6 ms·

Centos stream still exists and it is in fact the actual upstream of rhel.

by SEJeff 2y ago

bigstrat2003 2y ago
But for all practical purposes, that is dropping CentOS. They completely changed the identity of the product, so the fact it has the same branding isn't going to placate anyone.
- carlwgeorge 2y ago
  People that actually care about the distro being sustainable are quite happy with the changes. Sorry you don't get it.
vrighter 2y ago
so? That just means that it is not necessarily compatible with the current version of rhel deployed on our servers
- carlwgeorge 2y ago
  It's the same major version, so it's extremely compatible. Plus if you run into something that doesn't work the same, you just discovered what's going to break for your workload on your RHEL system when the next minor version is released.
  - vrighter 2y ago
    so it's not the same. Which means that it is not equivalent to what centos was. It's highly, but not fully, compatible. centos was "fully". You can't use it to test on the current version of rhel, where with centos you could. You can't say they're equivalent and then start listing the differences that make them not
happymellon 2y ago
But CentOS Stream is not CentOS. They are completely different products just reusing branding to confuse what people are asking for. RHEL Developer is closer, as a no-support, no-cost version of RHEL, but you still have the deal with the licence song and dance. CentOS gave folks a free version that let you run some dev environments that mostly mirrors prod, without worrying about licences or support. CentOS stream doesn't do this out of principle. It's upstream.
- carlwgeorge 2y ago
  To call it "completely different" is false. They are built differently, but the end result is still 90-95% the same software versions (because it has to be as the major version of RHEL). In fact, the way it is built differently is a massive improvement over the old process. The old CentOS was put together by 2-4 people at a time, with long delays after the corresponding RHEL releases, with no ability to actually fix bugs or accept contributions. The new CentOS (CentOS Stream) is built by thousands of engineers, literal subject matter experts who can actually fix bugs you report to them, or even better merge a contribution you submit. Also, the branding wasn't reused, the branding is for the whole CentOS Project, which still exists and is more active than ever. Also, you can still use CentOS in your dev environments, and it works great for that because you can prepare your production workload for upcoming changes in the next RHEL minor version ahead of time. You can also get free RHEL for dev environments, for the things you need to validate with the same minor version as your production RHEL environments.
  - happymellon 2y ago
    It is different, otherwise why would then explain at length at how it is better?
bayindirh 2y ago
CentOS was the downstream of RHEL, and much more people used it than RedHat/IBM knew or wanted to admit. I can argue that at least 90% of their users (by the number of installs) didn't even need any help to configure/troubleshoot that either. But with a very IBM move and with some tunnel vision, they got triggered by the few people who abuse RedHat license model and rugpulled everyone. More importantly universities, HPC/Research centers and other (mostly research) datacenters which were able to sew their own garments without effort. Now we have Alma, which is a clone of CentOS stream, and Rocky which tries to be bug to bug compatible with RHEL. It's not a nice state. They damaged their reputation, goodwill and most importantly the ecosystem severely just to earn some more monies, because number and monies matter more than everything else for IBM. Remember. When you combine any company with IBM, you get IBM.
- bonzini 2y ago
  > they got triggered by the few people who abuse Red Hat license model and rugpulled everyone Alma is not a clone of CentOS Stream. You can use Alma just like you were using CentOS. It's really no different than before except for who's doing the work. I agree that communication was bad. But why do you believe that Red Hat isn't able to screw up on their own?
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    > Alma is not a clone of CentOS Stream. I'll kindly disagree on this with you. Reading the blog post titled "The Future of AlmaLinux is Bright", located at [0]: > After much discussion, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation board today has decided to drop the aim to be 1:1 with RHEL. AlmaLinux OS will instead aim to be binary compatible with RHEL. > The most remarkable potential impact of the change is that we will no longer be held to the line of “bug-for-bug compatibility” with Red Hat, and that means that we can now accept bug fixes outside of Red Hat’s release cycle. > We will also start asking anyone who reports bugs in AlmaLinux OS to attempt to test and replicate the problem in CentOS Stream as well, so we can focus our energy on correcting it in the right place. So, it's just an ABI compatible derivative distro now. Not Bug to Bug compatible like old CentOS and current RockyLinux. TL;DR: Alma Linux is not a RHEL clone. It's a derivative, mostly pulling from CentOS Stream. > I agree that communication was bad. But why do you believe that Red Hat isn't able to screw up on their own? Absorption and "Rebranding and Repositioning" of CentOS both done after IBM acquisition. RedHat is not a company anymore. It's a department under IBM. Make no mistake. No hard feelings towards IBM and RedHat here. They are corporations. I'm angry to be rug-pulled because we have been affected directly. Lastly, in the words of Bryan Cantrill: > You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. [0]: https://almalinux.org/blog/future-of-almalinux/ https://almalinux.org/blog/future-of-almalinux/

