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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday December 09 2020, @03:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept.

CentOS Linux 8 will end in 2021 and shifts focus to CentOS Stream:

CentOS is an acronym for Community Enterprise Operating System, and it is a 100% rebuild of RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). While RHEL costs money, CentOS offered as a free community-supported enterprise Linux distro. Developers and companies who are good at Linux and don’t want to pay RHEL support fees always selected CentOS to save money and get enterprise-class software. However, the free ride is over. Red Hat announced that CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

CentOS' blog announcement:

The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Meanwhile, we understand many of you are deeply invested in CentOS Linux 7, and we’ll continue to produce that version through the remainder of the RHEL 7 life cycle.

Also at Phoronix.


Original Submission

Related Stories

The Year-Round Joys and Benefits of Open Source Software 33 comments

Over at ACM.org Yegor Bugayenko reviews how companies benefit from open source:

'Tis the season to be jolly, and many people around the world are getting those warm, fuzzy holiday feels. One of the things that makes us programmers feel warm and fuzzy is open source software. With open source, you can easily see the code and documentation, and better yet, you can use it too. A lot of companies support open source as well, providing funding, labor power, and code for free.

Why give something away for free? A lot of individuals contribute open source code out of a genuine sense of altruism. Yet when it comes to companies, it's often a strategic choice, and one they expect to benefit from.

[...] Why go through all the trouble? Let's take a look at the tangible benefits of supporting open source, especially from the perspective of tech giants like Google. Let's start by looking at how companies support open source.

The author goes on to list benefits for companies that support open source, citing Google, Microsoft, IBM and Adobe as examples. He also mentions how Red Hat benefited from its acquisition by IBM. He concludes:

So what's the take away for all of this? Open source is a great resource for the community, sure, but it's also a valuable resource for companies. Open source provides sales, influence, branding, retaining and training opportunities, among others, for companies. And for individual programmers, open source projects offer a way to build skills, increase knowledge, and make connections.

Previously:
CentOS Linux 8 Will End in 2021
Open Source's Eric Raymond: Windows 10 Will Soon be Just an Emulation Layer on Linux Kernel
Microsoft Releases Open-Source Process Monitor for Linux
Google Takes Down Repositories that Circumvent its Widevine DRM


Original Submission

CentOS Vs CentOS Stream 40 comments

CentOS vs CentOS Stream - LinuxConfig.org:

Up until a late 2020 announcement from Red Hat, CentOS Linux had a longstanding reputation as a dependable and enterprise-class Linux distribution. And now, the main purpose of CentOS is shifting. Along with that comes a name change to CentOS Stream.

In this article, we'll talk about this change of direction for CentOS, and what it means for the huge community of users and businesses that have relied on the distro for years. We'll also see what's next, as many users are left scrambling for a replacement so they can avoid switching to CentOS Stream.

[...] All of this leads users and businesses to one question. Should we continue using CentOS (CentOS Stream, that is), or do we shift to a different distribution? The biggest feature of CentOS was its (free) stability. Without it, many have no reason to continue using it.

[...] In this guide, we went over the shift of CentOS to CentOS Stream. You now know what this shift means for businesses and end users that have been relying on CentOS for years. We also saw alternatives to the "old" CentOS, for those that don't want to use CentOS Stream. Ultimately, the CentOS shift gives its users three options: switch to CentOS Stream, use a CentOS replacement, or distro hop entirely.

Previously:
CentOS Linux 8 Will End in 2021
Red Hat Introduces Free RHEL for Open-Source, Non-Profit Organizations


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday December 09 2020, @03:50PM (7 children)

    by Frosty Piss (4971) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @03:50PM (#1085569)

    A disappointing end to Red Hat. Ubuntu Enterprise is always there.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @03:56PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @03:56PM (#1085571)

      > Ubuntu Enterprise is there for now.

      FTFY

      Ubuntu (Canonical) will likely fall to M$, just like Novell did. The ultimate prize of course is Debian. I believe Ian Murdock's death was, IMO, likely framed a suicide.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:01PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:01PM (#1085574)

        Oh.... so you're one of those guys who believe Ian Murdock was a real, existing person, eh. You gotta look deeper man, it goes way deeper than that!

