[CentOS-devel] [CentOS] CentOS 8 future

On 12/9/20 5:23 AM, Leon Fauster via CentOS-devel wrote:
> Am 09.12.20 um 04:18 schrieb Mike McGrath:
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 7:30 PM Leon Fauster via CentOS-devel
>> <centos-devel at centos.org <mailto:centos-devel at centos.org>> wrote:
>>
>>     Am 08.12.20 um 23:22 schrieb Matthew Miller:
>>      > On Tue, Dec 08, 2020 at 12:44:36PM -0600, Robert G. (Doc) Savage
>>     via CentOS wrote:
>>      >>> CentOS 8's future is not looking bright. Recently deployed
>>     CentOS8 on my
>>      >>> production workload and now hearing this. What do other folks
>> think
>>      >>> about this?
>>      >> Speaking only for myself, I am ready to give up on CentOS (and
>>     Red Hat)
>>      >> entirely. Fedora meets all my clients' needs with none of the
>> chaos.
>>      >
>>      > I definitely appreciate the vote of confidence in Fedora! You're
>>     not alone
>>      > in using Fedora in a lot of serious ways.
>>      >
>>      > However, I really encourage everyone to give this a chance.
>> This is
>>      > (post-Fedora) RHEL development opening up in a new way, and
>> CentOS is
>>      > central to it. That's a good place to be!
>>      >
>>      >
>>
>>     Its important to distinguish two aspects here in this whole
>> discussion.
>>
>>     Its great that RH opens their "firewalls". CentOS Stream is great
>>     for that but what actually pissed the people off is the termination
>>     of CentOS8 Linux. So all arguments for C8S doesn't touch the problem
>>     that people have now. And no - C8S is not a valid substitution. Its
>>     valid for a different usage scenario that is of course worth to get a
>>     chance but the mentioned problem don't get addressed ...
>>
>>
>> I agree the timing of this isn't great but keep in mind the vast
>> majority of CentOS users are on CentOS Linux 7, they have the full
>> lifecycle they expected.
>>
>> The relatively fewer that are on CentOS Linux 8 have some decisions to
>> make.  The end of 2021 is sooner than they were expecting *but* there
>> is a fully available upgrade path from CentOS Linux 8 to CentOS Stream
>> 8 (IE: not a reinstall), and that will take them to 2024.  That's half
>> of the 10 years they might have expected, but it should let them give
>> Stream a try and see if it is for them or not.
> 
> If "Stream" is the base for the next RHEL8.x where are the updates until
> 2029 coming from, when CentOS Stream 8 will be shutdown at 2024?
> 

The lifetime will be only for the Full Support period.  Stream will live
for 5 years, not 10.  However, the source code will still be available
for you to build it yourself.

I believe, for Stream and not for Linux, that the possibility of a SIG
to continue building the source code could exist if the community steps
up and provides people in a Special Interest Group.  If there is no
community volunteers, then this will not happen.  Again .. this would be
for Stream and in the 2024 time frame.

We have SIGs now .. very few of them are non-Red Hat .. the Xen part of
the Virt SIG being one example of a non-Red Hat one that does exist.

So:

1) After the full process for Stream 8 is in place and RHEL Engineers
are actually directly doing the code commits into the CentOS Stream git
branches .. should be some time the 1st QTR 2021.

2) As we get closer to the end of the full support phase of RHEL 8 (May
7, 2019 + 5 years .. so likely May 31, 2024) we need a SIG to ask to
form who would take over building the source code.

So far, we have had very few members of the community actually become
part of SIGs.  I have no idea if anyone will volunteer to do it.  Red
Hat has said they will stop funding it at the end of the full support phase.

Any details would need to be worked out based on the number of people in
the SIG, if one exists, to keep doing the stream builds. What that
process is exactly and where the builds would live would all need to be
worked out.