy for rebuilders, and that's it? Maybe they weren't out to immediately kill the clones because they know that they can't? We have actually heard very little communication from Red Hat most of it has been speculation from people on what they might or could do, but as you point out there are ways around the changes Red Hat made. Honestly this from this post Rocky conflicts with the "RHEL is closed source/proprietary/paywalled" narrative that people are trying to push. If RHEL was truly any of those things Rocky wouldn't have been able to continue on, but they were able to quickly find a solution, though to me it seems a bit hacky. If Rocky is pulling packages from the supposedly untested, beta of RHEL CentOS Stream, and UBI and some EC2 instance, why would I use that over something that was build cohesively in one place like Stream?

femiagbabiaka 3y ago
If they don’t care, then why make it more difficult?
- mackca 3y ago
  Because it is extra effort on Red Hat's part that corporate backed projects can compensate for if they choose to ?
  - bubblethink 3y ago
    There is no extra effort here. The binary comes from the source. You don't have immaculate conception for RHEL. RHEL uses the source, and use to provide a link to the said source. Now they don't. And nobody is even asking RH to post sources publicly. People will happily take that burden off of them. They don't have to post the source, they can let their customers do so, but they forbid their customers. So this argument fails.
    - mackca 3y ago
      RHEL source according to Red Hat is CentOS Stream. CentOS Stream is publicly available. Red Hat cannot deprive you of your right to sources and to redistribute them under the GPL. But Red Hat can also determine who they want to do business with.