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On 10/12/2020 11:23, Simon Avery wrote: > This popped up on my feed today, and it doesn't seem like good news. > > > It's not. I've spent the past 48 hours focusing on this heavily as my > employer is heavily invested in Centos. As a project I've spent 18 > months migrating a large number of Centos 6 production machines to > Centos 8 based on the EOL for the latter being given as 2029, which is > in line with RHEL 8's EOL (which as Centos is based off RHEL is > logical) (Note: Centos 7 is unaffected, and it's EOL is unchanged at 2024) > > All that work is now very much at risk. > > This week, that EOL for Centos 8 was changed to December 2021, shaving 8 > years off support. That's huge, especially for businesses who form the > vast majority of Centos installs. > > Redhat blamed the Centos community for that "miscommunication" which has > upset them a lot, since Redhat failed to tell or consult even the Centos > board about that. (Who turn out to have zero power, with Redhat > having full veto over any Centos decision) > > Instead of the Centos 8 Linux, we now get Centos 8 Stream which was > supposed to run in parallel. This is significantly different in that it > is now the /upstream/ of RHEL, rather than /downstream/ of it. > > So, Centos 8 Stream becomes the Sandpit / beta version of RHEL. That > means less stability and more rapidly changing packages. Updates are > good, but most companies will value stability over freshness, which was > always Centos' strong suit. That's no longer true. > > So why? > > IBM bought Redhat for a lot of money. I think they're pushing down on > the top to get more profit from the company but not really caring how > Redhat find that money. Redhat stress that they made this decision, not > IBM. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but having spoken to > several Redhat employees, there does seem to be a feeling in Redhat of > "Why should we help support Centos, how does it fit in our model?" That > feels true, and was something that some people pondered when Redhat > bought Centos some years ago. > > Some people will say "If you want RHEL, pay Redhat" - and that's fine. > But it simply is not affordable for many individuals or businesses. Many > people also want the product but don't need or want to pay for the support. > > The Centos-devel list and Freenode IRC channel have been... lively. And > sad. Mostly sad, I think. The community feels betrayed, remember that > many thousands of high skilled hours go into Centos without payment. > Reading the pain from some of these people is hard. Things like "I've > contributed to Centos for 17 years, it's basically my life's work. I'm > heartbroken". Others who've spent hundreds of hours working towards > improvements that are now completely binned, without warning. Wasted. > Several have already left the project and a large number of others are > still processing the news. It's awful. > > Centos will definitely be a lesser product because of this. And likely, > so will RHEL. > > So what next? > > Redhat won't reverse this decision, that much is clear. Some options for > anyone pondering are: > > - Change to Centos 8 Stream and pray like hell it's not as unstable as > it might become. > - Pay for RHEL. (Ethically I now have a problem with this) > - Move to an alternative OS > > 1. Centos like: > 1. CERN linux (proven) > 2. Scientific Linux (Poss abandoned) > 3. Oracle Linux (yuck) (Ethically I have a problem with this) > 4. Rocky Linux (Emerging) > 5. (Non commercial users might want to explore Rhel Free) > 2. Alternative > 1. Debian Stable > 2. Ubuntu Server > > > If you're using centos, the bottom line is - don't do anything now. > > There are 12 months of support for Centos 8 left, and things are very > much up in the air. New distros will emerge, many will fail. Some will > get the support of those now wholly disenfranchised by Redhat, and > hopefully, one or two will flourish. > > S > > FORK and maintain in a new community? -- regards Eion MacDonald -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dcglug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq