On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 5:04 PM Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org> wrote:> On 12/14/20 8:25 AM, James Pearson wrote: > > Nicolas Kovacs > >> > >> Here's an interesting read which makes a point for CentOS Stream: > >> > >> > https://freedomben.medium.com/centos-is-not-dead-please-stop-saying-it-is-at-least-until-you-read-this-4b26b5c44877 > >> > >> tl;dr: Communication about Stream was BAD, but Stream itself might be a > good > >> thing. Here's why. > > > > As others have said, it misses the _really_ important bit about the > traditional CentOS model which is to follow the RHEL ~10 year life cycle> > > It doesn't matter how good/rock solid/whatever CentOS Stream turns out > to be, but if it only has a 5 year life cycle for each major release, then > it no good to me (and I suspect many others) > > > > > There is a 2 year overlap with the next version of stream as well .. in > this case CentOS Stream 9. How long is Debian or Ubuntu LTS maintained > for free? > > 5 years may not be long enough for you .. but it certainly pretty long. > And I am TRYING to get that extended. I may not be successful, we'll > have to see. > > > The article also mentions "CentOS will no longer be old, crusty, and > barely alive, trailing RHEL by months at times" - then why didn't Redhat > put resources into CentOS to improve that? > > > > Do you have any idea how much money Red Hat is paying to maintain > CentOS. And they are maintaining CentOS 7, even now, until 2024. There > are dozens of machines and several administrators to maintain them. > > > Redhat must have known, that if they killed off traditional CentOS, then > users will simply go elsewhere for a RHEL rebuild ? > > If you chose not to use CentOS Stream, that is up to you. What is the > OS of your TV set. What is the firmware of your computer. Those things > are now pretty much irrelevant and commoditized. > > At some point the underlying OS is going to be much less important and > the important part will be the layered parts that contain your apps and > not the OS Layer. > > If you want a RHEL clone, that's fine. There will be one available. > Someone will make one. > > The real and complete vision of what CentOS Stream will become will not > be compolete until around the end of QTR1 2021. If you chose not to try > it, that is up to you. I truly think Stream will be a much better and > more quickly fixed OS when everything is in place. >I don't expect you to answer Johnny, but why didn't Red Hat wait until Stream was "complete'" or ready, or whatever.> > > > I agree that Redhat really screwed up this announcement - they would > have got a lot more kudos if they had announced CentOS Stream to exist > along with keeping the current traditional CentOS ... > > > > Again .. pay 8 or more people the going rate to just maintain CentOS. > Buy the dozens of machines and pay for the datacenter, bandwidth, > hardware services for machines, etc. This is very expensive. Maybe the > company you work for will do that out of the goodness of their heart? > >I guess I don't understand. Isn't Red Hat going to pay for CentOS Stream engineers, hardware, etc? How much more would it be to use them to build point releases? Won't much of the personnel and infrastructure be the same? Is Red Hat going to just get rid of all the CentOS resources? I don't understand why the resources maintaining CentOS 7, and 8 Stream, can't be used to build CentOS 8.4/5 etc? As bummed out as I am about this whole situation, and believe me i am.> But even I can clearly see that Red Hat has gone above and beyond the > requirements of open source software and I am quite tired of all the > 'they should be happy to pay several million dollars a year to give away > a working product." If it is so easy or cheap to do .. then you guys do > it. I did it for 17 years. Much of my time was on top of a normal 40 > hour work week. > >Again, we all appreciate it. It's not you we're mad at.> Red Hat contributes to every major upstream project .. they maintain > several very key major projects. They let employees contribute to > projects and pay for them to work on upstream projects. how many things > do they have to do for free? > > > James Pearson > > > >I understand all your points, and I get it, but the fact is Red Hat committed to the roadmap (c.f. https://blog.centos.org/2019/07/ibm-red-hat-and-centos/) and now they're abruptly breaking a promise. One that is affecting a lot of already overstressed and underpaid people. If they said this would happen at the beginning of CentOS 8, or better CentOS 9, then fine. But now? It sucks big time. -- *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 cfa.harvard.edu | Facebook <http://cfa.harvard.edu/facebook> | Twitter <http://cfa.harvard.edu/twitter> | YouTube <http://cfa.harvard.edu/youtube> | Newsletter <http://cfa.harvard.edu/newsletter>
