On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 10:19 PM Mark Mielke mark.mielke@gmail.com wrote:
In RHEL, a minor release is a branch. You can install RHEL 7.8, and keep a host on RHEL 7.8 until the end of its life cycle. If you want long term support for an OS with minimal changes, but continued support, that's a thing that RHEL provides.
You can also install CentOS 7.9, and keep a host on CentOS 7.8 until the end of its life cycle. That is what RHEL is. If you can prove otherwise, then please prove it. Show us an example of where this is not true.
Grrr... an unfortunate typo for me. But, I'll fix it and expand:
You can install CentOS 7.8, and keep a host on CentOS 7.8, receiving security patches that are on both RHEL 7.8 and CentOS 7.8, until the end of the RHEL 7.8 and CentOS 7.8 life cycle. This is because RHEL 7.8 is a branch, and CentOS is regularly importing changes from this branch, which means that CentOS 7.8 is also a branch.
Once RHEL 7.9 is out, RHEL 7.8 is "end of life", and similarly, CentOS 7.8 is also "end of life". Once RHEL 7.9 is out, the "c7" branches are updated to reflect RHEL 7.9, and follow the RHEL 7.9 branch, as CentOS 7.9. If there was a RHEL 7.10, then it would be on a private 7.10 branch in RHEL, and run in parallel to the 7.9 that is being imported into CentOS 7.9.
Everything you are saying about RHEL being some branch that lives longer than CentOS applies to RHEL EUS, not RHEL:
You and Matthew are confusing RHEL with RHEL EUS. They are not even the same subscription type! Somebody who buys RHEL, is not permitted to access EUS, without either having a Premium subscription, or a separate EUS subscription.