> 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.
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.