I fail to see what separates Alma from CentOS Stream at this point
The entire Propose of CentOS was Binary Compatibility with RHEL, largely for Vendor compliance reasons, if a vendor of a commercial software product validated RHEL 7 for their software running CentOS 7 was also supported
Running CentOS Stream, or now Alma Linux would not be as their are no longer binary compatible with RHEL.
the Hostility of IBM and Redhat here has lead me to transition 100% of the CentOS Server I managed to Ubuntu Last year... The software vendors that i use all quickly validated Ubuntu as an alternative to CentOS after the original CentOS Stream announcement which made is a easy choice for me..
I will never use RHEL or RHEL based distribution again at this point so I really do not care about the future of Alma or Rocky either
>Personally, I don’t find value in the EL ecosystem, I prefer rolling releases everywhere when possible
if you are running ERP Systems, LOB Apps, or other critical functions that measure their code life in decades not weeks then EL systems are required. I do not want the system to change as the app i am running has not changed. I want Stability, and security not new features or more performance or even new hardware
> if you are running ERP Systems, LOB Apps, or other critical functions that measure their code life in decades
That's really what confuses me about the people who use CentOS or Rocky, they want or need the stability of RHEL, so that they can run these crucial applications, that mostly aren't cheap, yet they refuse to pay for the development of the operating system they run it them?
I really don't see the point in any of these clones, other than as an educational tool. I see the point in RHEL and while expensive, that's the price of developing this platform. You can buy SuSE, Ubuntu Pro or Oracle Linux, if you feel that RedHat is to expensive (perhaps not Oracle), but that's not what some people want, they specifically want RHEL, but for free.
The theory that Red Hat users are supposed to be paying for development of the system is a recent one. What Red Hat used to say is that the software is free and their users are paying for support.
That made a great deal of sense, as of course Red Hat themselves were shipping a great deal of software written by other people without paying for its development.
There's nothing confusing about people declining to go along with this change.
> There's nothing confusing about people declining to go along with this change.
No, but why stay on a platform from a vendor that has a business model you find hostile? I can see the need for a transition period, but I'd start looking for another vendor that has value and pricing that aligns more with my ideals. People seem hellbent on staying on a RHEL-like platform.
Also, CentOS isn't/wasn't exactly new, the current pricing model from Redhat isn't nearly as old as CentOS.
>> but that's not what some people want, they specifically want RHEL, but for free.
Well in my world we used to run many Dev/Training/Non-Prod servers with CentOS and then Run the Prod Servers with Licensed RHEL
Similar to having a MSDN License for Windows vs Production licenses
Then with the announcement of CentOS Stream they tried to sell their Dev program, but that program was TERRIBLE for enterprise use, it was built for individual developers, and not at all compatible with the model many organizations where using. They have since tweaked the terms to make is somewhat more compatible but it still IMO, not very useful for many of the scenarios I found myself in over my life
And frankly I have enough problem keeping track with MS Licensing I do not need the additional headache I might as well just use windows at that point.
Red Hat was able to become a billion dollar company by providing great support, and being easy to do business with, even before IBM buyout and accelerating after their support was becoming less and less quality, and they became more and more hostile / harder to do business with
Many organizations where already questioning their continued use of Licensed RHEL because of this, this like played a part in them killing CENTOS (and yes they killed CentOS, CentOS Stream is not a compatible replacement) as that was easier that fixing the systemic internal issues around support and business processed.
> That's really what confuses me about the people who use CentOS or Rocky, they want or need the stability of RHEL, so that they can run these crucial applications, that mostly aren't cheap, yet they refuse to pay for the development of the operating system they run it them?
Yes. Non-prod (or even prod and non-critical) servers usually outnumber critical prod servers, and it makes sense to not run RHEL on them and pay for support, but to run a 100% compatible distro.
> the people who use CentOS or Rocky, they want or need the stability of RHEL, so that they can run these crucial applications
No, the people who need the stability of RHEL were already paying for it. The people who used CentOS were doing so to be able to develop and test software that would eventually be used by people running RHEL.
> I fail to see what separates Alma from CentOS Stream at this point
I believe that AlmaLinux's approach is in-line with Red Hat's vision for downstream OS-es. Rocky's is not.
I think a potential benefit to aligning with Red Hat's approach is that both AlmaLinux and Red Hat will be contributing fixes, improvements, etc. to CentOS Stream -- and any other OS-es that base off of CentOS Stream. And, nothing is preventing AlmaLinux from snapshotting their own stable releases -- which allows the AlmaLinux team to test and release stable releases to their users.
