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

Thu Jul 8 20:49:43 UTC 2021
Leon Fauster <leonfauster at googlemail.com>

On 08.07.21 22:08, Neal Gompa wrote:
> 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.
> 

Due the nature of this situation (it never had to be managed), I would
prefer not seeing such repo change. It should be a active opt-in of the
operator (dnf swap ...). Personally I will switch to stream but as 
mentioned elsewhere, forcing this change will backfire.



--
Leon