[CentOS] Blog article about the state of CentOS

Sat Jun 20 10:41:35 UTC 2020
Peter <peter at pajamian.dhs.org>

On 20/06/20 3:29 am, Johnny Hughes wrote:
> How is this going to be fixed .. Welcome to CentOS Stream
> 
> Stream will be , once it is fully implemented, the ACTUAL development of
> RHEL the 'next point release' on git.centos.org in the open.

So basically stream is a testing ground for RHEL.  It's not actually a 
rebuild of RHEL since it's what comes *before* RHEL, not after.

> It will be a rolling distro that is GOING to be the Source Code used for
> next RHEL point release.
> 
> Therefore, we will have all package as they are being worked on by the
> RHEL Engineers .. and you can see it happen in progress.  You can also
> use it however you want.  There will be no delay i this at all.  It will
> be constantly moving. There will be no 500 pacakges drop or delays.

This is all well and good, but I don't think that CentOS was ever meant 
to be a testing ground for RHEL.  As the name actually stands for it is 
a "Community Enterprise OS" and it has always been a rebuild of the RHEL 
sources.  Stream is basically RHEL Rolling Beta, and that can hardly be 
considered "Enterprise".

I and I think many others find this focus on Stream to be rather 
distressing, and it does have the appearance to be taking focus away 
from the core OS.  This is further evidenced by the long wait times for 
release.

The way I see it, Red Hat pays the bills now, Red Hat employs the core 
team, and Red Hat wants a RHEL Beta platform, so that is what they have 
decreed that CentOS will become.  Now I could be wrong here because I 
certainly don't have any inside information about this, but it seems 
from teh outside looking in that any progress on the core OS is 
incidental and time spent on it has to be time leftover after any work 
is done on Stream.

Now I don't have an issue with Stream, in fact I think taht Stream can 
be beneficial to CentOS, but it hsould not be at the expense of the core 
OS, imo.  The core OS should take priority over any other CentOS 
project, whether it be streams, or SIGs or anything else, because we 
can't really have a Community Enterprise OS without the core OS.


Peter