CentOS project changes focus, no more rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux – you'll have to flow with the Stream
- Reference: 1607502427
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/12/09/centos_red_hat/
- Source link:
The implication may be that Red Hat has decided that the availability of CentOS undermines the commercial side of its business. "If you are using CentOS Linux 8 in a production environment, and are concerned that CentOS Stream will not meet your needs, we encourage you to contact Red Hat about options," said CentOS Community Manager Rich Bowen.
It is notable that [1]today’s post by Bowen lacks much in the way of rationale for the change, other than that it “removes confusion around what ‘CentOS’ means in the Linux distribution ecosystem.” Bowen acknowledges that the change will mean “a major shift in collaboration among the CentOS Special Interest Groups (SIGs).”
In the past, CentOS has been a community build of the current RHEL source, providing a robust production distro for those willing to do without Red Hat support. When RHEL gets a fix, the project [2]aims to have the same fix available for CentOS “within 72 hours” of its release, while new point releases of CentOS come “four to eight weeks after the release by upstream.” In other words, CentOS tracked RHEL.
CentOS Stream, by contrast, is a development preview of what is soon to come in RHEL, focused on the next minor release. Another distro, Fedora, is further ahead and more experimental.
Red Hat tips its Fedora 33: Beta release introduces Btrfs as default file system, .NET on ARM64, plus an IoT variant [3]READ MORE
When CentOS Stream was introduced in September 2019 it was [4]described by Red Hat as “a rolling preview” of future Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernels and features.” It is useful for developers testing applications for the next Red Hat release, and useful for Red Hat for feedback on anything not working as expected, but not ideal for production use.
“Nothing changes for current users of CentOS Linux and services,” said Red Hat CTO Chris Wright, at the time; but a little over a year later, everything has changed.
Wright now [5]says that “we will shift our investments to CentOS Stream exclusively on December 31, 2021.” The company “remain committed” to CentOS Linux 7 until its end of maintenance in 2024, but not to CentOS Linux 8.
Wright says the company plans “low or no-cost programs for a variety of use cases, including options for open source projects and communities and expansion of the RHEL developer subscription use cases.” Currently the RHEL Developer Subscription, which is free, is not licensed for use in production in the [6]terms of use and is limited to one physical system and up to two processors.
It's complicated
The relationship between the CentOS Project and Red Hat is complex. The [7]official statement is that "Red Hat curates the trademarks for CentOS and is providing initial guidance and expertise required in establishing the formal board structure used to govern the CentOS Project." and that "Some members on the CentOS Project Governing Board work for Red Hat, Inc." Today's announcement does perhaps suggest that it is Red Hat rather than the community that is guiding the project's direction.
A [8]FAQ on the shift to CentOS Stream states that the source code for RHEL will continue to be published as before. The change “only relates to the binaries the CentOS Project is building,” we are told.
CentOS 8, the current version, will continue to receive updates until the end of 2021. There will be no CentOS Linux 9, only CentOS Stream 9.
There is a migration option from CentOS Linux 8 to CentOS Stream, and users are assured that since the release is just ahead of RHEL, rather than behind it, “CentOS Stream will be getting fixes and features ahead of RHEL,” the FAQ said, resisting the idea that it is now a beta release of RHEL; though it is hard to shake off the idea that it fulfils some of that role.
Can the community continue to rebuild CentOS Linux from the released source code? “We will not be putting hardware, resources, or asking for volunteers to work towards that effort, nor will we allow the CentOS brand to be used for such a project,” the FAQ said, though adding that “the code is open source and we wouldn’t try to stop anyone from choosing to use it or build their own packages from the code.”
Red Hat’s new CEO on surviving inside Big Blue: 'We don’t participate in IBM's culture. It’s that simple' [9]READ MORE
There is scope, therefore, for a new community build of RHEL to appear - and a post by Gregory Kurtzer, the founder of CentOS, states that "I am considering creating another rebuild of RHEL and may even be able to hire some people for this effort." - head [10]here and join the Slack group for more details. "I've already had some people ask me to create another CentOS that tracks RHEL perfectly again. haha," he says.
