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SUSE is forking RHEL

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Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#181

Post by ghaff »

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #133
tyingq wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rocky Linux folks pointing out some of the things that make it hard: https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/

Rocky Linux is trying to specifically recreate RHEL exactly . That adds a new set of challenges that most people shouldn't care about. If you want to create a derivative of any Fedora/CentOS distribution, that's not hard. But if you're trying to recreate , that's a different story. You have to care about things like build sequencing, NVRs, etc. For example, if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a RHEL-compatible distribution…

And in fact you probably won't create a perfect reproduction given you don't have access to the very complex RHEL build system. (CentOS didn't either.) Which makes some of the angst over just using CentOS Stream because it's not a downstream rebuild a bit misplaced.

Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#182

Post by whalesalad »

binary_ninja wrote: post #142

Don't get me wrong, I am very happy with this announcement, however it bothers me slightly when I see these kind of announcements with the tone of "we love open source and we want to give this to the community" when the rationale for this probably was "RHEL is going to lose a bunch of customers and we can profit off of that". If it was a non-profit they might convince me but as a Linux for enterprise-kind of company…

Likewise it grinds my gears when people think that a company should just do things to do them. At the end of the day they need to make a profit to be sustainable, to pay employees, to perform R&D, keep the lights on, etc. Altruism isn't enough on its own.

Why not both? Capitalizing on customers who need a solution while also helping the community? Not preparing for an influx of new business is a foolish business decision.

Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#183

Post by teleforce »

jsiepkes wrote: post #22

> Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, CEO of SUSE, said, According to LinkedIn Dirk-Peter started at Suse 3 months ago as CEO and worked for Red Hat for 18 years and was a Senior VP at Red Hat. I think this move of Suse could be a credible threat to IBM / Red Hat's RHEL.

It seems this Dirk-Peter guy is a long time Red Hat guy and he probably knows Red Hat Linux inside out.

This can be 2nd most important Linux distro announcement for the good of the community by a company after Canonical's announcement of Ubuntu back in 2004, but time will tell if this going to take-off by spinning a new generic enterprise Linux distro based on RHEL.

Interestingly the last Red Hat for community (most popular at the time) is Red Hat 9 before it gone fully enterprise by launching Fedora back in 2004. Coincidentally Ubuntu was launched around the same time (now most popular Linux distro). Probably the last Red Hat Enterprise is RHEL 9 as we know it.

Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#184

Post by tyingq »

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #133
tyingq wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rocky Linux folks pointing out some of the things that make it hard: https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/

Rocky Linux is trying to specifically recreate RHEL exactly . That adds a new set of challenges that most people shouldn't care about. If you want to create a derivative of any Fedora/CentOS distribution, that's not hard. But if you're trying to recreate , that's a different story. You have to care about things like build sequencing, NVRs, etc. For example, if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a RHEL-compatible distribution…

I would guess Suse is trying to do the harder one. I could be wrong, but I think the intended audience is people that want to drop RedHat and the associated cost, but with minimal changes to everything in their ecosystem other than the OS itself.

If Suse thinks they are going to make money in this space via support contracts rather than licensing, it's sort of a "commoditize your complements" thing...commoditizing the paid license subscription part. That's a guess though. It's not clear to me how they plan to make money with this move.

Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#185

Post by PlutoIsAPlanet »

bandrami wrote: post #40
einpoklum wrote: post #19

1. If SUSE wants to preserve choice, it should offer a systemd-free distribution. 2. Agree with silisili's bafflement at how corporations are sticking to RHEL.

There are already excellent libre systemd-free distros, with release cadences ranging from rolling (Guix) to RHEL-level glacial (Slackware). That's not a hole in the market right now.

The need for systemd-free distros in the market is probably more from the embedded space rather than people who hate modern technology.

Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#186

Post by pepa65 »

I always assumed that SUSE was rolling their own rpms, but were they? Maybe they were somehow dependent on RH to the extent that this move now makes sense also for the rest of their business?

Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#187

Post by pas »

grey_earthling wrote: post #126
freeone3000 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't figure out why RHEL compat is so desirable. Hey, here’s a comprehensive guide complete with commands, expected outcomes, and side effects of each command for setting up a Windows Domain using an RHEL domain controller: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_single... Oh, that’s for 7.5? One that’s 15 years old and no longer under standard support? It still works! Wait, but you’re a new custom…

I still don't really understand why being RHEL-compatible as opposed to CentOS Stream-compatible is so important (except in the specific case where you're running RHEL in production, e.g. on desktops, and need bug-compatible pre-production boxes). Is the documentation for CentOS Stream that much worse? What does being RHEL-compatible get you over and above being CentOS Stream-compatible?

Big big big enterprises outsource IT to big big enterprise vendors, and they benefit a lot from standardizing on RHEL, because they employ people, who benefit a lot from documentation and tutorials and so on.

Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#188

Post by qwytw »

tokai wrote: post #121
op00to wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Because “Red Hat bad”? Can you explain a valid reason other than “Red Hat bad”?

Calm down. Don't ascribe to me things you made up in your head. Also it would make communication with you easier if you didn't write like you're on 4chan, and wrote your question formulated like a proper normal question. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36630032

So just use openSUSE? How would a SUSE Fedora fork would be any better? Presumably they wouldn't be able to use the branding...

Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#189

Post by swinglock »

wredue wrote: post #169
freeone3000 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't figure out why RHEL compat is so desirable. Hey, here’s a comprehensive guide complete with commands, expected outcomes, and side effects of each command for setting up a Windows Domain using an RHEL domain controller: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_single... Oh, that’s for 7.5? One that’s 15 years old and no longer under standard support? It still works! Wait, but you’re a new custom…

Whereas Nixs documentation is… well. I was looking through nix package code to sort out issues with nix on Hyper-V. I really like Nix so far (just started using it), but damn is the documentation ever shit tier.

The documentation exists. That's the best thing about it and it's a whole lot better than none. It has been worse too. Compared to Red Hat though, there's just no comparison.

Re: SUSE is forking RHEL

#190

Post by throw0101c »

xinayder wrote: post #9
saw-lau wrote: post #5

I guess the unwritten part of that press release is the fact that Red Hat are taking RHEL in some sort of proprietary direction? Is anybody able to TL;DR me an explanation of what's going on?

Red Hat announced that they are no longer providing updates to the downstream repo at git.centos.org and blamed that a lot of people are taking the sources and not contributing back, essentially just rebuilding and rebranding "their code". To obtain access to the git repo you now need to subscribe to Red Hat Developer Portal, but there are other ways to obtain the package sources as Rocky Linux is going to do in the…

> […] essentially just rebuilding and rebranding "their code".

Thereby creating an eco-system of RH-based systems that people learn about and get familiar with, so when it comes to going into production the natural default is to just purchase the official RHEL for those systems.

I think RH/IBM are being short-sited on how useful the free eco-system is.

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