I'm pretty sure I understand the workflow, or what will be the workflow, for CentOS Stream and RHEL, but there's one thing I'm curious about that I'd love to have clarified, at least to the extent that it's been planned or thought about so far:
Historically, a major release of RHEL has been cut from Fedora and polished up (or chopped down or...) but now that CentOS Stream exists, I can see several paths forward.
One possibility I envision is that CStream will progress at about the same pace as RHEL point releases today, which would suggest that when it comes time to branch something for RHEL 9, that might once again be Fedora, with the branch then being a major release of CStream that'll be polished into what will be released as RHEL 9.0.
Another possibility is that CStream will move somewhat quicker, with point releases over time covering more ground, somewhat obviating the notion of a major release - but this would conflict with the notion of a stable platform for vendors and partners to use as a long-lived base for their products, so I suspect it's not the answer.
A third possibility is that when RHEL 8 slows down [1] and there wouldn't normally be another point release of it, CStream will pick up pace and make bigger changes until it rolls forward to where RHEL 9 will pick up. This is the one I'm hoping for personally, as it would keep CStream as a continuous rolling release, and appropriate for situations where you'd want a rolling release. (There's no official equivalent to Leapp for CentOS, but this would mean that CStream wouldn't need one.)
Is the current thinking close to one of these, or are there options I've missed?
Thanks.
1. https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/