[CentOS] I'm looking forward to the future of CentOS Stream

Fri Dec 11 09:24:13 UTC 2020
Konstantin Boyandin <lists at boyandin.info>

On 11.12.2020 15:23, Gordon Messmer wrote:
> On 12/10/20 6:28 PM, Konstantin Boyandin via CentOS wrote:
>> Allow me to disagree. We both trust Chris Wright's words, don't we? CTO
>> won't lie. Citing him:
>>
>> "To be exact, CentOS Stream is an upstream development platform for
>> ecosystem developers. It will be updated several times a day.
> 
> So, like Fedora?  People run servers on Fedora now, and I think that's 
> fine.

On a production server, where no surprises are expected? That may be. 
People often act very, so to say, strangely.

I am telling about other people. I doubt those actively running Fedora 
on production systems do participate in these threads.

>> This is not a production operating system."
> 
> Does he say that CentOS is a production operating system?
> 
> As far as I know, Red Hat has never endorsed running CentOS in 
> production, so I don't understand why it's significant that they also 
> don't endorse running CentOS Stream in production.

Is RHEL itself suitable for running on production servers?

If not, my argument is weak. If yes, then CentOS, bug-to-bug compatible, 
is suitable, too.

RH won't ever endorse running CentOS (more generally, anything free of 
charge) for obvious reasons, so I don't care about their opinion on this 
subject.

>> And even if I reduce the number of CentOS Stream upgrades to
>> minimal one, the base advantage of CentOS is lost: predictability.
> 
> It's really difficult for me to look at a distribution that just stops 
> getting updates for 4-6 weeks, twice a year, and use the word 
> "predictable" to describe it.

Well, it's not at all difficult for me. Tastes differ.

> My first reaction to the announcement was pretty negative, too. But when 
> I stepped back and looked at the current situation *real* honestly, I 
> had to admit that CentOS just doesn't offer any of the things that 
> people are complaining about losing.
> 
> And I hope that the CentOS maintainers don't interpret that as 
> criticism, because it isn't intended to be.  They've always maintained 
> that if you need updates/patches in a timely manner, then you should be 
> paying Red Hat for RHEL.  I agreed with them then, and I still do.

My primary objection is breach of trust. RH shouldn't have lied at least 
to CentOS community.

Other bug-to-bug compatible RHEL clones will replace the CentOS, so this 
is the part I am less worried about. If someone is happy with CentOS 
Stream, that's fine. I am not, but that's (not only) my problem.

-- 
Sincerely,

Konstantin Boyandin
system administrator (ProWide Labs Ltd. - IPHost Network Monitor)