[CentOS] https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/

Tue Dec 8 21:02:07 UTC 2020
Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org>

On 12/8/20 2:01 PM, centos at niob.at wrote:
> On 08/12/2020 15:48, Johnny Hughes wrote:
>> On 12/8/20 8:35 AM, Bill Gee wrote:
>>> Aside from the the latest shiny - what are the advantages of CentOS 8
>>> Stream?  What are the benefits?
>>>
>>> I read through the announcement and FAQ, but they do not address that
>>> question.  Is it just a name change?  Is it an attempt to put CentOS
>>> on a subscription model?
>>>
>> Stream is the RHEL sorce code for rhel + 0.1 .. so durng the 8.3 rhel
>> cycle, stream will be rhel 8.4 source code.
>>
>> It is not very far ahead of the current code.  It is indeed the code you
>> will get in 6 months.  It is not 'new shiny' .. it is newer enterprise.
>>
>> What are the benefits:
>>
>> 1)  Many people (like Intel and Facebook) are providing feedback in real
>> time.  So can any user.  They should have in place, before RHEL 9
>> development starts, the ability to accept public community pull requests
>> into stream.
>>
>> 2)  This code is still RHEL source code .. it is just not released in
>> rhel yet.  Almost all of it will be released in the upcoming RHEL point
>> release.
>>
>> 3)  Most bugs will get fixed faster, if the code is pulled into stream.
>>   Many times you don't get the fix until the next point release .. and
>> this will be what stream is.
> 
> You are putting lipstick on a pig. Let's face it: This is IBM pulling
> the plug on CentOS.
> 
> Not a single one of those "benefits" will benefit *me*. I am a private
> user hosting his own machines with CentOS for stability but using RHEL
> for work. I do not have the money to pay for RHEL. But I do contribute
> to open-source projects, some of which are part of RHEL.
> 
> I'm pretty sure IBM is behind this: They still do not like the
> open-source model. They only like money.
> 
> After 20 years of running and advocating for Redhat based Distros
> (Fedora on workstations, CentOS on servers) I night have to jump ship
> (if somebody is going to clone "classic" CentOS to keep tracing RHEL I
> might reconsider). Debian or Ubuntu: here I come. I will also no longer
> advocate for RHEL in the workplace where we used CentOS for
> non-production machines and RHEL for production.
> 
> Thanks for the hard work you put into CentOS over the years. Sorry to
> hear that it now turns out to have been wasted.
> 

I promise you, to the best of my knowledge, IBM had nothing to do with
this decision.  Red Hat is a distinct unit inside IBM and Red Hat still
has a CEO, CFO, etc.  Red Hat also maintains a neutral relationship with
many IBM competitors. So this was not an IBM decision.