On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 12:30 PM Phelps, Matthew <mphelps@cfa.harvard.edu> wrote:

On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 1:00 PM Mike McGrath <mmcgrath@redhat.com> wrote:

On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 10:23 AM sankarshan <sankarshan.mukhopadhyay@gmail.com> wrote:

I am going to snip a lot of this note and respond to a specific part.

On Tue, 15 Dec 2020 at 21:33, Ljubomir Ljubojevic <centos@plnet.rs> wrote:
>
> It looks like "fatherlinux" chose to not allow my comment. I see he
> allowed some other comments and replied to some other, but mine is
> missing, so I will post it here:
>
> ********************

[snipped]

> To conclude:
> When RH employed CentOS Core team in 2014 they promised that nothing
> will change for "CentOS Linux". According to Johnny Hughes, member of
> the CentOS board this change of direction, discontinuing of "CentOS
> Linux" happened my RH liaison stating that changes will be made how ever
> rest of the CentOS board votes (with implication concluded by me that
> those against will lose  RH employee status). Board was initially
> against, but then they capitulated in front of Red Hat blackmails and
> decided "to vote for changes unanimously". Red Had flexed it's muscles,
> members of CentOS Board will be forever remembered as exchanging
> reputation and respect for income in Red Hat, and users decided such
> tactics deserve abandonment of Red Hat.
> Some 30% of people commenting negatively say they will move to
> Debian/Ubuntu regardless of any positive points Red Hat employees try to
> make, at least 60% will stay on CentOS Linux 7 until EOL but will switch
> CentOS Linux 8 to Springdale, Oracle, or Rocky or Lenix  in next 12
> months, and big non-for-profit institutions will wait to see what will
> happen with "free RHEL licensees" for them. Around 70-80% of sysadmins
> and CentOS users  commenting will never, ever, recommend RHEL to anyone.
> I have to rebase my server from CentOS 6, and I am going with Springdale
> for now, and will start learning Debian. I will soon resign as admin in
> Facebook group (Many think that FB group is owned by me) and I was
> already asked by some FB users if I plan to create new EL group they can
> switch to. Only reason to delay is to try to persuade members and
> visitors that they do not have to rush with switching to Debian/Ubuntu,
> that there is still time.
>
> ****************************

The RHT - CentOS bits happened in 2014. I am certain that the
statements from the CentOS team were made with the best intentions and
were not meant to masquerade anything. Holding the entire phenomenal
CentOS crew (all of whom have spent long years building this community
with love) to a statement made way back in 2014 seems and is a bit
unfair. Realities change and it would be reasonably obvious that
strategic plans determined CentOS-as-upstream-of-RHEL to be the need
of the hour rather than continue with the focus of CentOS as it has
been.

Please pause for a moment and think about the individuals being
denigrated on the lists. These are not the evil, malicious and
villainous characters they are being demonized as. For what it is
worth we've likely met them in person, shared a joke or a beverage. I
doubt they like the outcome any more than we in the community do.

Being kind, being respectful and being an ally does not take a lot.
Let's be that while we find how best to preserve our interests,
businesses and energies.

I'd also just add that while I find Johnny's characterization of what happened accurate, Ljubomir took a couple of leaps that I don't think existed.  Red Hat decided not to continue paying actual money for what was actively harming us and no longer providing the value that it once did.  No one, not even the board, could force Red Hat to continue paying for this project which was just not working for us. 

Thanks for admitting that the reason Red Hat did this was financial. This BS about it being "a better way for Community input into RHEL" is just that, BS.

Ah, actually I didn't do that.  RHEL is and has been doing fine.  Don't confuse "value" with revenue.  CentOS Linux no longer served any purpose at Red Hat and I'll flip it back around as I did in the previous email.

Why should Red Hat, or any company, continue to pay for something that isn't working out?

 

Can we stop with the charade that this is supposed to be a good thing for the CentOS community? It's not. It was never intended to be. It's a punishment for us getting "free Red Hat" all these years.

I don't think anyone's said that.  This is a massive change and disruption for the existing CentOS community.  90% of the community (by our estimates) will be able to stay on CentOS 7 until 2024 just as they expected.  We made sure the 10% on CentOS Linux 8 didn't continue to grow (thus trying to minimize impact).  We aren't punishing anyone and the fact that two other clones have already popped up is a testament to that.

 

Well, you all see the reaction this has garnered around the world, and it's all negative except for the Red Hat employees trying to convince us it's a good thing. Nice try.

Actually, things took an interesting turn around Thursday.  Once people understood what we actually announced much of the press has been very positive, and now that the shock has worn off, we're seeing quite a lot of support.  

 

We all know differently. And we are all now making influential choices that will hurt Red Hat. 

I don't mean to sound cold here but if you really want to talk about the business side of this....  If you don't have a budget and don't end up finding a home in our coming low-cost or free offerings (Fedora, CentOS Stream, UBI, or RHEL for developers, CI, Open Source, edu, mom/pop shops, etc).  Then what choices are you talking about?

          -Mike

 

Good job!

I'm not going to say that the announcement was the board's idea or even that they were happy about it.  I think the previous course and speed of CentOS was well understood.  But that no longer worked for Red Hat who is paying for people, servers, swag, etc.  The list goes on.

Note: I was not in the room when the voting happened.  I was involved in the negotiations.  The board had a tremendous impact on helping Red Hat better understand some things that needed to happen in CentOS Stream.  For example, versioning it and supporting it through the full support cycle of RHEL instead of what stream was before (a sort of continuous stream with one year overlap for migrations, etc).  The Board is expecting things out of CentOS Stream and we expect them to hold us to that.

It's easy to say "The Board is full of Red Hatters and they did this."  But I think we all know that's not the case, some of the Red Hatters on the board were as fierce a defender of the existing CentOS community as one could possibly be.  The board could have voted this down.  Red Hat could have dissolved the board (as I understand the voting rules).  But that didn't happen.  Both sides of this came to an agreement that we - together - could live with and that represented a positive future for CentOS.  A very very different future for sure, but a positive one.

           -Mike

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Matt Phelps Information Technology Specialist, Systems Administrator (Computation Facility, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory) Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian 60 Garden Street | MS 39 | Cambridge, MA 02138 email: mphelps@cfa.harvard.edu

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