> the Hostility of IBM and Redhat here has lead me to transition 100% of the CentOS Server I managed to Ubuntu
I completely agree with this perspective. This is why Rocky's decisions really baffle me: why use an upstream OS like RHEL if you absolutely do not align with its objectives? I feel like it would have made much more sense for Rocky to make Fedora their upstream instead of implementing workarounds to copy RHEL.
> I will never use RHEL or RHEL based distribution again at this point so I really do not care about the future of Alma or Rocky either
I also do not use any Fedora based distribution (typically just running NixOS or Ubuntu), however, I find that I do care about these shifts because Red Hat has tremendous impact on the trajectory of most Linux distributions. And the downstream OS-es' responses have been interesting to observe to me. :)
>I believe that AlmaLinux's approach is in-line with Red Hat's vision for downstream OS-es.
As far as I can tell this is logically incorrect CentOS/Alma are upstream not downstream and red hat's vision of downstream OSes is they don't exist because that takes a nickel out of IBM's pocket.
You're correct, I was referring to AlmaLinux's former status of being downstream of RHEL. Additionally, from Red Hat's perspective, AlmaLinux is still downstream of CentOS Stream (and thus a participant of Red Hat's vision for CentOS Stream[0]).
> red hat's vision of downstream OSes is they don't exist because that takes a nickel out of IBM's pocket
I think CentOS Stream actually contradicts this because (I would imagine) it's a lot of work to maintain and greatly benefits the community -- and Red Hat still makes it freely available for other distributions to base off of.
Technically code-wise we're a downstream of CentOS Stream for the most part, but the end result is more of a hybrid because we're targeting RHEL and can match commits to RHEL commits from stream for a lot of it...so yeah.
Formerly we were just 100% downstream RHEL with none of this nuance, as you mentioned.
At this point, I'm not sure why end users who care about Red Hat stability don't just use RHEL directly. Red Hat has multiple ways to take advantage of RHEL that involve no cost (that weren't available when the original CentOS project was conceived):
- Free developer licenses[0] (great if you're a home-labber, IIRC you can get up to 16, I think?)
- Red Hat UBI images[1]
I feel like most users of AlmaLinux won't see a huge difference between just using AlmaLinux's release cycle vs RHEL -- especially since AlmaLinux will be ABI compatible with RHEL. I.E. apps that work for RHEL should work for AlmaLinux.
So, back to your original question, I don't know what end-users want more of other than as was said by mrweasel in a different comment: "that's not what some people want, they specifically want RHEL, but for free".
> I fail to see what separates Alma from CentOS Stream at this point
Alma is getting their source packages from CentoOS Stream, but they are using the specific versions that are in the Redhat releases they are targetting. They aren't just rebuilding Stream sources from HEAD.
> For a typical user, this will mean very little change in your use of AlmaLinux. Red Hat-compatible applications will still be able to run on AlmaLinux OS, and your installs of AlmaLinux will continue to receive timely security updates. The most remarkable potential impact of the change is that we will no longer be held to the line of “bug-for-bug compatibility” with Red Hat, and that means that we can now accept bug fixes outside of Red Hat’s release cycle. While that means some AlmaLinux OS users may encounter bugs that are not in Red Hat, we may also accept patches for bugs that have not yet been accepted upstream, or shipped downstream.
Incorrect, according to their FAQ[0] and the original article I linked[1]:
> What does ABI/binary compatible with RHEL mean?
> In July of 2023, we announced (opens new window) that we were shifting our goal from being a downstream rebuild of RHEL to maintaining ABI compatibility with RHEL. For the AlmaLinux team that means that everything from software applications to kernel modules that work on RHEL will work on AlmaLinux, and if they don't we would consider that a bug.
TL;DR: they are using CentOS Stream as their upstream.
EDIT: Sorry, you're correct -- I was thinking you meant their original goal of "bug-for-bug" compatibility with RHEL.
The entire Propose of CentOS was Binary Compatibility with RHEL, largely for Vendor compliance reasons, if a vendor of a commercial software product validated RHEL 7 for their software running CentOS 7 was also supported
Running CentOS Stream, or now Alma Linux would not be as their are no longer binary compatible with RHEL.
the Hostility of IBM and Redhat here has lead me to transition 100% of the CentOS Server I managed to Ubuntu Last year... The software vendors that i use all quickly validated Ubuntu as an alternative to CentOS after the original CentOS Stream announcement which made is a easy choice for me..
I will never use RHEL or RHEL based distribution again at this point so I really do not care about the future of Alma or Rocky either
>Personally, I don’t find value in the EL ecosystem, I prefer rolling releases everywhere when possible
if you are running ERP Systems, LOB Apps, or other critical functions that measure their code life in decades not weeks then EL systems are required. I do not want the system to change as the app i am running has not changed. I want Stability, and security not new features or more performance or even new hardware