On 12/15/20 5:11 PM, Phelps, Matthew wrote:> On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 5:04 PM Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org> wrote: > >> On 12/14/20 8:25 AM, James Pearson wrote: >>> Nicolas Kovacs >>>> >>>> Here's an interesting read which makes a point for CentOS Stream: >>>> >>>> >> https://freedomben.medium.com/centos-is-not-dead-please-stop-saying-it-is-at-least-until-you-read-this-4b26b5c44877 >>>> >>>> tl;dr: Communication about Stream was BAD, but Stream itself might be a >> good >>>> thing. Here's why. >>> >>> As others have said, it misses the _really_ important bit about the >> traditional CentOS model which is to follow the RHEL ~10 year life cycle> >>> It doesn't matter how good/rock solid/whatever CentOS Stream turns out >> to be, but if it only has a 5 year life cycle for each major release, then >> it no good to me (and I suspect many others) >>> >> >> >> There is a 2 year overlap with the next version of stream as well .. in >> this case CentOS Stream 9. How long is Debian or Ubuntu LTS maintained >> for free? >> >> 5 years may not be long enough for you .. but it certainly pretty long. >> And I am TRYING to get that extended. I may not be successful, we'll >> have to see. >> >>> The article also mentions "CentOS will no longer be old, crusty, and >> barely alive, trailing RHEL by months at times" - then why didn't Redhat >> put resources into CentOS to improve that? >>> >> >> Do you have any idea how much money Red Hat is paying to maintain >> CentOS. And they are maintaining CentOS 7, even now, until 2024. There >> are dozens of machines and several administrators to maintain them. >> >>> Redhat must have known, that if they killed off traditional CentOS, then >> users will simply go elsewhere for a RHEL rebuild ? >> >> If you chose not to use CentOS Stream, that is up to you. What is the >> OS of your TV set. What is the firmware of your computer. Those things >> are now pretty much irrelevant and commoditized. >> >> At some point the underlying OS is going to be much less important and >> the important part will be the layered parts that contain your apps and >> not the OS Layer. >> >> If you want a RHEL clone, that's fine. There will be one available. >> Someone will make one. >> >> The real and complete vision of what CentOS Stream will become will not >> be compolete until around the end of QTR1 2021. If you chose not to try >> it, that is up to you. I truly think Stream will be a much better and >> more quickly fixed OS when everything is in place. >> > > I don't expect you to answer Johnny, but why didn't Red Hat wait until > Stream was "complete'" or ready, or whatever.I have no idea. I am not saying I completely agree with the timing or the way this went down. But we are where we are now. I still think CentOS Stream is as good as any other "Enterprise" distro out there. I think iti si just as good as Debian and/or Ubuntu. You guys keep calling it beta .. it is not. The RHEL team is not grabbing brand new software (like the do in Rawhide, for example) and trying to roll that into RHEL. They are going to do one of three type of updates. 1) A security update 2) A bugfix update. 3) An Enhancement update. For #1 and #2 .. you want those rolled in and you want them rolled in ASAP. RHEAs do not make up that many of the updates. You are getting these after QA testing a couple months early at most. Yes, it will not exactly match RHEL .. but how different is 8.2 to 8.3 .. what things run in 8.2 and not 8.3? That is the kind of updates you will be getting. <snip>
