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Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

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Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#81

Post by ROTMetro »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #67
verdverm wrote: post #3

Not sure these "options" are going to satisfy business risk analysis. We are looking into moving away from all things CentOS, RHEL, or projects like Rocky. It was going to be Rocky, but no more. Red Hat got blue washed and is now ruining their reputation

I read messages like this and it always seems like folk think Red Hat are missing out because people aren't using a free competitor. What I think this change will make happen, 80-95% of the companies using CentOS or Rocky stop using RHEL based linux distros. But the rest start paying Red Hat. Those who moved away were never going to buy anyways so why should Red Hat care if they don't use a free competitor that used…

There's two ways to increase business income, extract more $$$ from a captured user base or create value to attract revenue. One is a sign of a healthy company looking at future growth, the other the sign of a zombie company that has to put a tighter squeeze on you quarter after quarter to keep their numbers up. The people making purchasing/vendor decisions take into consideration the risk of going with a 'zombie' company, so those that do pay are also likely to consider moving away as well.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#82

Post by fragmede »

brnt wrote: post #54
Kwpolska wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want Debian, just use Debian. The idea behind CentOS and its successors is to have a free distro that is bug-for-bug compatible with RHEL, so that you can support users of your software who are on RHEL, or use software supported only on RHEL for free.

That's the idea, but Red Hat is making that ever more difficult. And I can understand why. Why would you build your world on such shifting sands, when all those forks could pitch in on Debian long term support instead? Or just shell out for RHEL?

Because it hasn't hurt Apple to have their proprietary garden and Red Hat has learned from that. Once you're big enough, people are going to do the work to support your nonsense (eg Asahi Linux) and build their world on your shifting sand. So why would you, as Red Hat, put in extra effort and not be capricious and hard to work with? It just costs you money that you apparently don't have to spend. Call it the Elon Musk is an Asshole (EMA) era of business.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#83

Post by red-iron-pine »

balou23 wrote: post #52
brnt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand all these CentOS forks: you're still dealing with Red Hat and reinforcing their ecosystem for free. What if those forks poured the effort behind Debian? A truly democratic distro that cannot pull rugs from under your feet.

Debian LTS only has 5 years of support, without guarantees, on a volunteer basis. RHEL has 10 years of support, with the option of 13 years. I like debian, but sometimes you have to have long term support. And I fully understand why you wouldn't support 13 year old software without getting paid for it.

and RHEL has paid, by-the-vendors-themselves support options.

unless you're going to have an entire org full of Linux SMEs -- and most businesses aren't going to do that, they're not software companies -- then you need a support option.

Debian ain't got that, and Canonical is something of a basketcase.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#84

Post by [deleted] »

hospitalJail wrote: post #5
verdverm wrote: post #3

Not sure these "options" are going to satisfy business risk analysis. We are looking into moving away from all things CentOS, RHEL, or projects like Rocky. It was going to be Rocky, but no more. Red Hat got blue washed and is now ruining their reputation

I havent been following the saga, just learned about it last week. Was Red Hat losing money? Or they wanted more money?

[deleted]

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#85

Post by that_guy_iain »

ROTMetro wrote: post #81
that_guy_iain wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read messages like this and it always seems like folk think Red Hat are missing out because people aren't using a free competitor. What I think this change will make happen, 80-95% of the companies using CentOS or Rocky stop using RHEL based linux distros. But the rest start paying Red Hat. Those who moved away were never going to buy anyways so why should Red Hat care if they don't use a free competitor that used…

There's two ways to increase business income, extract more $$$ from a captured user base or create value to attract revenue. One is a sign of a healthy company looking at future growth, the other the sign of a zombie company that has to put a tighter squeeze on you quarter after quarter to keep their numbers up. The people making purchasing/vendor decisions take into consideration the risk of going with a 'zombie' co…

"Zombie company" is a weird way to describe a profitable company. How many people are going to say "You know what, this solves my problem really well but I am scared they're not going to solve future problems?" Especially in the sector that Red Hat are in, a world where there is a famous quote of "No one gets fired for buying IBM".

IBM/Red Hat are not in the cycle where they create new products and create value that way, they're in the business of buying things and increasing their market share that way. And have been for quite some time.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#87

Post by kjs3 »

cramjabsyn wrote: post #28
Twirrim wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "problem" with Debian is the lifecycle. You get about a 12-24 months at most of security patches, and that's effectively it (the patching model after that is unreliable). That means you've got to allocate resources for upgrading/validating far more regularly than you would with other distributions. Depending on the size of your business, that could get really expensive and disruptive, for negligible benefit. Cano…

I tend to agree, if Debian embraced a longer term support model it would attract a lot of enterprise deployments. RHEL is something like 10 years while Debian is more like 2, 3 if you push it.

That's probably because people pay to use RHEL, which funds supporting it for 10 years.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#88

Post by verdverm »

jacooper wrote: post #76
freedomben wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression from being somewhat involved in the (early) communities of Rocky and Alma, is that the Rocky people are quite a bit looser with violating EULAs, ToS, etc. Sometimes that is the superior approach, but with something like RHEL rebuilt it makes me nervous. Alma by contrast are very professional. Rocky also has an antagonistic view toward Red Hat, while Alma views Red Hat as partners. People can hate on Red…

Agree, Alma's response has been way less hacky.

Interesting... Thanks for the info, both of you, will have to take a look

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#89

Post by jjnoakes »

omniglottal wrote: post #64
jjnoakes wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was using CentOS for prototype development. No way would I be able to get RHEL for this. Why doesn't the free RHEL developer subscription work for this use case? (Honestly curious, as I use it for similar prototype development and want to make sure I'm not missing something).

If you spin up a bunch of cattle, your automation and testing is going to want to be for your specific use case to get the meat from them - the moment you need to waste even 10 minutes dealing with (even uncertainties around) subscription management to name and enumerate each of your "pets", then you know the vendor doesn't care about your real-life problems and will persist in generating roadblocks to fulfill their…

I see where you are coming from, but I've found it beneficial to my business to trade the minor inconvenience of free subscription management for the stability and long-term support for RHEL.

I get that others may not like that trade-off, but I was mostly curious if there were any specific reasons that would tip my personal scales. Sounds like there aren't.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#90

Post by lamontcg »

yndoendo wrote: post #27
hospitalJail wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I havent been following the saga, just learned about it last week. Was Red Hat losing money? Or they wanted more money?

IBM sees economic utility as just making money. They don't see the utility of name branding and ease of transition. For example, I was using CentOS for prototype development. No way would I be able to get RHEL for this. CentOS allowed for not having to hassle with development license management with RHEL. Meaning more time spent on trying to get something work vs handling business to business logistics. This way, if…

The better example is that small companies could build on CentOS and when those small companies become big or get bought by someone big and get infested with useless middle management, RedHat could then sell support contracts into those businesses. CentOS was basically a big loss-leader to get lock-in and just wait until middle management went looking to throw money at vendor support to have someone else to blame.

IBM is now going to be cutting that channel off. They might juice a few more contracts in the short term, but mostly they're going to push small businesses away from the RHEL ecosystem entirely and cut off their pipeline of new leads.

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