[CentOS] New to CentOS, is this a safe bet?

[Johnny Hughes]

On Sat, 2005-05-07 at 04:35 -0700, Preston Crawford wrote:
> I know this may be a stupid place to ask, but I have to ask. I'm looking
> for a new Linux distro to use and support. I've been a loyal purchaser
> of SuSE Linux Pro for the last 3 years. I've paid my $90 loyally, in
> part because I wanted money to actually go to someone working on OSS,
> but also because I thought it was a good bargain, to get a quality,
> tested distro for that cost.
>
> The problem is that lately SuSE is sliding down the path towards being
> considered Fedora-like by Novell. So when I install SuSE I don't know if
> I'm going to get security updates next week or the week after. My $90
> may have just gone to be a 6-month or 1-year beta tester. I need more
> stability than that. 
> 
> So I'm considering CentOS based on some articles I've read lately, as my
> solution. What I'm looking for is a good solid distro that COULD do some
> multi-media if I go hunt down the RPMs or if there's a YUM repository
> (I'm familiar with Fedora), but mostly a solid distro where I can do
> Java work daily and where the distro is memory efficient, solid and
> stable. And also where if I decide to run it for a year or more I won't
> be forced to upgrade. Now I believe CentOS promises all of these. My
> concerns, in terms of it being a safe bet are...
> 

The issues with multimedia are: 

1.  DVD playback requires the use of a decryption product that can not
be distributed by the CentOS project.  Supposedly decryption is bad :).

2.  MP3 playback requires a patent payment for every player sold.  Being
that CentOS is given away for free, and we have no idea how many people
install our software, we can't comply with that requirement.

While the CentOS team doesn't agree with either of the above
requirements, we do follow them.

> #1 - Is there any reason to fear Red Hat bringing the hammer down and
> thus ruining the party? I'd love to see an FAQ or something to the
> effect that legally there's no way for Red Hat to block what CentOS is
> doing.
> 

No ... Red Hat, INC (R) is aware that the CentOS project exists and have
provided feedback to help us meet their trademark requirements for
distributing software that is rebuilt from their publicly provided
sources.

If you look at the below PDF, they specifically have set forth
guidelines for doing what the CentOS Project is doing.  We are following
those guidelines to the best of our ability:

http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/corp/trademark1.pdf
 
> #2 - Is the community strong? I'm new to the community and when I look
> on distrowatch it's way down the list. But is this accurate or is CentOS
> picking up steam? I get the feeling it's picking up steam. The reason
> this is important is because I'd hate to pick it only to watch it wither
> and have to go distro-hopping again. Once again, looking for stability.
> 
Our mailing list has more traffic than the enterpise lists at redhat.com
(to date in May ... Redhat:  Taroon-list:55, Nahant-list:47 .... CentOS
list: 61 in just the last 2 days and 165 for the month. 

CentOS is in the top 20 on Distrowatch ... and have been as high as #12
(on the release of CentOS-4).

We are by far the highest racked RHEL rebuild on distrowatch (see this page: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
and look for the Top 5 RHEL-based distributions) 

CentOS has a record of providing timely updates for more than a year.

We also have 9 internal mirror servers that distribute updates to 38
public mirrors all over the world.

If you look at the centos.org website ranking at alexa.com, we are
competitive with many main stream linux distros concerning site
traffic. 

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=http://www.centos.org/

We have 10 active developers all over the world providing our updates.

We also have a vibrate IRC community at freenode.net in the #centos
channel (there are 127 people in that channel as I type this e-mail).

I like the CentOS project (I may be bit biased though) :)

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes
CentOS-4 Lead Developer
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