[CentOS-devel] Before You Get Mad About The CentOS Stream Change, Think About…

On 12/23/2020 10:41 AM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
> On 12/23/20 12:26 AM, Mark Mielke wrote:
>
>> I know you are stuck on the "c7" being a branch, and using terms like
>> "VCS" to fill in some background. But, as already mentioned - "c7" is
>> a flattened set of imports and de-branding.
>
> That's right.  CentOS major releases are flattened.  That's what we 
> keep saying: There is only one supported branch in CentOS at any given 
> point in time.
>
> That's all that Matthew was pointing out, really.  If you have an 
> application that needs an ultra-stable base OS, with security updates 
> but no new features for more than (roughly) 6-8 months, Red Hat can 
> provide you with such an OS.  CentOS doesn't. 

The point is that whatever CentOS Linux was, and whatever its installed 
base of users "needed," was known stability. Everyone running CentOS (at 
scale, not neophytes) is aware that they don't get frozen release 
tracking, they don't get direct access to EUS, that they have to deal 
with their own lifecycle management outside of RHN, and to pay attention 
to minor release drops and be prepared to manually forward over 
important updates from CR/Stream/Updates in the (hopefully brief) time 
period between the RHEL release and CentOS's rebuild and update forklift.

CentOS Linux provided a *paradigm* for that... whatever you want to call 
it. Stream does not. As you've written, if we had an issue with CentOS 
Linux's operation in this regard, we wouldn't be using it in the first 
place.

-jc