Hi,
I just read this blog article from austrian Linux expert Michael Kofler. For
those among you who don't know the guy, he's my home country's
number one Linux
expert (known as "der Kofler") and most notably the author of a series
of
excellent books about Linux over the last 25 years.
https://kofler.info/centos-8-wertlose-langzeitunterstuetzung/
Disclaimer : I've been a CentOS user (and fan) since 4.x, I'm using it
on all
my servers, and yes, I know the difference between upstream RHEL and CentOS.
The article is in german, but the statistics graph is eloquent enough for the
non-german-speaking users. It focuses on updates for CentOS 8, and more exactly
the extended periods of time where there have been no updates available.
The author's theory ("unspoken truth"): while it's a positive
thing that Red
Hat is sponsoring CentOS, the amount of sponsoring is just insufficient enough
so that the product is "starved to death" by Red Hat (e. g. IBM) to
encourage
users to move to RHEL.
The author's conclusion is quite severe: in the current state of things,
CentOS
8 is not recommendable for production as updates are lagging too much behind.
While CentOS 7 may be usable, CentOS 8 has been "degraded to teaching and
testing purposes".
Still according to Mister Kofler, this "sorry state of things" will
probably
encourage users to move to Oracle Linux, the other big RHEL clone.
After some hesitation, I decided to share this on the mailing list. Since this
raises some concerns, I'd be curious to have your take on this.
Cheers from the sunny South of France,
Niki
--
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Il 17/06/20 09:16, Nicolas Kovacs ha scritto:> Hi, > > I just read this blog article from austrian Linux expert Michael Kofler. For > those among you who don't know the guy, he's my home country's number one Linux > expert (known as "der Kofler") and most notably the author of a series of > excellent books about Linux over the last 25 years. > > https://kofler.info/centos-8-wertlose-langzeitunterstuetzung/ > > Disclaimer : I've been a CentOS user (and fan) since 4.x, I'm using it on all > my servers, and yes, I know the difference between upstream RHEL and CentOS. > > The article is in german, but the statistics graph is eloquent enough for the > non-german-speaking users. It focuses on updates for CentOS 8, and more exactly > the extended periods of time where there have been no updates available. > > The author's theory ("unspoken truth"): while it's a positive thing that Red > Hat is sponsoring CentOS, the amount of sponsoring is just insufficient enough > so that the product is "starved to death" by Red Hat (e. g. IBM) to encourage > users to move to RHEL. > > The author's conclusion is quite severe: in the current state of things, CentOS > 8 is not recommendable for production as updates are lagging too much behind. > While CentOS 7 may be usable, CentOS 8 has been "degraded to teaching and > testing purposes". > > Still according to Mister Kofler, this "sorry state of things" will probably > encourage users to move to Oracle Linux, the other big RHEL clone. > > After some hesitation, I decided to share this on the mailing list. Since this > raises some concerns, I'd be curious to have your take on this. > > Cheers from the sunny South of France, > > NikiHi Niki, this is a sad thing but I'm not surprised by this and this is what I'm thinking about CentOS since 8 was released. The CentOS team does a huge work to release CentOS8, CentOS Stream and maintaining 7 and 6. Thank you so much for this CentOS Team. But since the core team is composed by 6(?) member is obvious that they can't maintain all this versions without being in late and because it is supported (but maybe supported is the wrong word in the current case) by RH, if RH really interest about CentOS release they should put more effort on CentOS Development. This is not what is happening and since 8 is released, it seems a try and buy distro. I walked through 6.5 to 7 and 8. In 6.5 I was new, in 7 I really appreciated CentOS but with 8 I noticed that it is not supported like CentOS 7. I use (like you) centos on all my server, some are anchored to the old stable and other on 8 (but not production). I liked it very much that I use it also on my workstation. About update blackout, this is a great problem for production system faced on Internet. SELinux can mitigate the risk (but also selinux got security fix) but this is always an issue. Many report that the gap between RHEL release and CentOS release is too much but I'm not interested in how much time centos releases get through the build process but I'm interested that, when a new centos release (major/minor) are on the way, all others releases (current stable inside) will get security updates during the build process and not left alone. Another minor issue about updates are relative announces on ml that works for C7 but not for C8 (I read in a reddit AMA why this happens). This is annoying because I