[CentOS-devel] Documenting the CentOS Linux 8 EOL process

Thu Jul 8 20:08:44 UTC 2021
Neal Gompa <ngompa13 at gmail.com>

On Thu, Jul 8, 2021 at 3:40 PM Carl George <carl at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> One idea I've been noodling on is whether or not at some point after
> the EOL we should have mirrorlist.centos.org respond to requests for 8
> repos with 8-stream repos, which effectively converts any remaining
> CentOS Linux 8 systems to CentOS Stream 8.  I see this as a natural
> extension of how CentOS has never supported (to the extent CentOS
> "supports" anything) staying on old previous minor releases of a major
> release.  CentOS Stream is still CentOS.  8-stream isn't that
> different from 8.  CentOS Stream 8 is the latest CentOS 8.  (Note:
> These are facts that I'm not interested in arguing with people about.
> If you feel the need to reply to those particular points, don't expect
> a reply from me.)
>
> I can envision three possible scenarios.
>
> 1. Change mirrorlist to respond to 8 repo requests with 8-stream repos
> at the EOL date.  This ensures that CentOS Linux 8 systems continue to
> get security updates by way of converting them to CentOS Stream 8.  It
> also reinforces that CentOS Stream 8 is the latest CentOS 8.
> Obviously people who are not fans of the new project direction will
> view this negatively and lash out about Red Hat for supposedly forcing
> them to use CentOS Stream 8.
>
> 2. Same as 1, but wait some period of time after the EOL date, such as
> 1-3 months.  Waiting much longer than that would result in effectively
> updating from 8.5 directly to 8.7, which is less appealing.
>

I would prefer to do this change 1-2 months after December 31, though
I'm quite fine with doing it on the EOL date. Having run CentOS Stream
8 for two years now, I feel that it's a solid experience and most
people aren't going to have issues with it after upgrading from
classic CentOS 8. And frankly, it's nice having people respond to my
bug reports and actually *do* something about it. Strictly speaking,
that's an upgrade from the experience with classic CentOS 8.

> 3. Don't change mirrorlist to respond to 8 repo requests with 8-stream
> repos, ever.  This approach gives users the maximum amount of choice
> to migrate to either CentOS Stream 8, RHEL 8, or another RHEL 8
> rebuild, when and only when they are ready.  The downside is that many
> systems will be left without security updates for long periods of
> time, until users decide to take action.  CentOS Linux 8 hits to EPEL
> are still growing [0], which makes me believe that many people still
> are unaware of the EOL change.
>

I think this is a terrible idea and does a disservice to the large
"silent majority" of CentOS systems that would otherwise be fine with
the upgrade.



-- 
真実はいつも一つ!/ Always, there's only one truth!