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @02:55AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @02:55AM (#1085811)

          yuk yuk yuk
          and they mod me up for wonderful stuff!
          yuk yuk yuk
          cause otherwise I'd have to put my thinking cap on
          yuk yuk yuk
          this thread will be forgotten now for sure!
          yuk yuk yuk

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:55PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:55PM (#1085649)

        For what purpose? To take over Docker? Ian was no longer active in Debian. I believe the sad truth is that he had some of the mental issues many nerds suffer from like anxiety, paranoia and schizofrenia. I'd give you that it wasn't clear to me from the autopsy report what was the deal with that vauum cleaner, the cord and the stairs.

        • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:00AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:00AM (#1085813)

          do you think I'm a clown?

          WELL BY GOLLY YOU'RE RIGHT!

          FUCK MY ASS WITH A PLUNGER!

          And kiss my penis while you're at it! 💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋

          P.S. This post was not aimed at anyone here, real or imagined. It was me talking to myself in the mirror while I was being raped by a porcupine.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:03PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:03PM (#1085575)

      That's a peculiar way to spell "Debian". You missed all but 2 characters and even those aren't in the right place in your spelling.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:24PM (#1085637)

        That's a peculiar way to spell "Devuan". You only missed 2 characters, but the rest are in the right places.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:06PM (#1085578)

    IBM doing what IBM does best: replace people who know what they are doing with those that don't.
    Because that lemon ain't gonna squeeze itself now, innit?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:27PM (17 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:27PM (#1085583)

    If I recall correctly libre-office (among others) is core developed on CentOS. Which means that they are going to have to migrate, which means busted libs, which means code refactoring.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by epitaxial on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:29PM (4 children)

      by epitaxial (3165) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:29PM (#1085586)

      If your FOSS project relies on a single distro then you're the problem. That or Linux is indeed too fragmented.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:29PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:29PM (#1085932)

        So what your saying is you've never tried to cross compile anything complicated between distros. Hell, what your saying is that you haven't compiled on Linux, pretty much at all.

        +5 on this post? are you kidding me? So everybody on SN installs from packages.... That is sad indeed.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @04:45PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @04:45PM (#1085953)

          What's the difference between installing from a package manager and, say, running a Gentoo script to compile your own executable, other than pretending that one has "computer hacker" chops because they can run a script?

          • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday December 10 2020, @11:54PM

            by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday December 10 2020, @11:54PM (#1086099)

            Your reaction when the script breaks?

            --
            "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday December 10 2020, @08:14PM

          by Pav (114) on Thursday December 10 2020, @08:14PM (#1086035)

          If you're doing something of importance you don't need to even do anything. People from other distributions will Make It Happen for you and submit the patches, even if you don't want them, and even if you erect all kinds of artificial hurdles to try to make them go away.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:30PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:30PM (#1085587)

      Can they migrate to Fedora, or is that too different?

      • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @05:28PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @05:28PM (#1085611)

        Can they migrate to Fedora, or is that too different?

        Fedora is the bleeding edge of the RedHat world and is generally months/years ahead of RHEL and operates on a rolling release schedule, with new major versions coming out every six months or so. As an example, CentOS 8 with the latest updates runs kernel version 4.18 (released 12 August 2018), while the latest Fedora release (33), runs kernel version 5.9 (released 11 October 2020).

        CentOS is (until the end of 2021, which is what TFA is about) actually a replica of RHEL with long term stability (ten years of updates). CentOS 8 (the current, latest version) is repackaged RHEL 8, and has generally been a bit *behind* RHEL.

        Essentially, it's a free, community supported distro that tracks RHEL.

        The changes to CentOS will, IIUC, put CentOS a little *ahead* of RHEL and new versions (dubbed CentOS streams) will be moving to a rolling-release schedule and *lead* RHEL rather than follow it. The decision to do so is partly because Fedora is so far in front of RHEL/CentOS, that RedHat wants to use CentOS as its feeder for new features instead.

        On my personal systems (mostly VMs), I run Fedora and like it a great deal. However, the update/upgrade cycles are so fast that using Fedora in *production* is risky.

        Mostly what folks are pissed off about is that CentOS 8 was *supposed* to be supported as is until 2029 (it was released in 2019). Now, the current CentOS 8 will only be directly supported until the end of 2021. This is *especially* exasperating for folks who just recently migrated from CentOS 7.

        By comparison, Ubuntu LTS (long term support) releases are only supported for five years, and Debian LTS for just three years.