need to follow every RHBA to see what happened and why a package is updated or blindly install updates. This is another thing that is not so good for a server. If the theory "unspoken truth" is real I don't like how RH is trying to encourage me to switch to RHEL and this is a bad way to do this. About Oracle as alternative. Oracle Linux is not an alternative to CentOS but for RHEL and if I will force to pay for enteprise system currently I will pay RHEL, not OL. Over this, OL is not the only enterprise distro that a "user" could choose. If support is needed there are SUSE (SLES) and Ubuntu. For who that don't need support there are Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE (I'm talking about the most used but you know that slackware,FreeBSD are in that list), so many alternatives are in place. I hope that things will be better but in case of "failure" I will evaluate other alternatives to CentOS for this "sorry state of things". Thank you for sharing, I found it interesting. My 2 Cent
*snip> > > Thank you for sharing, I found it interesting. > > My 2 Cent > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos+1 Longtime user but with the current sturcture they have turned it (centos8) into really a non production release. I've always tried to use it on internal servers but these are small businesses (non-profit) that will pay for a windows server license vs a RHEL. Microsoft has actually expanded and opened it up even more. I really thought it was a good thing for RHEL to support Centos since they had made the builds more difficult but it doesn't appear that they do not want to support it too much. As it currently stands I could not or will not deploy Centos8 in a internet facing environment. I continue to run 8 at home but do not see myself deploying it into production anywhere. I deeply appreciate all the hard work that goes into putting it out, Karanbir, Fabian, Johnny, Ralph and Tru and all the others put in to produce and support it. :) My hope is that RHEL changes the level of support they provide to centOS but not confident it's going to happen here's hoping. ;)>
> Hi, > > I just read this blog article from austrian Linux expert Michael Kofler. > For > those among you who don't know the guy, he's my home country's number one > Linux > expert (known as "der Kofler") and most notably the author of a series of > excellent books about Linux over the last 25 years. > > https://kofler.info/centos-8-wertlose-langzeitunterstuetzung/ > > Disclaimer : I've been a CentOS user (and fan) since 4.x, I'm using it on > all > my servers, and yes, I know the difference between upstream RHEL and > CentOS. > > The article is in german, but the statistics graph is eloquent enough for > the > non-german-speaking users. It focuses on updates for CentOS 8, and more > exactly > the extended periods of time where there have been no updates available. > > The author's theory ("unspoken truth"): while it's a positive thing that > Red > Hat is sponsoring CentOS, the amount of sponsoring is just insufficient > enough > so that the product is "starved to death" by Red Hat (e. g. IBM) to > encourage > users to move to RHEL.I think if Red Hat really wanted to improve the situation, they could integrate the building of CentOS into the EL build system to produce both versions, RHEL and CentOS, at the same time. In the end 99% of the bits are the same anyway. If the delay of CentOS builds is really wanted by Red Hat, it would be nice of them to speak it out - and change the name to COS, because the ent is not true anymore :-) Up to now I thought the big delay with 8 is more an accident than wanted. Would be nice to hear what Red Hat says about it. Maybe the problem is not known well enough in the Red Hat universe. Regards, Simon
> About Oracle as alternative. Oracle Linux is not an alternative to > CentOS but for RHEL and if I will force to pay for enteprise system > currently I will pay RHEL, not OL. Over this, OL is not the only > enterprise distro that a "user" could choose. If support is needed there > are SUSE (SLES) and Ubuntu. For who that don't need support there are > Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE (I'm talking about the most used but you know > that slackware,FreeBSD are in that list), so many alternatives are in place.I think it's particularly disappointing *if* this is a "policy" from RH since the other major RHEL clone, Scientific Linux, has not produced an EL8 offering in favour of using CentOS. I think all of us here understand the hugely complex process of producing a quality OS, even when it's "just" a clone of another one. The official sanctioning from RH was touted as a two-way process: community input into RHEL and RH support and help of the cloning and build process. It would be a bit underhand if it turned out that it was RH's way of creating a two tier system: buy RHEL+support and get timely updates; use CentOS for free, get security updates, but wait two months for each upgrade. P.
