5 ms·

AlmaLinux stays Red Hat Enterprise Linux compatible without Red Hat code

78 points by CrankyBear 3y ago

slv1940 3y ago
Will see... For me, the more repos with needed software are available, the better for us as admins.
Alifatisk 3y ago
What was this whole conflict about? Red Hat killing CentOS and forcing people to pay for Red Hats support instead of just being able to pull the code from CentOS for free?
damako3 3y ago
cool
FireBeyond 3y ago
Sheesh, Steven Vaughn-Nichols really hates Red Hat, doesn't he? There's no attempt to be objective, with article titles like "Red Hat's New Rule: Open Source Betrayal", and pumping up Alma Linux and talking of how they're bravely defending their distro against threats that even they don't think will happen (but he does). He's even decided that RHEL's licensing won't hold up in court (Rocky and Oracle and others can tell they're legal to stop looking, I guess). I entirely get the disagreements with Red Hat's decision and direction, but his many articles on this topic are opinion pieces masquerading as journalism. Disclaimer: I used to work at Red Hat, but in a completely different business unit from RHEL.
mbakke 3y ago
Making a RHEL clone from CentOS stream is absolutely using "Red Hat code". Also, isn't CentOS stream already ABI compatible? Just occasionally ahead of RHEL? I really don't understand the outrage from RH cracking down on clones. With entitled CentOS users going "I don't want stream, despite it being a rock solid gratis platform; I want the 10 year support battle tested code, but without giving you any money". I do understand some users of RHEL/CentOS-of-yore rely on other vendors that only support specific versions of RHEL (looking at you, Infiniband drivers..), but those vendors could (and should) be encouraged to support Stream and other distributions (if only at the source level), not contribute further to the RHEL monoculture. With Rocky and Alma we're right back where we started. Sad panda. I think what's really needed is a competitor to RHEL in the scientific computing/HPC space. Though it's a difficult market to penetrate. SuSE has tried for ages, and Ubuntu just isn't up for it (also making custom deb repos are much harder than RPM). After following a couple of links I learned that Rocky gets their sources from spinning up RHEL cloud VMs and similar shenanigans. Could they not just buy a single subscription and get direct access to everything? In fact I'm glad Red Hat cracked down to prevent predators like Oracle to just rebrand the distro and call it "unbreakable Linux" as if they built it. Well they still can if they pay for it. This monoculture, and especially focus on bug-for-bug compatibility is just ridiculous. Alma is doing something different by simply focusing on ABI compatibility and can otherwise aim for security or performance, but I'm afraid most people will flock to Rocky just because nobody ever got fired because of a RHEL bug. Thanks for coming to my TED rant.
- pepa65 3y ago
  "I want the 10 year support battle tested code, but without giving you any money" The idea of Free Software is that users have a right to the sources and have the right to distribute the software (and the source code). Red Hat is using and redistributing a lot of Free Software. So to try to stop people downstream from them to keep distributing the work of Red Hat that depends on Free Software is dead against the core of the idea. Red Hat is profitable enough, and they do have loads of paying customers. Through CentOS (formerly), Alma, Rocky Linux etc. they also have people who use their stuff for free. This only enhances their corporate and paid-for offerings. What they are trying to do now will only hurt them, and it really isn't right.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  > I think what's really needed is a competitor to RHEL in the scientific computing/HPC space. No idea how it looks nowadays, however I can tell how it started, back in 2004 when research institutes like CERN, were moving away from Solaris and alongside Fermilab created Scientific Linux based on Red-Hat. I used to have a stack of pizza box Sun workstations pilled up on my research room.
- iseletsk 3y ago
  Buying subscription and using it to build a distro would be against Red Hat Subscription agreement. I guess you missed all the drama of the summer, when Red Hat made it so.
  - mbakke 3y ago
    You're right I did miss the details. Sorry for the inaccurate rant. Good for them. We all benefit from more players in this space, instead of just a bunch of RHEL clones.
    - LeFantome 3y ago
      You are speaking like somebody from an actual community. That definitely shows you missed the drama. You are supposed to say that we all have a right to an “exact” unpaid replica of the full RHEL distribution that we will explicitly not modify or improve in any way but instead directly commercialize and monetize. We have the right to do this because the above behaviour embodies “the spirit of Open Source”. If Red Hat tries to stop us, it is because THEY are evil and greedy.
asamir79 3y ago
The path beyond CentOS is getting paved. Thank you.

