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

Wed Dec 23 22:43:15 UTC 2020
Gordon Messmer <gordon.messmer at gmail.com>

On 12/23/20 2:00 PM, Mark Mielke wrote:
> You admit that RHEL minor
> releases are branches. You admit CentOS is a flattened represention of
> the RHEL minor release branches, which means that CentOS is composed
> of concatenated set of RHEL minor release branches plus de-branding.


You're using the word "admit" as if that wasn't the point that Matthew 
was making to begin with, which you and Nico argued against.  (In 
response to Matthew, Nico wrote "No. RHEL minor releases are more like 
source control "tags" than branches."  I wrote that Matthew was correct, 
and you replied "This is false...")


> So, please admit that if you want a stable base OS release, with no
> new features, for *less* than 6-8 months, then this is exactly what
> CentOS is.


It's pretty close, with one significant caveat: for (roughly) two months 
out of the year, CentOS doesn't get any updates at all, including 
security patches.  For me, that's an awfully big risk. I would much 
rather get features on a regular basis than go without security patches 
for a month, twice per year.

Personally, I think it's irresponsible to make the claim that CentOS is 
1:1 with RHEL.  It isn't.  RHEL is supported all of the time.  CentOS is 
supported during (roughly) 10/12 months of the year.  Now, you're free 
to decide that the 10/12 month support SLA is good enough for your 
business, and you can say so.  That's fine.  But these threads drag on 
at length because when we discuss the benefits that come with giving up 
the point release in favor of continuous delivery of updates, you start 
shouting "this is false! this is false! this is false!"