On 6/17/20 8:06 AM, Simon Matter via CentOS wrote:>> Hi, >> >> I just read this blog article from austrian Linux expert Michael Kofler. >> For >> those among you who don't know the guy, he's my home country's number one >> Linux >> expert (known as "der Kofler") and most notably the author of a series of >> excellent books about Linux over the last 25 years. >> >> https://kofler.info/centos-8-wertlose-langzeitunterstuetzung/ >> >> Disclaimer : I've been a CentOS user (and fan) since 4.x, I'm using it on >> all >> my servers, and yes, I know the difference between upstream RHEL and >> CentOS. >> >> The article is in german, but the statistics graph is eloquent enough for >> the >> non-german-speaking users. It focuses on updates for CentOS 8, and more >> exactly >> the extended periods of time where there have been no updates available. >> >> The author's theory ("unspoken truth"): while it's a positive thing that >> Red >> Hat is sponsoring CentOS, the amount of sponsoring is just insufficient >> enough >> so that the product is "starved to death" by Red Hat (e. g. IBM) to >> encourage >> users to move to RHEL. > > I think if Red Hat really wanted to improve the situation, they could > integrate the building of CentOS into the EL build system to produce both > versions, RHEL and CentOS, at the same time. In the end 99% of the bits > are the same anyway. If the delay of CentOS builds is really wanted by Red > Hat, it would be nice of them to speak it out - and change the name to > COS, because the ent is not true anymore :-) > > Up to now I thought the big delay with 8 is more an accident than wanted. > Would be nice to hear what Red Hat says about it. Maybe the problem is not > known well enough in the Red Hat universe. >No one is trynig to make anything slower. And CentOS Stream 'is' going to be how RHEL is developed in the future. So, all this is happening. But modules introduced in RHEL 8 requires a who new build system (as koji set up) and a whole new module build back end (MBS). If you would rather use Oracle for your open source needs .. well, that is a decision you can make and be responsible for. If you would instead have feedback directly into the RHEL development process as a community .. then CentOS is where you want to be. This stuff is open source, and you are all gown ups who can make your own decisions. I can assure you .. I am working my butt off everyday to make CentOS Linux the best it can be. If you want to compare what the CentOS team (a small team) can do compared to Oracle (a tmulti billin dollar corporation who bought Sun Microsystems .. took over Java and Open Office, etc) .. well, we can not provide the resources they can provide. But Red hat heard the community .. that the community and Red Hat customers want more direct input into RHEL development. And Red Hat is taking action to open up RHEL development in CentOS Stream. You get to decide who you trust. Thanks, Johnny hUghes -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20200617/0a228579/attachment.sig>
Am 17.06.20 um 09:16 schrieb Nicolas Kovacs:> Hi, > > I just read this blog article from austrian Linux expert Michael Kofler. For > those among you who don't know the guy, he's my home country's number one Linux > expert (known as "der Kofler") and most notably the author of a series of > excellent books about Linux over the last 25 years. > > https://kofler.info/centos-8-wertlose-langzeitunterstuetzung/ > > Disclaimer : I've been a CentOS user (and fan) since 4.x, I'm using it on all > my servers, and yes, I know the difference between upstream RHEL and CentOS. > > The article is in german, but the statistics graph is eloquent enough for the > non-german-speaking users. It focuses on updates for CentOS 8, and more exactly > the extended periods of time where there have been no updates available. > > The author's theory ("unspoken truth"): while it's a positive thing that Red > Hat is sponsoring CentOS, the amount of sponsoring is just insufficient enough > so that the product is "starved to death" by Red Hat (e. g. IBM) to encourage > users to move to RHEL. > > The author's conclusion is quite severe: in the current state of things, CentOS > 8 is not recommendable for production as updates are lagging too much behind. > While CentOS 7 may be usable, CentOS 8 has been "degraded to teaching and > testing purposes". > > Still according to Mister Kofler, this "sorry state of things" will probably > encourage users to move to Oracle Linux, the other big RHEL clone. > > After some hesitation, I decided to share this on the mailing list. Since this > raises some concerns, I'd be curious to have your take on this. >Site note: Despite the implications of update delays. The numbers provided by Michael are not comparable. The needed effort between every major release to build the OS is different. So, the numbers should be normalized. Quote from https://wiki.centos.org/About/Building_8: "The differences ... has changed drastically, the repository format has added 'modules' and RPMS have grown many features that EL7 and before do not have." I wonder about the authors conclusion; the fact that RHEL is the choice for critical applications (what ever critical is) is known since the early days. This applies randomly to C5.11, C4.9 or C8.2.2004. So - cold soup get cooked again :-) -- Leon
