[CentOS-devel] De-branding in CentOS Stream 9

Sat Dec 4 20:20:50 UTC 2021
Phil Perry <pperry at elrepo.org>

On 04/12/2021 17:16, Neal Gompa wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 4, 2021 at 11:58 AM Phil Perry <pperry at elrepo.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 23/11/2021 12:24, Alex Iribarren wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> While trying to run the CentOS functional tests on CS9[*], I noticed
>>> that several fail because of branding issues. For example,
>>> p_httpd/httpd_centos_brand_server_tokens.sh expects the server string to
>>> match `Apache.*\ (CentOS)`, when in fact the server line is:
>>>
>>> Server: Apache/2.4.51 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9) OpenSSL/3.0.0
>>>
>>> This got me thinking about how de-branding is supposed to work in CS9. I
>>> would guess the usual process would have to be reversed now, where Red
>>> Hat would remove the CentOS brand from CS9 packages and add the Red Hat
>>> brand for the RHEL 9.0 builds, but clearly this isn't happening yet. I
>>> guess this is an oversight?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Alex
>>>
>>> [*] I know, I know, but I have to run *something* before you guys
>>> release your own functional test suite for CS9!
>>
>> In the absence of anyone from the project commenting, I'm wondering how
>> RHEL branding could have possibly got into a CentOS Stream release in
>> the first place?
>>
>> The pictorial representation we are given is clear:
>>
>> https://blog.centos.org/2021/12/introducing-centos-stream-9/
>>
>> CentOS Stream is forked from Fedora Rawhide and exists upstream of any
>> RHEL release so it's hard to envisage how this could possibly have
>> happened. Surely now it is a case of RH removing CentOS branding for
>> their RHEL release if Stream is truly the upstream development of RHEL?
>>
>> Wouldn't it be simpler to just call it RHEL Stream and do away with the
>> extra layer of obfuscation and confusion, as that's more what it looks
>> like (if it walks like a duck...)
> 
> That would be a significant deviation of Red Hat's own brand strategy.
> *All* of Red Hat's products have a "project brand" and a "product
> brand".
> 
> This has two major advantages:
> 
> 1. It enshrines branding as an aspect of differentiation for the Red
> Hat offering
> 2. It makes it easy for third parties to make their own branded
> product offerings based on the project and strengthen the ecosystem.
> 
> In this particular case with Apache HTTPD, it's happening because
> CentOS Stream uses the "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" BZ support product,
> and that's how it gets set at build-time.
> 
> See here: https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/rpms/httpd/-/blob/9d1c57410b67b48856876b6068b36bd3d1aa32d5/httpd.spec#L6
> 
> It's an easy fix, I'll have it proposed momentarily.
> 
> 
> 

Hi Neal,

Thanks for the explanation, most helpful. However, again I'm confused as 
the spec file referenced above has two references in the changelog to 
having been rebuilt for RHEL 9 Beta. Again, how can anything that has 
happened downstream in a RHEL 9 Beta end up back in the upstream Stream 
product? The fact the two changelog entries are 2 months apart suggest 
there is little separation between the RHEL 9 Beta and CentOS Stream 9. 
Clearly the pictorial representation presented of the relationship 
between Stream and RHEL is not an accurate one.