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A response to the git.centos.org changes

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Re: A response to the git.centos.org changes

#171

Post by exibmer »

gnukid wrote: post #90
rektide wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RHEL was only used & adopted because everyday people could use it. Then when they had jobs at their enterprise, they could bring what they knew with them. If RHEL is only for paying people, as McGrath from the pulpit so expounds, most people are gonna leave. The value was having a community, a good path, that extended from open source to paid support. If McGrath blows up one end of the continuum, the other end will c…

Can't everyday people use CentOS Stream?

CentOS stream isn't stable, it's a rolling distro. That's like asking "why can't people running RHEL go to Arch Linux or OpenSuSE TumbleWeed?"

Re: A response to the git.centos.org changes

#172

Post by bshacklett »

belltaco wrote: post #6

> Simply rebuilding code, without adding value or changing it in any way, represents a real threat to open source companies everywhere. This is a real threat to open source, and one that has the potential to revert open source back into a hobbyist- and hackers-only activity Doesn't Red Hat do the same thing for many packages? Do they substantially contribute to every single project they distribute? I wonder if this w…

Even if they don’t make any changes, or upstream contributions, the integration of individual packages into a full OS distribution is certainly valuable. If you disagree, try Linux From Scratch sometime.

Re: A response to the git.centos.org changes

#174

Post by apple4ever »

bonzini wrote: post #151
prepend wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It wasn't worth putting up with so many free users for a paid product, just to have a small minority actually pay anything. It used to be worth it for 20+ years. Now something changed. For my servers I used to use 95% centos, 5% rhel. Now I’ll use 0% rhel. I didn’t need support for most servers but I liked having comparability for when things grew into needing it.

Have you considered the developer team license, the UBI, CentOS Stream? If none of them work for you, either there is a hole that Red Hat would like to be closed or you were already violating the support agreement.

Probably the reason is licensing is a pain, and its not true "zero-cost" in that case. CentOS then Rocky/Alma removed that issue.

RH doesn't understand this.

Re: A response to the git.centos.org changes

#175

Post by apple4ever »

busterarm wrote: post #48

It's funny. We have something like 10^5 machines all on CentOS and a decent chunk where support is important and we pay for RHEL as well. I've been through a few firms like this all operating this way since 2007 or so... We were looking at Rocky Linux, but that no longer makes sense in light of recent news. So along with moving all of that CentOS infrastructure to something else, it no longer makes sense to stick wit…

I'm not surprised this would be most people's decision. Why trust RedHat any more, when they've been shown to keep making things more expensive and harder for users? If you have to switch, just get away from them entirely.

Re: A response to the git.centos.org changes

#176

Post by apple4ever »

fariszr wrote: post #102
busterarm wrote: post #48

It's funny. We have something like 10^5 machines all on CentOS and a decent chunk where support is important and we pay for RHEL as well. I've been through a few firms like this all operating this way since 2007 or so... We were looking at Rocky Linux, but that no longer makes sense in light of recent news. So along with moving all of that CentOS infrastructure to something else, it no longer makes sense to stick wit…

From Red hats point of view, RHEL shouldn't be an option without paying for it, it's why they stopped CentOS and now git.centos.org. And as mentioned in the article, people just using clones as free RHEL were way too many for the user/sales flow to be worth it. It's basically if a car company had a free car on every road, hoping it would drive people to buy a car for themselves, but people are just using it as their…

But as he says, that's not actually how it works. Lots of companies have RH on critical systems, and Cent/Rocky/Alma on less critical, because they can't afford to have RH everywhere.

So why would you think they would now go RH everywhere, especially after losing Cent and having to switch to Rocky/Alma, instead of going to Debian/Ubuntu or SUSE and not having to worry about it?

Not to mention that new admins and even current admins using Cent/Rocky/Alma at home to learn and play - now they can't.

There definitely was a platform effect, and now they have killed it.

Re: A response to the git.centos.org changes

#177

Post by apple4ever »

iDemonix wrote: post #99
busterarm wrote: post #48

It's funny. We have something like 10^5 machines all on CentOS and a decent chunk where support is important and we pay for RHEL as well. I've been through a few firms like this all operating this way since 2007 or so... We were looking at Rocky Linux, but that no longer makes sense in light of recent news. So along with moving all of that CentOS infrastructure to something else, it no longer makes sense to stick wit…

Similar boat here, and know of many other companies in the same situation (although we chose Alma). We thought we were on a good proven path of paying for support where we need it, and using the downstream alternatives when we didn't. Turns out we should have more seriously considered a move to Debian... I'm not really shocked Red Hat are trying to squeeze more money out of their existing audience, everything they of…

I think getting away from RH is probably the safest plan.

AAP is crazy expensive, just like RHEL. I think they are going to lose a lot of customers and dollars due to this, both immediately and even more so later.

Re: A response to the git.centos.org changes

#178

Post by apple4ever »

dataangel wrote: post #5
leetrout wrote: post #2

> Simply rebuilding code, without adding value or changing it in any way, represents a real threat to open source companies everywhere. This is a real threat to open source, and one that has the potential to revert open source back into a hobbyist- and hackers-only activity. So... completely tone deaf.

They gotta eat, how do you propose to feed them? I'm pretty sure if all paid Redhat developers stopped contributing it would be a massive blow to the Linux ecosystem that would not readily be replaced by volunteers. They employ people who work on every fundamental pillar of kernel space and userspace. Even if the fired devs wanted to continue contributing, it would probably be reduced hours compared to what they cont…

> They gotta eat, how do you propose to feed them?

A better pricing model. Nobody is opposed to paying them. Most people used Cent because of the cost. Instead of trying to capture that value they intentionally refused to capture it.

Re: A response to the git.centos.org changes

#179

Post by apple4ever »

sudosysgen wrote: post #98
wmf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial pure open source was a ZIRP phenomenon.

No, it isn't. Selling support is actually profitable. Red Hat is an example of that, in 2018 they had a very healthy 13% profit margin, and they are still profitable to this day. Red Hat wasn't in debt either, it had net assets. I don't see how the end of ZIRP had a disproportionate negative impact on Red Hat's financial, they were and are doing just fine.

And they have said that support revenue is up 17% YOY for 2022!

They are doing just fine with it, but they want MAOR.

Re: A response to the git.centos.org changes

#180

Post by apple4ever »

neurostimulant wrote: post #108
fariszr wrote: post #83

> There was a time, not too long ago, that Red Hat found value in the work done by rebuilders like CentOS. We pushed our SRPMs out to git.centos.org in a neat package that made them easy to rebuild; we even de-branded it for them. More recently, we have determined that there isn’t value in having a downstream rebuilder. > The generally accepted position that these free rebuilds are just funnels churning out RHEL expe…

This sounds like the argument video game companies like to use to justify DRM to reduce piracy. The question is, as they push for more intrusive DRM, how many of those people pirating their games actually converts into paying customers? How many existing customers they piss off who swore they'll never buy their games again? In red hat case, how many of those freeloading users using alma and rocky linux will actually…

I believe what they don't realize is that many places use RHEL on critical systems, but Cent/Rocky/Alma on non critical systems, because they don't need support and can't afford it even if they did.

Instead of that model, they'll just use Debian/Ubuntu or SUSE, and then RH gets nothing.

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