On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 7:41 PM Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org> wrote: > On 12/15/20 6:12 PM, Joshua Kramer wrote: > >> I don't think there will be a course change either, but for different > >> reasons. The motivation isn't "cashing/selling out". It's... actually > the > >> stated motivation > >> https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-centos-stream-updates#Q2 > > > > First, I will note that I think the idea of creating *a version of* > > CentOS that is called "Stream", with the intent that it leads RHEL by > > a bit, is a GREAT idea, for exactly the stated reasons! > > > > There's one problem I have with this asserted motivation. Stream is > > not being done as *a version of* CentOS. It is being done as *THE* > > CentOS, which means you're discontinuing point releases. As far as > > "maintaining CentOS point releases to follow RHEL"- this is what is > > being discontinued. How much money, in developer time and other > > incidentals, does this cost RedHat per year? Of course this is a > > proprietary number. But let's imagine that this number is $250k per > > year. Out of what was it, about $433M of profit (2019)? So it would > > cost RedHat 0.06% of profit to hire more developers to keep issuing > > CentOS point releases. > > > > What does RedHat "buy" in return for spending 0.06% of its profit on > > maintaining point releases? > > -Community trust and goodwill. Those members of the community that > > cannot afford RedHat licenses for whatever reason still know that the > > #1 player in the Linux marketplace still has their back. Then when > > those folks move on to enterprises that can afford RH licensing (and > > in some cases demand it), will select RedHat because of this trust and > > goodwill. They will be highly likely to recommend other RedHat > > products- since it all "works together" and they'll know RHEL (i.e. > > CentOS) well. Also note that this trust and goodwill means > > "convenience", even within enterprises that have a large budget with > > RedHat. If I have a project and I want to spin up 100 OS instances > > just for the heck of it, I can. I don't need to ask anyone, I don't > > need to reserve or download any entitlement key files. I don't need > > to debug weird problems when entitlement key files don't work. > > -Control of part of the ecosystem. Those companies that build their > > products to run on RHEL (or in RHEL containers) are able to (and > > encouraged to) certify those products on RHEL because they are able to > > use CentOS. > > > > But more to the point, what does RedHat LOSE by saving 0.06% of its > > profit? The damage to community trust and goodwill far exceeds the > > gains that would be realized if the status quo were kept in place. > > Yes, it's true that many of the folks who used CentOS would never turn > > into paying customers. But due to this situation, you have thousands > > of system administrators who are actively looking to completely > > abandon the RedHat ecosystem altogether. When it comes time to > > recommend products... they aren't going to recommend RHEL. They > > aren't going to recommend JBoss, or Fuse, or 3Scale API management. > > It's clear that RedHat can't be trusted with some parts of its > > portfolio, so why should we trust ANY of its products? > > So don't trust them. Move to something else if you think something is > better. > > > > > If it is 100% factually correct that the ONLY motivation for killing > > point releases is the stated motivation, then it's just a simple > > matter of finding a spare $250k (or whatever that cost is) from the > > almost-half-a-billion dollar corporate coin purse. The return on > > investment has been, and will continue to be, immeasurable... > $250K is not even close. That is one employee, when you also take into > account unemployment insurance, HR, medical insurance etc. now multiply > that by 8. Now, outfit those 8 employees to work from home .. all over > the world, different countries, different laws. > > .. THEN buy 30 machines minimum (servers, not workstations) for > building and testing, buy a service contract for those 30 machines, host > the bandwidth required to sync out to 600 worldwide servers. > > We need all the CI machines .. that is a bunch of blade servers for > that. They need service contacts too. > > In any event it doesn't matter. The decision is made. If people don't > want to use CentOS Stream, then don't. The decision is not changing. > _______________________________________________ > We won't. Thanks for all your work in the past. Good luck to you. And to Red Hat I have one more thing to say: Buh bye! ### -- *Matt Phelps* *Information Technology Specialist, Systems Administrator* (Computation Facility, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory) Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian 60 Garden Street | MS 39 | Cambridge, MA 02138 email: mphelps at cfa.harvard.edu cfa.harvard.edu | Facebook <http://cfa.harvard.edu/facebook> | Twitter <http://cfa.harvard.edu/twitter> | YouTube <http://cfa.harvard.edu/youtube> | Newsletter <http://cfa.harvard.edu/newsletter>