On 15/12/2020 19:39, Trevor Hemsley via CentOS-devel wrote: > On 15/12/2020 17:59, Mike McGrath wrote: >> >> I'd also just add that while I find Johnny's characterization of what >> happened accurate, Ljubomir took a couple of leaps that I don't think >> existed. Red Hat decided not to continue paying actual money for what >> was actively harming us and no longer providing the value that it once >> did. No one, not even the board, could force Red Hat to continue >> paying for this project which was just not working for us. I'm not >> going to say that the announcement was the board's idea or even that >> they were happy about it. I think the previous course and speed of >> CentOS was well understood. But that no longer worked for Red Hat who >> is paying for people, servers, swag, etc. The list goes on. > > Thank you for this clarification although it was fairly apparent to > everyone what the driver was behind this change. > > I'd like to thank Red Hat for supporting the CentOS Project from 2014 to > 2020. You did a good thing by stepping in to save the project from > disintegration back in 2014. Thanks for that, CentOS would probably have > survived without you but you did the right thing and stepped up when you > were needed. > > However... > > While Red Hat may *legally* own the CentOS Project, I do not believe you > are *morally* entitled to do what you have done. CentOS is not just > about the project and the contributors to it. It's more than that. It > has millions of users, so many that no-one really knows how many there > are. Lots of those users may be large corporations "freeloading" as Red > Hat probably see it but others, those are small users running single > machines or just a few. Those users are *your* future. > > You (Red Hat) made a lot of promises both in 2014 and as late as last > year when Chris Wright said something along the lines of classic CentOS > Linux is not going anywhere. It's all very well to say that things > change, well of course they do, but when they do, you have an obligation > to live up to your promises and the recent actions were in no way doing > that. > > I believe the correct action for Red Hat to have taken would have been > to say "we have decided that we no longer wish to fund the CentOS > Project as it no longer aligns with our business purposes. So, in order > not to let down the millions of users of CentOS Linux, we have decided > to set up a foundation and donate the trade marks and domain names (that > we acquired for almost nothing)". > > With a decent legal founding, you could have made it takeover proof so > that none of your competitors could acquire it. You could have done this > and asked a number of the larger companies that have CentOS as part of > their portfolio to sponsor the foundation - the Googles/AWS/OVH/cpanel's > of this world could easily have stepped up and funded a FTE or 2 by > donating to the foundation and you could have transferred some or all of > the existing people who work on CentOS to that foundation and let *them* > run it. Those hosting companies spin up new CentOS instances all the > time and a cent or two donation on each instance would most likely fund > most of what's required. And the people who are now scrambling around > attempting to set up new hardware and build environments, they could be > supporting the CentOS Linux Foundation instead. > > The fact that you decided to take CentOS Linux out the back and shoot it > in the head is a betrayal of your company's promises over the last 6 or > 7 years. It's exactly what everyone was afraid of when Red Hat took over > CentOS in 2014 and despite numerous questions, you all said "no no, it's > safe with us". Some of us remember those days and arguing with people > about whether it was a good thing or not and a lot of us said "Trust Red > Hat, see what they do, look at their actions not their words". Well we did. > > You should rename CentOS Stream to Red Hat Stream Linux (RHSL) and > remove CentOS from the Red Hat family altogether. Donate the trade marks > and logos and domain names and the tooling needed to produce CentOS > Linux. Set up a foundation. Get the big players who offer CentOS to > users to help fund the foundation. Ask the employees who work on CentOS > on a daily basis if they'd like to stay with Red Hat or transfer to the > new foundation. Find some way in which users can contribute to the > foundation and ensure its future. > > It's not too late to do the right thing. Red Hat can still back off this > betrayal of the community that use CentOS Linux and set CentOS Linux free. > > You can say that you think people are coming round to this. I do not > agree. I have read all of the feedback on IRC, all of the feedback on > the CentOS forums, all the feedback on the mailing lists. This is *not* > a popular change. It's tarnishing and poisoning Red Hat's reputation and > until it's addressed it will continue to do so. You can help to fix this > before Red Hat becomes tarred with the same brush as that other big > company with the big red logo and the not so great reputation. This is > NOT just a $$$ decision, it has other ramifications and right now, Red > Hat are the bad guys and will remain so until this is addressed. > > You can hope it'll go away but it won't. Red Hat will always be the > company that broke its promises and killed CentOS Linux. > > > Trevor Hemsley > > Well said Trevor. Copied to centos-questions at redhat.com