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

On 26 Dec 16:48, Mike McGrath wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 26, 2020 at 4:12 PM Chris Mair <chris at 1006.org> wrote:
> 
> > > But as a business, since you're not providing
> > > Red Hat with profit (none of our communities are), what are you
> > providing
> > > that would result in continued sponsorship of a downstream rebuild?
> >
> > Installation count share?
> >
> > Without CenOS Linux you'll look at 1% of Linux servers running RHEL (I'm
> > sure
> > you have a more precise number, and I'm sure it will be as
> > embarrassing...).
> >
> > In a world without CentOS Linux why should I pay for RH courses? Why
> > should I
> > renew my RHCE? Why should educators choose such a rare distribution
> > to teach Linux? At this point why not go with Ubuntu? Debian? Why teach
> > yum/dnf when most servers will use apt?
> >
> >
> This one is interesting and one we discussed in length.  Unfortunately, if
> you look at any "top" list.  Ubuntu is clumped together, and Red Hat gets
> broken out into Fedora, RHEL, and CentOS.  As for why educators would pick
> a "rare" distribution, because we're going to have a program that caters
> directly to education.
> 
> 
> > You say us (the community) isn't providing you (Red Hat) with profit. Well,
> > who do you think installed CentOS Linux and recommended RHEL to our pointy
> > haired bosses that wanted support contracts?
> >
> > Maybe you sold 1 RHEL subscription for any 100 CentOS we installed.
> >
> > Well, now you're going to sell exactly 0 RHEL subscriptions for any of the
> > 100 Ubuntu or Debian boxes I'm going to set up with my clients.
> >
> >
> Unfortunately with these last ones we've seen no evidence of this happening
> (where CentOS is actually leading to RHEL sales.  We have seen a little
> evidence of the opposite.  Where we once had RHEL sales, and now have
> CentOS.  Why?  "They're both built by Red Hat, right?"

That is sales' fault. The message from Red Hat before 2014 was: you
know, CentOS is community based, it can go away any time, you should
buy RHEL...

That messaging was such as it led to the situation you describe, when
indeed the main argument used by sales was no longer correct after RHEL
acquisition.

It would have been different if sales would have spoken about the added
value of RHEL vs CentOS instead of simply using fear.

-- 
 (o-    Julien Pivotto
 //\    Config Management SIG
 V_/_   https://frama.link/cfgmgmt
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