CentOS - Jun 2020 - Blog article about the state of CentOS

> 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 Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 02:23:36PM +0100, Pete Biggs
wrote:
> 
> > 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.
Keep in mind that as soon as Scientific Linux started taking off, IIRC,
because CentOS was late with a release, RH quickly hired its main
developer.  I don't think we can really expect RH to act differently than
most corporations. 

-- 
Scott Robbins
PGP keyID EB3467D6
( 1B48 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 EB34 67D6 )
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6

On Wed, 17 Jun 2020 at 09:42, Scott Robbins <scottro11 at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 02:23:36PM +0100, Pete Biggs wrote:
> >
> > > 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.
>
> Keep in mind that as soon as Scientific Linux started taking off, IIRC,
> because CentOS was late with a release, RH quickly hired its main
> developer.  I don't think we can really expect RH to act differently
than
> most corporations.
A major reason various people were hired from Fermi labs was very much
that DOE(*) was cutting back funding on Fermilab and there were a lot
of layoffs for anything which could not be the 'core' mission of
Fermi. Making operating systems by any of the labs in the DOE complex
was considered to be not a core mission, and multiple groups were
either laid off or 'asked' to retire. The hiring of people was mainly
because people were soon to be out of a job.

DOE - US Department of Energy which funds Fermi and Argonne National
Labs in Illinois as physics science institutes.
> --
> Scott Robbins
> PGP keyID EB3467D6
> ( 1B48 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 EB34 67D6 )
> gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.

Il 17/06/20 15:42, Scott Robbins ha scritto:
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 02:23:36PM +0100, Pete Biggs wrote:
>>
>>> 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.
> 
> Keep in mind that as soon as Scientific Linux started taking off, IIRC,
> because CentOS was late with a release, RH quickly hired its main
> developer.  I don't think we can really expect RH to act differently
than
> most corporations.
> 
Yes but today Scientific Linux is out of games and CERN made CentOS CERN 
based on C8 so there is no more a valid competitor for this target (in 
the RH family based distro)


CentOS at the current status (third 8 release) is not suitable for 
production with the current issues and we are forced to buy rhel license 
(and every needed extension).

I would to know what think all ISPs that offer centos 8 on their VPS, 
Dedicated Server, Shared Hosting and how they handle this problem 
(probably they don't because the choice is on the customer but maybe...)

As you said, probably nothing will change for the corporation "limit" 
concept but at this point, probably, many users will migrate to another 
platform with less limitation.