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RHEL is closing down the distribution of CentOS Stream source code
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RHEL is closing down the distribution of CentOS Stream source code

MechanicWebMechanicWeb Member, Patron Provider
edited June 2023 in General

RHEL has made a new announcement to control the distribution of its source code.

Purely speculating, but this move can prevent AlmaLinux, RockyLinux from making 1:1 rebuilds of RHEL.

More information here:

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-stream



Thanked by 2farsighter eva2000
«134

Comments

  • JabJabJabJab Member

    Took them long enough

    Thanked by 1darkimmortal
  • MikePTMikePT Veteran

    Interesting... No panic for now. 👌

  • MechanicWebMechanicWeb Member, Patron Provider
    edited June 2023

    @MikePT said: Interesting... No panic for now.

    I wouldn't be so sure about that. The way they formed it, it looks like their intention is to prevent entities like AlmaLinux and RockyLinux from benefiting from the hard work of RHEL:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36420259

    Thanked by 1yongsiklee
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    RedHat is doing this, RedHat is doing that...c'mon, it's IBM dictating these changes.

  • MikeAMikeA Member, Patron Provider

    @raindog308 said:
    RedHat is doing this, RedHat is doing that...c'mon, it's IBM dictating these changes.

  • varwwwvarwww Member

    Debian thx!

    Thanked by 2emgh tjn
  • kasodkkasodk Barred
    edited June 2023

    After a short flirt with AlmaLinux, I changed to Debian when Red Hat got greedy and announced CentOS Stream, and I never looked back.
    I am not surprised that Red Hat is trying to get more businesses to use their paid version.

    Thanked by 1danielyi
  • srch07srch07 Member

    Was bound to happen.
    I was a centOS fan, and moved to Debian based (Debian and Ubuntu distro) just after they decided to sun-set it.

    Thanked by 1uyano
  • ShazanShazan Member, Host Rep

    Couldn't be an issue for CloudLinux also?

  • LeviLevi Member

    RHEL has all the rights to stop feeding parasites. To be fair, the biggest parasite of all is Oracle and it's oracle linux. They just replaced RHEL enterprise with oracle enterprise.

    Debian FTW.

  • Did nobody bother to actually read the article? The thread title is just completely wrong... What is going to be shut down is access to RHEL source code, not CentOS Stream source code.

    And no, cutting off public access to RHEL source code won't/can't kill RHEL clones. Sources of RHEL packages will remain still available to download by any RHEL user and can be redistributed freely. It's a hard requirement, at least for packages for GPL-licensed software.

    It seems Rocky Linux devs (and probably other distros too? I don't know) are currently pulling sources from git.centos.org. They will need to switch to SRPM, but it's just it.

  • LeviLevi Member

    @udonworld said:
    Did nobody bother to actually read the article? The thread title is just completely wrong... What is going to be shut down is access to RHEL source code, not CentOS Stream source code.

    And no, cutting off public access to RHEL source code won't/can't kill RHEL clones. Sources of RHEL packages will remain still available to download by any RHEL user and can be redistributed freely. It's a hard requirement, at least for packages for GPL-licensed software.

    It seems Rocky Linux devs (and probably other distros too? I don't know) are currently pulling sources from git.centos.org. They will need to switch to SRPM, but it's just it.

    It is a precedent and turmoil for rocky and alma. They know that sooner or latter they will get rekt.

  • People really can't read these days.

  • BoogeymanBoogeyman Member
    edited June 2023

    What RHEL does that others can't do? They backport patches from upstream source keeping only the same version strings in their code. They develop slowest pythonware for quick development. They package codes from upstreams that are developers from whole world.

    In the same time they invested lot of time and money. They have their codes in kernel and many opensource project. rpm is the reason I use them(yes apt is garbage so is mailing lists for bug tracker/packaging. It's 2023 Debian).

    And RHEL only killed their old branches and it's only like spinning a Hetzner dedi and in a week or two it’s completely reproducible. Minimal distro would need much less time. In comparison with Debian RHEL have much better internal and useful tools.

    I doubt why people call them enthusiasts when they cry like babies in simple events. Just dump and build your own.

  • uyanouyano Member

    I once convinced my company to subscribe to RHEL,

    After Red Hat was acquired by IBM, there are many actions.

    The free CentOS will take away the sales performance that originally belonged to RHEL.

    I switched to debian since they suddenly announced centos8 end of support.

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    Edited the opening post in order to make the URLs live

    Thanked by 1FrankZ
  • @srch07 said:
    Was bound to happen.
    I was a centOS fan, and moved to Debian based (Debian and Ubuntu distro) just after they decided to sun-set it.

    Same here, Was using Centos. > @udonworld said:

    Did nobody bother to actually read the article? The thread title is just completely wrong... What is going to be shut down is access to RHEL source code, not CentOS Stream source code.