        I think the idea that this signals the "death" of CentOS, and by extension the RedHat RPM ecosystem is rather hyperbolic. But people are definitely pissed off.

        That said, some folks are putting together a fork of CentOS (which was initially a fork of RHEL), although limited details about those efforts (and no code yet) are available, mostly because CentOS just announced these changes *yesterday*.

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Wednesday December 09 2020, @07:15PM

          by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @07:15PM (#1085661)

          I all but predicted this when IBM bought Red Hat. Companies don't buy other companies expecting to keep everything intact. They see CentOS as cutting into their profits, so time to cut it off. It's generous of IBM's Red Hat to continue CentOS 7 support for 3 (iirc) more years.

          The timing is interesting and helpful to me. I need to upgrade some servers that are running CentOS 6, for which the repository doors just slammed shut. I may go with 7 for now, but maybe it's time to move on.

          BTW, there are many great repositories beyond CentOS proper. I've been using many including "elrepo", "epel", "ius", "mysql-community", "remi", "rpmfusion-free-updates", "webtatic", and there are many more. You can get the latest kernels, for example. Not sure if people will keep them going, but I'm not willing to take the risk at this point.

          My #1 issue for Linux distros has been package management. I'm not thrilled with any of them, but got used to rpm / yum and it's been working well enough.

          I really really like Alpine linux. Package management is almost useless, for me anyway, but it works within its limits.

          Any thoughts on package management?

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:16PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:16PM (#1085692)

          By comparison, Ubuntu LTS (long term support) releases are only supported for five years, and Debian LTS for just three years.

          I might be misinterpreting, but it seems that Debian LTS is three years past the normal end of life of the release. For instance, https://wiki.debian.org/LTS [debian.org] says Stretch is supported "July 6, 2020 to June 30, 2022" however https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases [debian.org] says Stretch was released 2017-06-17. So including the LTS that's about 5 years from time of release.

          That said, it also seems that Debian LTS is more of a best-effort and that the normal Debian security team is not involved.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @09:11PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @09:11PM (#1086054)

          CentOS Stream should package *all Fedora packages* so you would have a stabilized rolling version of Fedora. RHEL can choose whatever subset of packages they want to use. No need to prune CentOS Stream in advance. At the same time, Fedora should work to package *nearly everything*. None of these main distros have everything packaged...

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @05:50PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @05:50PM (#1085619)

      If I recall correctly libre-office (among others) is core developed on CentOS. Which means that they are going to have to migrate, which means busted libs...

      Well, my final sweep of the delights that this B-Arker civilisation has to offer up before I drop out for a bit, finds something useful. This, at least, might explain an issue I had with a libreoffice update a while back, turns out the distro we're using on the laptops was using the default project rpms, and something, somewhere borked which meant that people started complaining about spreadsheets not loading, PDF generation breaking, font fuckwittery etc. etc...

      Recompiled the thing from source on a dev machine...sweetness and light, removed the offending rpms from the laptops and pushed out our own bloody compressed tarball...no more complaints.

    • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:45PM (5 children)

      by DECbot (832) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:45PM (#1085707) Journal

      They can migrate to CentOS Stream [centos.org]--which is the development channel for RHEL, where upstream development from Fedora is stabilized into the point releases. Upgrading from CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream 8 involves two commands. Instructions can be found here: Migrating CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream 8 [strzibny.name].

      --
      cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @10:40PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @10:40PM (#1085731)

        People don't use CentOS because it's a rolling release which constantly gets newer versions of packages. People use CentOS because it's stable and doesn't change except for security updates.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 10 2020, @04:07AM (3 children)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday December 10 2020, @04:07AM (#1085835)

          I thought people used CentOS because it was the free version of Red Hat, so if they're targeting RH servers because their customers uses it, they can just use CentOS for free.

          Otherwise, why bother? Just use Ubuntu or some other good distro. The only time I use CentOS is when my paycheck depends on it, just like Windows.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:31PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:31PM (#1085933)

            That's the part that sucks. If you work in a budget limited environment where you can't or don't want to pay the annual RHEL fee, and you need to STIG your systems, it wasn't too hard to modify the RedHat STIG scripts and off you went. This is going to really mess with that.

            • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday December 10 2020, @11:52PM (1 child)

              by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday December 10 2020, @11:52PM (#1086098)

              and you need to STIG your systems

              Security Technical Implementation Guide? And what does this mean when verbified?