On 12/15/20 4:11 PM, Phelps, Matthew wrote:> On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 5:04 PM Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org> wrote: > >> On 12/14/20 8:25 AM, James Pearson wrote: >>> Nicolas Kovacs >>>> Here's an interesting read which makes a point for CentOS Stream: >>>> >>>> >> https://freedomben.medium.com/centos-is-not-dead-please-stop-saying-it-is-at-least-until-you-read-this-4b26b5c44877 >>>> tl;dr: Communication about Stream was BAD, but Stream itself might be a >> good >>>> thing. Here's why. >>> As others have said, it misses the _really_ important bit about the >> traditional CentOS model which is to follow the RHEL ~10 year life cycle> >>> It doesn't matter how good/rock solid/whatever CentOS Stream turns out >> to be, but if it only has a 5 year life cycle for each major release, then >> it no good to me (and I suspect many others) >> >> There is a 2 year overlap with the next version of stream as well .. in >> this case CentOS Stream 9. How long is Debian or Ubuntu LTS maintained >> for free? >> >> 5 years may not be long enough for you .. but it certainly pretty long. >> And I am TRYING to get that extended. I may not be successful, we'll >> have to see. >> >>> The article also mentions "CentOS will no longer be old, crusty, and >> barely alive, trailing RHEL by months at times" - then why didn't Redhat >> put resources into CentOS to improve that? >> Do you have any idea how much money Red Hat is paying to maintain >> CentOS. And they are maintaining CentOS 7, even now, until 2024. There >> are dozens of machines and several administrators to maintain them. >> >>> Redhat must have known, that if they killed off traditional CentOS, then >> users will simply go elsewhere for a RHEL rebuild ? >> >> If you chose not to use CentOS Stream, that is up to you. What is the >> OS of your TV set. What is the firmware of your computer. Those things >> are now pretty much irrelevant and commoditized. >> >> At some point the underlying OS is going to be much less important and >> the important part will be the layered parts that contain your apps and >> not the OS Layer. >> >> If you want a RHEL clone, that's fine. There will be one available. >> Someone will make one. >> >> The real and complete vision of what CentOS Stream will become will not >> be compolete until around the end of QTR1 2021. If you chose not to try >> it, that is up to you. I truly think Stream will be a much better and >> more quickly fixed OS when everything is in place. >> > I don't expect you to answer Johnny, but why didn't Red Hat wait until > Stream was "complete'" or ready, or whatever.I know the above wasn't directed at me, but maybe? it wasn't as much redhat wanting to sell, but IBM wanting to buy (there is a difference). IBM's revenue has steadily and steeply been going down, it had quite a few train wrecks, topped off with plane crashes. IBM is still a very large company, and still makes A LOT of money but for a large part with a bunch of dinosaurs that they are stuck with, and someone spotted a meteor.> > > >>> I agree that Redhat really screwed up this announcement - they would >> have got a lot more kudos if they had announced CentOS Stream to exist >> along with keeping the current traditional CentOS ... >> Again .. pay 8 or more people the going rate to just maintain CentOS. >> Buy the dozens of machines and pay for the datacenter, bandwidth, >> hardware services for machines, etc. This is very expensive. Maybe the >> company you work for will do that out of the goodness of their heart? >> >> > I guess I don't understand. Isn't Red Hat going to pay for CentOS Stream > engineers, hardware, etc? How much more would it be to use them to build > point releases? Won't much of the personnel and infrastructure be the same? > Is Red Hat going to just get rid of all the CentOS resources? I don't > understand why the resources maintaining CentOS 7, and 8 Stream, can't be > used to build CentOS 8.4/5 etc? > > As bummed out as I am about this whole situation, and believe me i am. >> But even I can clearly see that Red Hat has gone above and beyond the >> requirements of open source software and I am quite tired of all the >> 'they should be happy to pay several million dollars a year to give away >> a working product." If it is so easy or cheap to do .. then you guys do >> it. I did it for 17 years. Much of my time was on top of a normal 40 >> hour work week. >> >> > Again, we all appreciate it. It's not you we're mad at. > > >> Red Hat contributes to every major upstream project .. they maintain >> several very key major projects. They let employees contribute to >> projects and pay for them to work on upstream projects. how many things >> do they have to do for free? >> >>> James Pearson >> >> >> > I understand all your points, and I get it, but the fact is Red Hat > committed to the roadmap (c.f. > https://blog.centos.org/2019/07/ibm-red-hat-and-centos/) and now they're > abruptly breaking a promise. One that is affecting a lot of already > overstressed and underpaid people. If they said this would happen at the > beginning of CentOS 8, or better CentOS 9, then fine. But now? > > It sucks big time. >