[CentOS] Blog article about the state of CentOS

Wed Jun 17 17:51:57 UTC 2020
Valeri Galtsev <galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu>


On 2020-06-17 12:38, Michael Kofler wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am the author of said blog article.
> 
> FIRST: It was never my intention to criticize the CentOS
> team. I appreciate the hard work you are doing. If my blog
> text (which is in German langugage) gave a wrong impression,
> I apologize.
> 
> SECOND: I LOVE CentOS. Otherwise it would not matter to
> me. I use CentOS to teach Linux administration at
> university, I promote CentOS in my books and I use it
> personally on some servers.
> 
> THIRD: It is a fact that the update gaps for CentOS 8 are
> currently too long for productive use. Basically, that's why
> I now warn against using CentOS 8 on live systems.
> 
> ---
> 
> One might argue, CentOS was never intended for productive
> use. Perhaps I misunderstood this. And with me all
> administrators of some million web servers running on
> CentOS. Hm. Time to rethink?

Some of us fled servers from Linux (of whichever flavor) to one of BSD 
descendants. That has more to do with frequent reboots due to glibc or 
kernel security updates or other unpleasantnesses of Linux. Many of 
those who did this, still use/support Linux on workstations and laptops.

> 
> The way I see it, there is a need for free Linux systems. No
> support, sure, but updates. In the past (and for CentOS 7,
> still), I considered CentOS as 'good enough' for many
> purposes. Not for the Bank of England, they can affort
> whatever they like. But for a school. For a small company
> needing a plain web and mail server. Etc.
> 
> The CentOS webpage says: 'CentOS Linux ... suits a wide
> variety of deployments.'  Currently, I really fail to see a
> wide range of possible deployments.
> 
> Sure, there are other options. Out of my point of view,
> Ubuntu LTS is one. Debian is. Oracle Linux (free without
> support) is, too. I am not entirely in love with this
> company -- but if I had the need to deploy a RHEL 8
> compatible system right now, and no budget to pay for RHEL,
> I would prefer it to CentOS. Sorry about this.
> 
> ---
> 
> I truly believe, Red Hat has the means to make live for the
> CentOS team easier. Either by simply increasing the team,
> the infrastructure to build packages faster, whatever. Or by
> making the clone process easier.

RedHat has not and never had any obligation to financially or otherwise 
support its clones (released free for use). To think they do is 
delusional. And CentOS project I'm sure never expected that (I am not 
part of CentOS project, though I greatly appreciate what they do).

Valeri

> 
> My guess is, they don't want. And this is OK -- who am I be
> to advice a multi billion dollar company? The question is,
> what does this mean for the future of CentOS? Is CentOS to
> become an open development platform for Red Hat, but no
> more?
> 
> These are my thoughts.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
>      Michael
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-- 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
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