RedHat took control of it and turned it into what is now a RHEL beta-version
This gets repeated a lot, but it's complete nonsense. CentOS Stream packages get all of the testing and QA that RHEL packages did (and do).
CentOS Stream is not, in any way, a beta. The only outward evidence that it is, is that it gets packages earlier than RHEL because it doesn't need to wait for a minor release to introduce new features, the way that semantic versioning would require. But if getting packages first makes a distribution "beta", then RHEL was the beta for CentOS.
This gets repeated a lot, but it's complete nonsense. CentOS Stream packages get all of the testing and QA that RHEL packages did (and do).
Well, considering RHEL beta is now stated to be a snapshot of Stream that will then undergo validation under the name 'beta', then absolutely Stream is, by RedHat's standards, beta. Now I have seen a RedHat person declare that Stream is equivalent in quality to Ubuntu LTS, and that's a tough thing to quantify, but notably Canonical is willing to stand up and provide commercial support for LTS, meanwhile RedHat is not willing to provide commercial support for Stream, so at least on that front it seems that C
The scenarios that I could see as killing off Alma/Rocky would be... for RHEL to close up all their BSD and BSD-like licensed packages to make it impractical to aim for a compatible distribution anymore.
If that were to ever happen, it would be the end of RedHat. If you think that the whole CentOS was a debacle, just imagine the fallout from RHEL going closed-source!
I would also think so, however I have heard a few folks on the business side of RedHat, and you can tell they absolutely hate the 'freeloader' scenario, so much that I would not be surprised if they had their choice that they would close-up stuff given the chance.
They think they are still doing the community a huge favor by even allowing Stream to happen, and lamented how Rocky and Alma were going to be wasting their time cloning instead of working on Stream. Also that they are hugely generous for merely requiring registration and auditing your use of Linux for select no-fee RHEL usage.
I had optimistically hoped that they were going to try to better compete with Ubuntu and Oracle with no-registration-needed RHEL, but they've instead double downed on their 'subscription-only' model. So I would be disappointed, but not surprised if their efforts to convert CentOS share to RHEL share just went to Alma and/or Rocky and this frustrated their business to the point of closing up packages. Some of them have the hubris to think they control the Linux ecosystem, and they might have the ultimate authority if the more reasonable minds fail to give them what they wanted.
I have heard a few folks on the business side of RedHat, and you can tell they absolutely hate the 'freeloader' scenario, so much that I would not be surprised if they had their choice that they would close-up stuff given the chance.
Well, the current CEO of RH is the very person who championed the subscription model, so that doesn't surprise me. However, I think many of the RH engineers who are kernel developers are huge open source advocates and so, I think there would be a LOT of fallout (and RH management doesn't seem all that great at gauging fallout, IMO).
In any problem, if you find yourself doing an infinite amount of work,
the answer may be obtained by inspection.
CentOS Stream is not a beta (Score:2)
RedHat took control of it and turned it into what is now a RHEL beta-version
This gets repeated a lot, but it's complete nonsense. CentOS Stream packages get all of the testing and QA that RHEL packages did (and do).
CentOS Stream is not, in any way, a beta. The only outward evidence that it is, is that it gets packages earlier than RHEL because it doesn't need to wait for a minor release to introduce new features, the way that semantic versioning would require. But if getting packages first makes a distribution "beta", then RHEL was the beta for CentOS.
That sounds silly, doesn't
Re: (Score:2)
This gets repeated a lot, but it's complete nonsense. CentOS Stream packages get all of the testing and QA that RHEL packages did (and do).
Well, considering RHEL beta is now stated to be a snapshot of Stream that will then undergo validation under the name 'beta', then absolutely Stream is, by RedHat's standards, beta. Now I have seen a RedHat person declare that Stream is equivalent in quality to Ubuntu LTS, and that's a tough thing to quantify, but notably Canonical is willing to stand up and provide commercial support for LTS, meanwhile RedHat is not willing to provide commercial support for Stream, so at least on that front it seems that C
Re: (Score:1)
The scenarios that I could see as killing off Alma/Rocky would be ... for RHEL to close up all their BSD and BSD-like licensed packages to make it impractical to aim for a compatible distribution anymore.
If that were to ever happen, it would be the end of RedHat. If you think that the whole CentOS was a debacle, just imagine the fallout from RHEL going closed-source!
Re:CentOS Stream is not a beta (Score:2)
I would also think so, however I have heard a few folks on the business side of RedHat, and you can tell they absolutely hate the 'freeloader' scenario, so much that I would not be surprised if they had their choice that they would close-up stuff given the chance.
They think they are still doing the community a huge favor by even allowing Stream to happen, and lamented how Rocky and Alma were going to be wasting their time cloning instead of working on Stream. Also that they are hugely generous for merely requiring registration and auditing your use of Linux for select no-fee RHEL usage.
I had optimistically hoped that they were going to try to better compete with Ubuntu and Oracle with no-registration-needed RHEL, but they've instead double downed on their 'subscription-only' model. So I would be disappointed, but not surprised if their efforts to convert CentOS share to RHEL share just went to Alma and/or Rocky and this frustrated their business to the point of closing up packages. Some of them have the hubris to think they control the Linux ecosystem, and they might have the ultimate authority if the more reasonable minds fail to give them what they wanted.
Re: (Score:1)
I have heard a few folks on the business side of RedHat, and you can tell they absolutely hate the 'freeloader' scenario, so much that I would not be surprised if they had their choice that they would close-up stuff given the chance.
Well, the current CEO of RH is the very person who championed the subscription model, so that doesn't surprise me. However, I think many of the RH engineers who are kernel developers are huge open source advocates and so, I think there would be a LOT of fallout (and RH management doesn't seem all that great at gauging fallout, IMO).