
Much to my surprise was the news last week about CentOS 8 being EOL’ed next year as something that has been popular downstream of Red Hat Entrprise Linux which is free free and often adapted for use within large organizations. Instead, IBM-owned Red Hat is looking at putting CentOS’s “Stream” in front of RHEL as the upside. That still doesn’t sit too well for many and today there is a new post on the CentOS Blog.
Another enterprise Linux distributions have been looking to take advantage of the situation in attracting CentOS users looking for a new home for the likes of Oracle Linux as well as some working to create new CentOS-like distributions like Rocky Linux. Red Hat while still expressing hope that CentOS Stream will work out for approximately “95%” of the current workloads and will distribute its -out of some new options, which are still named to help fill the gap (perhaps a slight expansion of their free RHEL developer program or another low-cost self-service RHEL pricing option).
Karsten Wade who has been one of the original board members of CentOS, the longtime Fedora contributor, and the senior community architect for Red Hat today criticized CentOS ‘s new blog post that is still advocating for the cause aca. It basically explains the issue from an open source perspective that the big move since RHEL is not going to be developed is behind a “firewall” but it will have open source upstream with CentOS Stream and so able to nurture more. community involvement and transparency.
From that perspective, CentOS Stream is excellent for RHEL. But the less so move for those looking for a free lunch in CentOS (non-streaming) format. For those who may be less than happy with this move, Wade noted, “I am confident that CentOS Stream can cover 95% (or so) of a typical consumer workforce that is stuck on various aspects of the access gap. I believe Red Hat will also offer solutions that can cover other aspects of the gap without ultimately over-burning the hearts of consumers. Starting now is the time to really help CentOS Project understand what you need in a CentOS Linux replacement, in some detail. Even your most intimidating posts are read, and your passionate comments are seen and understood. I’m not the only old Linux timer working on this.”
Finally, Red Hat has now set up a “CentOS questions” email address where they are looking for good or bad feedback about the proposed changes. The email address redirects to Red Hat’s (non-sales) business unit. Wade concluded by, “It is difficult to balance business decision-making needs and processes with open community needs and decision-making processes. Arguably, Red Hat has been among the best groups to cross this thin hard line. If you trust our code enough to run it that far, I ask you to trust us to make good decisions here. I urge you to trust Red Hat and the CentOS Board to work with you to find a way to bring the community into the next chapter.”
The new email address for feedback and other reports of the proposed CentOS change via the CentOS.org blog.