              --
              "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @04:55AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @04:55AM (#1086819)

                To "lock down" information systems/software that might otherwise be vulnerable to attack, using STIGs (the configuration standards for U.S. Dept of Defense IT devices/systems).

                https://stigviewer.com/ [stigviewer.com]

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by KritonK on Wednesday December 09 2020, @05:38PM (14 children)

    by KritonK (465) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @05:38PM (#1085615)

    There are various alternatives to CentOS, if you want to keep using a RHEL clone:

    • Oracle Linux [oracle.com]. They even provide a script [oracle.com] to switch a CentOS system to Oracle Linux. However, the script claims to work only for CentOS 6 and 7. As CentOS 6 is EOL, and support for CentOS 7 will not be dropped, the script is not of much use.
    • Springdale Linux [ias.edu], formerly known as PUIAS Linux, produced by Princeton University and the Institute of Advanced Studies. It is older than CentOS and is still maintained, except perhaps for its web page, which has not been updated with links for Centos 8. Version 8.3 is here [princeton.edu].
    • Scientific Linux [scientificlinux.org], produced by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. They chose not to produce a RHEL 8 compatible version, preferring CentOS 8 for their installations, so while this distribution is in the "why bother" category at the moment, they may very well choose to pick up development again.
    • Rocky Linux [github.com]. A new fork created by G.M. Kurtzer, the original creator of CentOS (then known as CAOS), created after Red Hat's announcement.

    Of all these alternatives I have only used Scientific Linux, and it was rock solid.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:05PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:05PM (#1085626)

      I will be watching Rocky Linux to see how that goes.

      However, there's no code yet, which isn't surprising as the repo [github.com] was only created yesterday.

      There are requests for donations, hosting space and other support -- so if anyone is interested, they should check it out.

      • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:12PM (3 children)

        by epitaxial (3165) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:12PM (#1085631)

        I'm old and cranky so I use Slackware. Yes it ships with a 5.x kernel.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:16PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:16PM (#1085634)

          Yes it ships with a 5.x kernel.

          ...only if you swim with the current.

        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday December 09 2020, @07:20PM (1 child)

          by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @07:20PM (#1085663)

          I'm a Slackware guy since SLS. Well, on and off- some versions were atrocious.

          Do you / would you run Slackware on someone else's live servers? My concern is that if I leave, quit, whatever, the owner may have difficulty finding someone to support it.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:34AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:34AM (#1085826)

            Just container your crap in docker. Then it doesn't matter what distro you run. /s

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday December 09 2020, @07:03PM (2 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @07:03PM (#1085656) Journal

      Honestly suggestion Oracle anything, is akin to honestly suggesting you should flay yourself with a cat-o'-nine tails.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 2) by KritonK on Wednesday December 09 2020, @08:32PM (1 child)

        by KritonK (465) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @08:32PM (#1085683)

        I wasn't suggesting anything! I was merely enumerating alternatives.

        If I were to suggest one of the alternatives, it would be Springdale Linux: they provide a RHEL 8 clone and have a long history of supporting their distribution. In fact, I am currently evaluating Springdale 8 in a VM. So far, apart from the Springdale branding, it looks like a bog standard CentOS installation.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:38AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:38AM (#1085828)

          Just a suggestion, but you may want to run diffoscope on them. You'd be surprised what distros change or pack on sometimes.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @08:17PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @08:17PM (#1085679)

      Hope RockyLinux become the plug and play replacement.

    • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 09 2020, @08:29PM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @08:29PM (#1085682)

      Scientific has been maintaining their 7.x line, but has been using CentOS 8 rather than develop their own 8x line.
      The announcement was in 2019. [fnal.gov]
      This might motivate them to rethink that, (hopefully).

    • (Score: 1) by AlwaysNever on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:25PM (1 child)

      by AlwaysNever (5817) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:25PM (#1085696)

      i'm not sure if Springdale Linux is a RHEL recompile, or just a CentOS recompile. I suspect Springdale upstream is CentOS itself, and not RHEL.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by KritonK on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:48PM

        by KritonK (465) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:48PM (#1085709)

        I remember that they used to be the first to release their distribution whenever a new RHEL release came out, weeks before CentOS. This suggests that they do their own builds and don't wait for CentOS. Besides, why would they need to recompile CentOS? They'd simply use CentOS and focus on the software on their additional repositories.

