[CentOS-devel] Balancing the needs around the CentOS platform

On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 1:44 AM Karsten Wade <kwade at redhat.com> wrote:
> I wrote a blog post to share with you:
>
> https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/balancing-the-needs-around-the-centos-platform/
>
> Below is a fair summary of the blog post, but I encourage you to read
> the whole thing for the context around the "availability gap" and the
> "openness gap":

Hi Karsten:

It's good to hear your perspective. I understand you are trying to do
something noble and with value.

However, these are significant reasons why CentOS Linux is superior to
CentOS Stream:

1. Bug-for-bug compatibility with RHEL. This is important or a variety
of reasons, particularly including reproducibility. If something works
in CentOS 8 Stream, but fails in RHEL 8, this, or if it works in RHEL
8, but fails in CentOS 8 Stream, this means any testing efforts are
invalid. In strange cases which happen in real life - code that relies
on bugs will break if the bug is fixed.

2. Minor release milestones to stabilize branches. We have breakage
with most minor release upgrades, and the stabilization process is an
important method of isolating users from being affected by this. This
is why CentOS 8 Stream is being said "for developers", while RHEL 8
would be "for production". It is being said, because it is a real
thing. If you truly believed minor release milestones were unnecessary
for CentOS 8 Stream, then you would also believe that minor release
milestones were unnecessary for RHEL 8.

3. CentOS brand. CentOS was just getting recognized by vendors as
existing by vendors who have install scripts and runtime scripts that
literally say things like "if /etc/system-release doesn't contain a
recognized string, then fail". I get questions like "can we use Ubuntu
or CentOS?" There is no guarantee that CentOS 8 Stream will be
recognized by these vendors ever. The term wishful thinking comes to
mind for me.

I don't agree with you that CentOS cannot be two things. It's quite
normal for most projects to have an "upstream" and a "LTS" branch.
This seems like an after the fact justification for some compromises
that were made behind closed doors.

I don't think this decision is in tune with what the CentOS users
want. CentOS 8 Stream addresses a set of requirements that CentOS did
not address previously, but it does so by abandoning the very reason
that CentOS existed in the first place. If you wanted to know for sure
- you would take a referendum. I think there is a reason why no
referendum was taken.

Personally, I think:

1. CentOS 8 Stream should have been called RHEL 8 Stream.
2. CentOS 8 should have continued to exist until a suitable
replacement was provided, with input from the community.

The choice to make the decision without consultation with the
community, is a pretty major violation of trust. No matter the intent
- no matter the impossible situation you may have felt was thrust upon
you, to even act like CentOS belongs to the community would require
some sort of public discussion on the matter. By choosing to proceed
without this discussion, the people involved made it clear that the
opinion of the community does not matter to your decision making
process.

-- 
Mark Mielke <mark.mielke at gmail.com>