What does the community think? It's early days, though one user [11]remarks that it is “fitting for the general theme of 2020 … Beta testing for RedHat? Sure, can do so, but then why not go straight to fedora?”
Comments on Bowen’s post are equally unenthusiastic. “I guess my argument "Use CentOS, not Ubuntu if you want most stable production" is out of the window now. Ubuntu it is then from now on,” says one. Another remarks, "Terrible move by IBM/RH - the community is what has driven the success of RHEL Enterprise." There is also a claim from another that "This is a breach of trust from the already published timeline of CentOS 8 where the EOL was May 2029."
Red Hat was [12]profitable before its 2019 acquisition by IBM so the existence of CentOS to date has not been a barrier to commercial success. The news now may win some new customers, but at some cost in goodwill and a likely negative impact on the CentOS community. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/
[2] https://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#What_is_CentOS_Linux.3F
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/02/fedora_33_beta/
[4] https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/transforming-development-experience-within-centos
[5] https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/centos-stream-building-innovative-future-enterprise-linux
[6] https://developers.redhat.com/articles/faqs-no-cost-red-hat-enterprise-linux#general
[7] https://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#What_is_CentOS.27s_relationship_with_Red_Hat.2BAK4.2C_Inc._or_RHEL.3F
[8] https://www.centos.org/distro-faq/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/30/red_hat_ceo_interview_ibm/
[10] https://hpcng.org/
[11] https://forums.centos.org/posting.php?mode=quote&f=10&p=322052
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/21/red_hat_last_results_before_ibm_acquisition/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
That's a pain
I generally use CentOS to develop an install plan for RHEL deployments as I can do that without having to carry the cost of a licence that's only used on (e.g.) a local VM. Guess I'll have to see what a developer account allows.
Will also have to re-evaluate what I use for non-profit, small scale installs where I would normally just deploy CentOS.
IBM has a hard time adjusting to the new realities
Call ne sentimental, but I was quite attached to IBM for many years. Their x-Series servers were solid like rocks, and at the time this was even more important than it is today. And they were quite early on the "Linux is the default OS for a server" bandwagon. The SCO saga (most of you will remember groklaw) added more respect to that.
But it is not ment to be. They seem to be just are unable to cope with the realities of today, where you can't slap an IBM sticker on something to double its perceived value, where the only ultra-high-margin cashcow remaining is the mainframe, which is going the way of the Dodo. Any of those perky new banks or insurance companies using them? Nope. And DB2 neither.
Instead of adapting, they chose to do more of the same - not good. Bye, IBM, it was nice while it lasted.
Maybe White Box Linux will be revived. It was another RH clone but discontinued, largely, I think, because Centos covered the same ground. Fermilab also opted for Centos 8 instead of developing a new Scientific Linux 8. Maybe they'll reconsider. It would be surprising if nobody picked this up.
I was thinking the same: bring back Scientific Linux.
There's not much point running CentOS in production if it means you're running beta code (although at least you don't have the 9-month upgrade cycle of Fedora). Ubuntu/Debian looks much more attractive.
However, the fact that there was no in-place upgrade from CentOS 6 to CentOS 7 also put me off it anyway.
"Changes focus". What weasel words. Red Hat pulled the plug on the project despite all their promises in 2014 about not interfering with the project and it being a safe home for it.
Flipping heck
Our CentOS 7 to 8 migration work has just come to a screeching halt. On this occasion our corporate love of grinding policies has actually helped and we hadn't gone too far down that road yet. Separately our new HPC system would have been CentOS 8 with a couple of RHEL licences just in case we need support - that plan scrapped while we consider an alternative. It will probably be Debian or Ubuntu, and the same for the rest of the estate come 2024.
Canonical thanks IBM
If i were Canonical i'd be popping champagne bottles now. I forsee a massive shift from centos to ubuntu server.
Personally i'll keep using the old and trusty debian in my homelab, but i know that companies that use centos today without any kind of support contract will move to ubuntu.
Oh well
Fairly recently I used CentOS 7 & 8 to explore various security problems with RHEL 7 & 8: I couldn't use RHEL as I don't have a license, but I was convinced that CentOS was identical enough that I'd see the same behaviour.