        From what little information there is on their web page, they say that Springdale is a "Custom Red Hat®-based Distribution and Mirror", which also suggests that they rely on Red Hat sources.

    • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:36PM

      by DECbot (832) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:36PM (#1085703) Journal

      Or, they migrate to CentOS Stream 8 [centos.org] which is to become downstream to Fedora and upstream to the RHEL point releases.

      --
      cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
    • (Score: 1) by snmygos on Thursday December 10 2020, @06:58AM

      by snmygos (6274) on Thursday December 10 2020, @06:58AM (#1085862)

      Who is foolish enough to see Oracle as an alternative?

  • (Score: 2) by oumuamua on Wednesday December 09 2020, @05:41PM

    by oumuamua (8401) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @05:41PM (#1085616)

    https://www.hostdime.com/blog/centos-6-end-of-life/ [hostdime.com]
    BTW how do you get it to stop looking at the patch server? it keeps popping up error windows

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday December 09 2020, @08:42PM (3 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @08:42PM (#1085685)

    When RedHat stopped RedHat Linux and forced everyone to ride the eternally unstable Fedora train or pay for RHEL, many realized it was still possible to "Use the Source" and just rebuild the RHEL source rpms. Many did exactly that. I was one the first to release but all of us individual players were quickly eclipsed by the CentOS Project, which seemed to have real money behind it. Eventually that real money was openly revealed to be Red Hat Inc. itself. Why? Well we now see why.

    So now they shutdown CentOS and force everyone to choose between Fedora's shitshow of bi-annual forced migrations, this new slower steaming bowl of poop or writing the check. If you weren't prepared for this you weren't paying attention and deserve what is going to happen. What will that be? At least a year of chaos and then a repeat of the cycle. New rebuilds, one will have ample resources and rise to push the rest out again, etc.

    As for me, I'm just an observer now. Used CentOS 6 until this year and migrated away to avoid the forced adoption of systemd that taking CentOS 7 would have required. At this point all servers run Devuan and the desktops are PCLinuxOS. What IBM and RedHat do is still important though, because they continue to contaminate the bulk of Open Source projects with their diseased ideas.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @12:31AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @12:31AM (#1085780)

      Not everything IBM and Red Hat does is evil. They did a good job improving Linux's archaic init system.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @02:52AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @02:52AM (#1085809)

      It almost seems as if most of the ones in control of Desktop Linux are sabotaging it. That's why large organizations shouldn't use Desktop Linux.

      Android has proven that the market can accept Linux.

      The goal of the OS/GUI should be for users to be able to get more things done in their apps than tinkering around with the OS/GUI.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @10:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @10:46PM (#1086081)

        Your first two sentences contradict each other.

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:45AM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Thursday December 10 2020, @03:45AM (#1085831) Homepage

    You know that part of FOSS licenses that says no warranty or support? Yeah.

    Any support for FOSS software is provided out of goodwill by the community. There is no contract. If you want support, you can either support it yourself, pay someone to support it, build a community providing support, or get a company interested in contributing support (without a contract).

    The community is welcome to step up and provide support where Red Hat is no longer doing so. If you are unhappy with the terms, you should have read the terms.

    When I use FOSS, I always evaluate the health of the project and consider the case where I would have to support the software myself or migrate to another project (the same as when I use non-FOSS actually, minus the "support it myself" option).

    --
    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
  • (Score: 2) by hoeferbe on Tuesday December 15 2020, @04:21AM

    by hoeferbe (4715) on Tuesday December 15 2020, @04:21AM (#1087426)

    With a few days having now past, more details are available about this decision.

    The FAQ: CentOS Stream Updates [redhat.com] page notes that in the first half of 2021, Red Hat will offer low to no-cost programs for a variety of use cases.  I am assuming this means personal use, Free and Open Source Software projects, small businesses, non-profits and educational institutions.  (Currently, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is $349/year [redhat.com] for a self-support subscription -- meaning you get updates and access to their knowledge base, but cannot enter a support request.  Their lower-price $99/year RHEL Developer Suite, is restricted for only development use.)  It will be interesting to see what Red Hat offers.

    RHEL Principal Product Manager Scott McCarty's blog posting, Before You Get Mad About The CentOS Stream Change, Think About… [crunchtools.com], goes over the community's complaints and gives some good explanation around where Red Hat went wrong with this announcement, insights into the decision and what the community of users should look for, next.

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