    And no, cutting off public access to RHEL source code won't/can't kill RHEL clones. Sources of RHEL packages will remain still available to download by any RHEL user and can be redistributed freely. It's a hard requirement, at least for packages for GPL-licensed software.

    It seems Rocky Linux devs (and probably other distros too? I don't know) are currently pulling sources from git.centos.org. They will need to switch to SRPM, but it's just it.

    They can't make sure 1:1 bug compatibility. That's the issue.

  • MechanicWebMechanicWeb Member, Patron Provider
    edited June 2023

    This is deeper than I thought.

    This move was probably inspired by Alma and Rocky's snatching away RHEL's client base:

    NASA just signed a contract with Rocky and CERN went with AlmaLinux,
    
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36421356
    

    This once again tells you, when your primary product depends on someone else's work, you are at the mercy of your upstream, and they can snatch it away. This exactly is what happened.

    Impact on the hosting providers is just a byproduct of the larger battle.

    Again, I am purely speculating. RHEL never said that.

    Thanked by 1yoursunny
  • MechanicWebMechanicWeb Member, Patron Provider

    AlmaLinux released an update. They won't be able to redistribute RHEL packages.

    They will fork them from CentOS Stream:

    https://almalinux.org/blog/impact-of-rhel-changes/

  • emghemgh Member

    If this long-term results in people going to Debian, I’d argue it’s for the greater good

  • fresentfresent Member, Patron Provider

    We once fought to use CentOS within organization over Debian, and now we use Debian everywhere once they announced CentOS E.O.L. suddenly.

    Debian looks bright for now...

  • SirFoxySirFoxy Member
    edited June 2023

    Doesn’t matter, if it doesn’t have Windows Server 2011 or Vista I’m not touching it.

  • aRNoLDaRNoLD Member

    red hat will turn itself to bare head, nothing left, even for their sons' memory.

  • MechanicWebMechanicWeb Member, Patron Provider

    I am not sure how AlmaLinux and others would still be able to maintain a 1:1 binary. They claimed they can still do that in the above announcement.

    CentOS Stream doesn't contain all the bug fixes of RHEL. RHEL is the downstream. How can they maintain a 1:1 binary when they don't even have the packages?

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @MechanicWeb said: I am not sure how AlmaLinux and others would still be able to maintain a 1:1 binary. They claimed they can still do that in the above announcement.

    Can you quote that part? I couldn't find that language.

  • MechanicWebMechanicWeb Member, Patron Provider
    edited June 2023

    @raindog308 said: Can you quote that part? I couldn't find that language.

    It is the FAQ on the same page:

    Does this mean I won’t be getting security updates for my AlmaLinux OS Server?

    No. In the immediate term, our plan is to pull from CentOS Stream updates and Oracle Linux updates to ensure security patches continue to be released. These updates will be carefully curated to ensure they are 1:1 compatible with RHEL, while not violating Red Hat’s licensing, and will be vetted and tested just like all of our other releases.

    https://almalinux.org/blog/impact-of-rhel-changes/

    They clearly don't have the same testing capability as RHEL does.

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @MechanicWeb

    It's more reader-friendly if you use the quote function for quotes

    And no need to use any special function for URLs

    The code function is best reserved for snippets of code

    🙂

    (I also edited a post of yours yesterday to make it more user-friendly 🙂 )

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @MechanicWeb said:

    @raindog308 said: Can you quote that part? I couldn't find that language.

    It is the FAQ on the same page:

    Does this mean I won’t be getting security updates for my AlmaLinux OS Server?

    No. In the immediate term, our plan is to pull from CentOS Stream updates and Oracle Linux updates to ensure security patches continue to be released. These updates will be carefully curated to ensure they are 1:1 compatible with RHEL, while not violating Red Hat’s licensing, and will be vetted and tested just like all of our other releases.

    https://almalinux.org/blog/impact-of-rhel-changes/

    They clearly don't have the same testing capability as RHEL does.

    Just to note that "1:1 compatible" in the quote doesn't necessarily mean "1:1 binary compatible"

    I agree that I don't see how AlmaLinux could realistically claim or hope for "1:1 binary compatible" without access to the RHEL source packages

  • MechanicWebMechanicWeb Member, Patron Provider

    @angstrom said: Just to note that "1:1 compatible" in the quote doesn't necessarily mean "1:1 binary compatible"

    Alright. How can they make 1:1 compatible, when they don't have the fixes in CentOS Stream and can't redistribute from RHEL?

  • MikePTMikePT Veteran

    @MechanicWeb said: They clearly don't have the same testing capability as RHEL does.

    You'd be surprised.
    AlmaLinux Devs are really, really damn awesome and experts.

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