78 points by CrankyBear 3y ago

slv1940 3y ago

Will see... For me, the more repos with needed software are available, the better for us as admins.

What was this whole conflict about? Red Hat killing CentOS and forcing people to pay for Red Hats support instead of just being able to pull the code from CentOS for free?

damako3 3y ago

cool

FireBeyond 3y ago

Sheesh, Steven Vaughn-Nichols really hates Red Hat, doesn't he? There's no attempt to be objective, with article titles like "Red Hat's New Rule: Open Source Betrayal", and pumping up Alma Linux and talking of how they're bravely defending their distro against threats that even they don't think will happen (but he does). He's even decided that RHEL's licensing won't hold up in court (Rocky and Oracle and others can tell they're legal to stop looking, I guess). I entirely get the disagreements with Red Hat's decision and direction, but his many articles on this topic are opinion pieces masquerading as journalism. Disclaimer: I used to work at Red Hat, but in a completely different business unit from RHEL.

mbakke 3y ago

Making a RHEL clone from CentOS stream is absolutely using "Red Hat code". Also, isn't CentOS stream already ABI compatible? Just occasionally ahead of RHEL? I really don't understand the outrage from RH cracking down on clones. With entitled CentOS users going "I don't want stream, despite it being a rock solid gratis platform; I want the 10 year support battle tested code, but without giving you any money". I do understand some users of RHEL/CentOS-of-yore rely on other vendors that only support specific versions of RHEL (looking at you, Infiniband drivers..), but those vendors could (and should) be encouraged to support Stream and other distributions (if only at the source level), not contribute further to the RHEL monoculture. With Rocky and Alma we're right back where we started. Sad panda. I think what's really needed is a competitor to RHEL in the scientific computing/HPC space. Though it's a difficult market to penetrate. SuSE has tried for ages, and Ubuntu just isn't up for it (also making custom deb repos are much harder than RPM). After following a couple of links I learned that Rocky gets their sources from spinning up RHEL cloud VMs and similar shenanigans. Could they not just buy a single subscription and get direct access to everything? In fact I'm glad Red Hat cracked down to prevent predators like Oracle to just rebrand the distro and call it "unbreakable Linux" as if they built it. Well they still can if they pay for it. This monoculture, and especially focus on bug-for-bug compatibility is just ridiculous. Alma is doing something different by simply focusing on ABI compatibility and can otherwise aim for security or performance, but I'm afraid most people will flock to Rocky just because nobody ever got fired because of a RHEL bug. Thanks for coming to my TED rant.

pepa65 3y ago
"I want the 10 year support battle tested code, but without giving you any money" The idea of Free Software is that users have a right to the sources and have the right to distribute the software (and the source code). Red Hat is using and redistributing a lot of Free Software. So to try to stop people downstream from them to keep distributing the work of Red Hat that depends on Free Software is dead against the core of the idea. Red Hat is profitable enough, and they do have loads of paying customers. Through CentOS (formerly), Alma, Rocky Linux etc. they also have people who use their stuff for free. This only enhances their corporate and paid-for offerings. What they are trying to do now will only hurt them, and it really isn't right.
pjmlp 3y ago
> I think what's really needed is a competitor to RHEL in the scientific computing/HPC space. No idea how it looks nowadays, however I can tell how it started, back in 2004 when research institutes like CERN, were moving away from Solaris and alongside Fermilab created Scientific Linux based on Red-Hat. I used to have a stack of pizza box Sun workstations pilled up on my research room.
iseletsk 3y ago
Buying subscription and using it to build a distro would be against Red Hat Subscription agreement. I guess you missed all the drama of the summer, when Red Hat made it so.
- mbakke 3y ago
  You're right I did miss the details. Sorry for the inaccurate rant. Good for them. We all benefit from more players in this space, instead of just a bunch of RHEL clones.
  - LeFantome 3y ago
    You are speaking like somebody from an actual community. That definitely shows you missed the drama. You are supposed to say that we all have a right to an “exact” unpaid replica of the full RHEL distribution that we will explicitly not modify or improve in any way but instead directly commercialize and monetize. We have the right to do this because the above behaviour embodies “the spirit of Open Source”. If Red Hat tries to stop us, it is because THEY are evil and greedy.

asamir79 3y ago

The path beyond CentOS is getting paved. Thank you.