Centos stream still exists and it is in fact the actual upstream of rhel.

by SEJeff 2y ago

Centos stream still exists and it is in fact the actual upstream of rhel.

bigstrat2003 2y ago

But for all practical purposes, that is dropping CentOS. They completely changed the identity of the product, so the fact it has the same branding isn't going to placate anyone.

carlwgeorge 2y ago
People that actually care about the distro being sustainable are quite happy with the changes. Sorry you don't get it.

vrighter 2y ago

so? That just means that it is not necessarily compatible with the current version of rhel deployed on our servers

carlwgeorge 2y ago
It's the same major version, so it's extremely compatible. Plus if you run into something that doesn't work the same, you just discovered what's going to break for your workload on your RHEL system when the next minor version is released.
- vrighter 2y ago
  so it's not the same. Which means that it is not equivalent to what centos was. It's highly, but not fully, compatible. centos was "fully". You can't use it to test on the current version of rhel, where with centos you could. You can't say they're equivalent and then start listing the differences that make them not

happymellon 2y ago

But CentOS Stream is not CentOS. They are completely different products just reusing branding to confuse what people are asking for. RHEL Developer is closer, as a no-support, no-cost version of RHEL, but you still have the deal with the licence song and dance. CentOS gave folks a free version that let you run some dev environments that mostly mirrors prod, without worrying about licences or support. CentOS stream doesn't do this out of principle. It's upstream.

carlwgeorge 2y ago
To call it "completely different" is false. They are built differently, but the end result is still 90-95% the same software versions (because it has to be as the major version of RHEL). In fact, the way it is built differently is a massive improvement over the old process. The old CentOS was put together by 2-4 people at a time, with long delays after the corresponding RHEL releases, with no ability to actually fix bugs or accept contributions. The new CentOS (CentOS Stream) is built by thousands of engineers, literal subject matter experts who can actually fix bugs you report to them, or even better merge a contribution you submit. Also, the branding wasn't reused, the branding is for the whole CentOS Project, which still exists and is more active than ever. Also, you can still use CentOS in your dev environments, and it works great for that because you can prepare your production workload for upcoming changes in the next RHEL minor version ahead of time. You can also get free RHEL for dev environments, for the things you need to validate with the same minor version as your production RHEL environments.
- happymellon 2y ago
  It is different, otherwise why would then explain at length at how it is better?

bayindirh 2y ago

CentOS was the downstream of RHEL, and much more people used it than RedHat/IBM knew or wanted to admit. I can argue that at least 90% of their users (by the number of installs) didn't even need any help to configure/troubleshoot that either. But with a very IBM move and with some tunnel vision, they got triggered by the few people who abuse RedHat license model and rugpulled everyone. More importantly universities, HPC/Research centers and other (mostly research) datacenters which were able to sew their own garments without effort. Now we have Alma, which is a clone of CentOS stream, and Rocky which tries to be bug to bug compatible with RHEL. It's not a nice state. They damaged their reputation, goodwill and most importantly the ecosystem severely just to earn some more monies, because number and monies matter more than everything else for IBM. Remember. When you combine any company with IBM, you get IBM.

bonzini 2y ago
> they got triggered by the few people who abuse Red Hat license model and rugpulled everyone Alma is not a clone of CentOS Stream. You can use Alma just like you were using CentOS. It's really no different than before except for who's doing the work. I agree that communication was bad. But why do you believe that Red Hat isn't able to screw up on their own?
- bayindirh 2y ago
  > Alma is not a clone of CentOS Stream. I'll kindly disagree on this with you. Reading the blog post titled "The Future of AlmaLinux is Bright", located at [0]: > After much discussion, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation board today has decided to drop the aim to be 1:1 with RHEL. AlmaLinux OS will instead aim to be binary compatible with RHEL. > The most remarkable potential impact of the change is that we will no longer be held to the line of “bug-for-bug compatibility” with Red Hat, and that means that we can now accept bug fixes outside of Red Hat’s release cycle. > We will also start asking anyone who reports bugs in AlmaLinux OS to attempt to test and replicate the problem in CentOS Stream as well, so we can focus our energy on correcting it in the right place. So, it's just an ABI compatible derivative distro now. Not Bug to Bug compatible like old CentOS and current RockyLinux. TL;DR: Alma Linux is not a RHEL clone. It's a derivative, mostly pulling from CentOS Stream. > I agree that communication was bad. But why do you believe that Red Hat isn't able to screw up on their own? Absorption and "Rebranding and Repositioning" of CentOS both done after IBM acquisition. RedHat is not a company anymore. It's a department under IBM. Make no mistake. No hard feelings towards IBM and RedHat here. They are corporations. I'm angry to be rug-pulled because we have been affected directly. Lastly, in the words of Bryan Cantrill: > You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. [0]: https://almalinux.org/blog/future-of-almalinux/ https://almalinux.org/blog/future-of-almalinux/