Now I can't do that, and much more to the point nor can anyone else. And so the world is a little less secure. Thanks Red Hat: previously I only suspected how much you cared about security, now I know the answer is 'not at all'.
Re: Oh well
So get yourself a free dev license and since you will actually be using RHEL, not something that looks a lot like it, the world will be a little more secure. It's not RH's fault that you don't know the options avaiable to you.
Embrace, extend, and extinguish…
…it's not just for Microsoft anymore.
Re: Embrace, extend, and extinguish…
Yes, I thought exactly the same thing. Microsoft don't seem to be that way any more under Satya Nadella, and genuinely seem to have moved on. Shame that Red Hat (well IBM) are becoming the new Microsoft. How weird to be even saying that, but that's 2020 for you.
"...we encourage you to contact Red Hat about options, (and bring your wallet)" said CentOS Community Manager Rich Bowen.
TIFTFY
To the surprise of no one
The Red Hat sales people I've talked to were quite annoyed with CentOS long before the IBM acquisition. Why pay for support - which honestly is not very good unless you are paying millions per year - when CentOS is as good?
The last couple of years RH have been making it harder for others to clone their OS. Taking over CentOS and making it unfit for production use is just the latest step.
We'll see how long they actual stick with the "open source" and GNU licensing when we get a good replacement for CentOS :-D
Re: To the surprise of no one
Redhat cannot abandon GPL for the kernel and command set without risking serious repercussions from the FSF and rest of the community, and possible law suits (although they may have to be crowdfunded, as RH and IBM between them have some quite considerable legal and financial resources).
But the community as a whole would be quite badly affected if Redhat (and, by implication IBM) left. I believe that both RH and IBM have been some of the biggest contributors to kernel development for quite a long time.
What I believe they will do, and there is already a history of this, is to add essential, non GPL code to the RHEL offering (as they do already with Satellite and I believe some other things like Gluster) which make the open source code they publish under GPL not complete enough to build a work-alike.
I always thought this could happen ever since RH started propping up, and then controlling CentOS. I do now worry that IBM may make a power-play to try to reduce the freedom of GNU/Linux. They had been making a lot of progress defending it over the last couple of decades, but we have a different management in control now.
expansion of the RHEL developer subscription use cases
Yucky yuck yuck corporate weaseling speak at its worst : why can't they just say "we are doing this to make more people have to pay for it". They're basically saying you can have the Beta test version for free and help fix it, but once we've done a production release when problems have been fixed you have to pay for it. Sure, the community will ensure a free version remains available, but it will be more work and less attractive - obviously IBM's strategy to try and milk cash from its investment.
They've turned it into C*ntOS. Fill in the wildcard yourself.
Looks like Debian ...
I recently upgraded my desktop from CentOS 6 to Debian Buster as CentOS 8 had Gnome3 as the desktop - Debian gave me the choice of the Mate desktop. So the lack of a desktop that I like has let me avoid having to upgrade twice in 18 months - phew!
It now looks like me and my customers are going to have to go the same way on servers.
IBM chair is still there
In case you wondered about these decisions the same Ex-CEO whose leadership bled dry the dead horse after whaat was it? 24 Consecutive quarters of losses and probably 30+ quarters losses non-consecutively is still making decisions behind closed doors.... Make what you will of that....
Arse
Looks like our next tech. refresh will be onto a different distribution.
Actually, that might not be a bad thing, as RedHat seem to be royally buggering up RHEL by taking away useful, simple and working things and replacing them with new, complicated and broken ones (systemd, ntp, ... ).
Ouch. Well this is going to cause me a lot of work and grief! I suppose I should be vaguely happy that at work we haven't entirely committed to a CentOS 8 rollout yet.
I guess IBM had something to do with this, seeing CentOS as effectively giving away RHEL's lunch. I'm sure some people (well companies) may flip back to RHEL, but others will go elsewhere. So if some at IBM think they'll get a sudden influx of cash they'll be sorely mistaken.
I find it a bit confusing that they'll effectively turn it into not-quite-Fedora. Maybe they just want to turn it into the more experimental bit for server stuff and pivot Fedora to be more workstation stuff?
Overall a bit crap that they commited to CentOS 8 as is (to follow RHEL 8) and are now pulling the rug.