On 6/17/20 10:19 AM, Leon Fauster via CentOS wrote:> ... > I wonder about the authors conclusion; the fact that RHEL is the choice > for critical applications (what ever critical is) is known since the > early days. This applies randomly to C5.11, C4.9 or C8.2.2004. > > So - cold soup get cooked again :-)Indeed.? The author's conclusion has been the case since White Box Enterprise Linux was a thing.? Anyone and everyone can get the sources from git.centos.org as soon as they are released and build the stuff themselves if they think it can be done faster; that's how WBEL got started, as a one-user project that just happened to be publicly released.? Building from source has never really been any easier; the lack of .src.rpms is not an impediment to just getting something built.? But the CentOS value-add is that those rebuilt sources have been tested for binary compatibility and are from a trusted source.? A one-person project like WBEL would have a much more difficult time today, with modularity especially. Build times for these packages is not zero.
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?
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.
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
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 > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On 6/17/20 10:38 AM, 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. > > [snip] > > 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.IMHO this is the crux of the problem.? I feel for the CentOS team every time they get beat up by users asking why things take so long, and they're forced to explain over and over again how they have to re-engineer processes that the RHEL team has already engineered. In theory, both RHEL and CentOS start from the same sources -- git.centos.org -- which is a great thing.? But, RHEL obviously has package build infrastructure, release composition, release management, and QA (among other) systems that are requisite steps to building and releasing, say, RHEL 8.2.? It makes me sad that the CentOS devs (most of whom are Red Hat employees, as I understand it) are forced to re-implement what the RHEL team has already implemented, without any advice, guidance, or tooling from the RHEL engineering team.? (i.e. the CentOS team has to discover that "these packages have to be built in this order, or with this modified build environment", etc. on their own) It's not clear why 2 different groups at the same company doing the same thing can't combine resources.? Why can't one group at Red Hat produce binary RPMs from git.centos.org that find their way into both a RHEL compose and a CentOS compose?? And would the composes then be so different if the only thing that varied was the package set and branding? Perhaps the duplication of engineering effort stems from the history of CentOS being a separate organization that's still undergoing integration with other Red Hat teams.? And I'd love to be enlightened if any or all of my assumptions above are wrong; my perspective is just that of a long-time Red Hat Linux, RHEL, Fedora, and CentOS user (since 1998 or so). -Greg
On 17/06/2020 18:38, 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? >As far as I'm aware that has always been the case. Johnny has never been slow in coming forward and saying if you need updates, or a service level agreement, or support then you should buy RHEL. That is what it is for. If not, then use CentOS for free. But don't use CentOS for free on production servers and then shout or act surprised when you don't have updates on a timescale you consider appropriate. Nothing has changed in this regard for as long as I've been a CentOS user or been involved in the CentOS community. If you are now having to rethink your approach then you probably either haven't given it sufficient thought in the first place or you originally came to the wrong conclusion. This is a non-issue. Nothing has changed. Things were exactly the same with CentOS 4, CentOS 5, CentOS 6, CentOS 7, and by it's very nature it will be the same in CentOS 9... The simple matter is it takes time to rebuild a complete OS and there will always be a lag. Either that is acceptable to you and you use it, or you purchase a RHEL license for your publicly facing infrastructure. The only issue here is people's unrealistic expectations, and to be fair the CentOS Project can hardly be accused of falsely raising peoples expectations having consistently stated it will be ready when it's done for at least the last 15 years.