[CentOS] Blog article: CentOS is NOT dead

Johnny Hughes
Tue, 15 Dec 2020 23:35:11 -0000

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>