[CentOS] Recommendation for a Linux alternative to Centos - ATH9K disaster

[Robert Heller]

At Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:45:44 -0500 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> Always Learning wrote:
> > Mark Roth wrote:
> >
> >> You do understand the relationship of CentOS to RHEL, right?
> >
> > Right :-)
> >
> > Once upon a time Red Hat was free. Then they decided to exist purely on
> 
> Actually, you were supposed to buy the CDs, which I did (I really suppose
> I can get rid of my 5.2, 6, 7, 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 CDs.... <g>). They
> weren't expensive. However, after 9 (shrike), they'd already become the
> distro of choice for business use in the US (it was SuSE in Europe), and
> they rebranded their main branch "Red Hat Enterprise Linux", to make PHB's
> feel warm and fuzzy.
> 
> > support fees. Meanwhile a bunch of supporters invented a downstream
> > variant called Centos. They worked very hard to remove all the Red Hat
> > branding and recompile (is that the correct Linux term?) the software.
> 
> Yes, you compile *real* software <g>. My description is they file off the
> serial numbers (and remove the proprietary stuff), then rebuild the whole
> shebang.
> 
> > There was so ugly goings on which were publicised but eventually
> > resolved. The other downstream variant is called Scientific Linux and
> > that is a joint collaboration between Europe's CERN and it's USA
> > equivalent Fermilab.
> 
> No, Fermilab and ->its<-* equivalent, CERN.
> >
> > Then one day a big bad wolf called Oracle of very expensive Oracle SQL
> > fame swallowed Red Hat, like they swallowed MySQL, Solaris, Open Office
> > and Visual Box.  The long term future for these is uncertain.
> 
> Um, no, not sure where you got that. Oracle bought a license, or
> something, from RH, and rebranded it, with changes as a VAR, Oracle
> Unbreakable Linux. RH is still its* company, not owned by Oracle in any
> way.

Right.  Oracle bought *Sun Microsystems*.  (Sun Microsystems had come
onto 'hard times'.) Sun Microsystems owned the Solaris O/S (originally
SunOS), and provided the major support for MySQL and Open Office.  Now
Oracle owns the Solaris O/S and is in the position of providing major
support for MySQL and Open Office.  Since MySQL is a nominal Open
Source 'competitor' of Oracle's (closed source) DB, it is uncertain
what Oracle will do with MySQL (or what the MySQL developers will do,
etc.).  Oracle's owner is just as much anti-Microsoft as the former
owner/founder of Sun Microsystems, so it is likely that Oracle will
continue to support Open Office (if only as a anti-Microsoft gesture).


> >
> > Pure Centos is identical to Red Hat. However various repositories offer
> > extras and variants which make the installed Centos slightly different
> > from Red Hat. One can sometimes install some Fedora items into Centos.
> 
> Yup on the latter, but mostly older fedora, which is bleeding edge.
> <snip>
>         mark
> 
> * These notes brought to you in behalf of the Professional Organization of
> English Majors, who want to remind you that it's == it is, and is not the
> possessive whatchamacallit, "its", as in it's got a shoe on its foot.
> 
> 
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>                                                                                                                         

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
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