CentOS - Dec 2020 - CentOS Stream from bottom works, what is this?

On Wed, Dec 09, 2020 at 04:03:42PM +0000, Laack, Andrea P
wrote:
> The companies that pay for RHEL licenses for production and use CentOS for
> test will be left with a large problem. They will either need to purchase
> double the number of RHEL licenses and switch to RHEL for testing or go to
> another distribution. RHEL + 1 will not work for testing application
> compatibility with patches.
In the cases where RHEL + 0.1 (note not +1) won't work, I think it's
incredibly likely that this will be covered by the expanded low- and no-cost
RHEL offerings.

Part of the buried lede here is that with more RHEL accessibility, a lot of
the function that CentOS served for users will not be necessary anymore.

> No company will want to pay double the amount they are currently paying
> for RHEL licenses. This is not even addressing the cost and time it will
> take to switch over all the test servers.
Yeah, Red Hat knows this. Hence the above. If you have a specific case,
please email the centos-questions at redhat.com address -- that goes to the
people designing the new programs, not to sales.

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm at fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader

On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 1:18 PM Matthew Miller <mattdm at mattdm.org>
wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 09, 2020 at 04:03:42PM +0000, Laack, Andrea P wrote:
> > The companies that pay for RHEL licenses for production and use CentOS
> for
> > test will be left with a large problem. They will either need to
purchase
> > double the number of RHEL licenses and switch to RHEL for testing or
go
> to
> > another distribution. RHEL + 1 will not work for testing application
> > compatibility with patches.
>
> In the cases where RHEL + 0.1 (note not +1) won't work, I think
it's
> incredibly likely that this will be covered by the expanded low- and
> no-cost
> RHEL offerings.
>
> Part of the buried lede here is that with more RHEL accessibility, a lot of
> the function that CentOS served for users will not be necessary anymore.
>
>
> > No company will want to pay double the amount they are currently
paying
> > for RHEL licenses. This is not even addressing the cost and time it
will
> > take to switch over all the test servers.
>
> Yeah, Red Hat knows this. Hence the above. If you have a specific case,
> please email the centos-questions at redhat.com address -- that goes to the
> people designing the new programs, not to sales.
>
> --
> Matthew Miller
> <mattdm at fedoraproject.org>
> Fedora Project Leader
> ______________________________________________
>

Don't you think it might have been a good idea to solicit these type of
situations *before* killing CenOS 8?

After the complete and utter disaster RedHat has shat upon the World with
the handling of this, there is no way anyone will ever trust that a
"free"
or "low cost" version of RHEL will stay that way for any length of
time. To
suggest so to this list, today, is ludicrous.

Unless there's a reversal of course here, I, and many others, will never
recommend any RHEL product to my superiors from now on.

(I'm hoping the horse isn't dead yet.)

-- 

*Matt Phelps*

*Information Technology Specialist, Systems Administrator*

(Computation Facility, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory)

Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian


60 Garden Street | MS 39 | Cambridge, MA 02138
email: mphelps at cfa.harvard.edu


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On 12/9/2020 10:18 AM, Matthew Miller wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 09, 2020 at 04:03:42PM +0000, Laack, Andrea P wrote:
>> The companies that pay for RHEL licenses for production and use CentOS
for
>> test will be left with a large problem. They will either need to
purchase
>> double the number of RHEL licenses and switch to RHEL for testing or go
to
>> another distribution. RHEL + 1 will not work for testing application
>> compatibility with patches.
> In the cases where RHEL + 0.1 (note not +1) won't work, I think
it's
> incredibly likely that this will be covered by the expanded low- and
no-cost
> RHEL offerings.
>
> Part of the buried lede here is that with more RHEL accessibility, a lot of
> the function that CentOS served for users will not be necessary anymore.

It's buried, but the decision-makers failed to understand that the 
suddenness of this decision, outside of the community expectation for 
CentOS Linux continuing to be a thing (remember: Scientific Linux 
continued supporting SL6 right up to the end even after announcing that 
there would be no SL8), calls into question the stability of a lot of 
RedHat's actions when it comes to distro decisions. Based on other 
emails, the CentOS Board perhaps understood this and the people issuing 
directions from RedHat perhaps did not. That does not bode well.

Enterprises, and enterprise users, need reliability and confidence that 
their choices are the correct ones. How will RedHat/IBM restore 
confidence in the longevity of the offerings it's producing?

-jc

On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 7:19 PM Matthew Miller <mattdm at mattdm.org>
wrote:
> [...]
> In the cases where RHEL + 0.1 (note not +1) won't work, I think
it's
> incredibly likely that this will be covered by the expanded low- and
> no-cost
> RHEL offerings.
>
> Part of the buried lede here is that with more RHEL accessibility, a lot of
> the function that CentOS served for users will not be necessary anymore.
> [...]

If RH plans to release a successor for CentOS 8 like RHEL 8 Free or so,
this has become a communication disaster par excellence. The announcement
with all the associated uncertainties and criticism was already picked up
by the major press. I've no clue who is in charge of RH for the
communication, but the team was quite bad in their job.

If I plan something like this I would say, listen, CentOS will be released
as Stream only in the future but the deprecated CentOS versions will be
replaced by X. Before we do this change we'll provide to you a script that
transforms your current CentOS installation into the designated successor.
I'm quite relaxed as I don't use CentOS anymore except for private
stuff.
But I can fully understand those who already upgraded to C8 with the
assumption in mind that they can use CentOS for the next few years with the
expected behaviour.

Changes are part of the IT and maybe the situation won't become as dramatic
as the one or other may fear (especially if a kind of RHEL 8 Free will be
released), but the communication around this change is a perfect example
how you shouldn't do the communication.

Kind regards Thomas
-- 
Linux ... enjoy the ride!