[CentOS] Blog article: CentOS is NOT dead

R C
Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:07:49 -0000

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.
>