and Fedora?

Story: Red Hat incorporates 'free' Red Hat clone CentOSTotal Replies: 8
Author Content
lqsh

Jan 08, 2014
6:33 PM EDT
I wonder where this leaves Fedora..
linux4567

Jan 08, 2014
7:02 PM EDT
Don't worry, Fedora will continue to be the test-bed for RHEL, as it has been since it's inception.

Redhat only bought out Centos as it was affecting their revenues of RHEL subscriptions (more and more companies, even large ones, chosing Centos over RHEL to save on support fees for RHEL), so now Redhat is trying to reposition Centos away from it's original focus of being a 100% binary compatible clone of RHEL into a test-bed of cloud technologies and other fluffy stuff like that.

So expect Centos to become somwhat less than 100% compatible with RHEL... (that's the message I get clearly by reading in between the lines of the Redhat FAQ about the Centos acquisition)
hughesjr

Jan 08, 2014
7:55 PM EDT
Then the message you got is wrong. CentOS is there to help community.redhat.com things like GlusterFS, Open Shift Origin, RDO, and oVirt.

CentOS will continue to have a goal to have the base OS directory match its RHEL counterpart.

It is also NOT an acquisition.. It says join forces with, not bought or acquired.
linux4567

Jan 08, 2014
8:59 PM EDT
> Then the message you got is wrong.

I'll be glad if that turns out to be the case but the Redhat FAQ is full of FUD trying to convince people that Centos is not a perfect clone of RHEL (which it currently is but I'm concerned whether it will remain so in the future)

> It is also NOT an acquisition.. It says join forces with, not bought or acquired.

Redhat took over the Centos trademark (did they pay for it or even got it for free?) and hired the core CentOS developers, that is a de-facto acquisition. Calling it 'joining forces' is pure marketing speak.
flufferbeer

Jan 09, 2014
12:48 AM EDT
@linux4567,

> Redhat took over the Centos trademark (did they pay for it or even got it for free?) and hired the core CentOS developers, that is a de-facto acquisition. Calling it 'joining forces' is pure marketing speak.

Same thinking here too. Really just another Merger/Acquisition of the parent corporation and the RedHat ecosystem's developers. As you wrote, new Fedora testings will be left alone with their own "community". That is, left alone unless small companies' move to Fedora ALSO starts to significantly affect revenue of RHEL subscriptions!

2c
CFWhitman

Jan 09, 2014
10:01 AM EDT
If CentOS becomes less compatible with Red Hat, I would expect to see a boost in Scientific Linux use in the future. In any case, if what CentOS was doing is worth doing (and it appears it is), then someone will continue to do it, even if it's not CentOS.
jazz

Jan 09, 2014
4:43 PM EDT
According to w3tech they are losing market share to Debian and Ubuntu. Buying out CentOS will not fix their problems.

http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/debian_ubuntu_extend_the_domin...

Steven_Rosenber

Jan 09, 2014
5:49 PM EDT
Like it or not, Fedora is Red Hat's de facto desktop offering. Sure there is Red Hat Enterprise Desktop (if it's still called that), but anybody who's tried to actually use RHEL or CentOS as a desktop system soon runs into one problem: A great deal of the software you expect to see in a desktop distribution isn't packaged for RHEL/CentOS, even by the "extra" repos.

Fedora, however, has a fairly robust and complete software archive, and everything is updated just about all the time. Even if you're running a Fedora release, you're always getting new software in cases where you wouldn't in Debian or even Ubuntu without PPAs.

So even though RHEL/CentOS runs on the desktop, it doesn't compare to Fedora when it comes to packages available. This could change, but I don't think it will.
hughesjr

Jan 10, 2014
8:35 AM EDT
@CF Whitman:

I am a CentOS Developer .. one of the evil guys Red Hat just hired. I assure you, base CentOS will stay the same as it always was. We made sure of that before we agreed to this set up.

This is about more being added, not less. Its about Hosting Providers being able to create a modified set of packages in a variant (like the current Xen4CentOS6 SIG) that is optional for consumption, not changing any of the current things.

@linux4567 CentOS is NOT a perfect clone of RHEL ... it is (and always has been) a rebuild of code on itself with a goal for the packages to be "functionally compatible" ... that is, the packages do the same thing and link to the same libraries. That is still the goal and nothing has or will change in that regard. The CentOS team is totally separate from the RHEL engineering team.

===

Any changes are about SIGs and Variants ... and the FAQ is clear about those as well. Special Interest Groups (like the current Xen4CentOS6 group) will be able to create SEPARATE resources that people can choose to consume or not. These separate resources will be called variants. Base CentOS remains unchanged in that it will exist as it always has.

There is no FUD in the FAQ ... this move is about the future and community enterprise resources like RDO, GlusterFS, OpenStack Origin, and oVirt, not about what CentOS is currently doing.

Lets wait and see what is released before we make proclamations on what is going to happen. This is MUCH better for the CentOS community, mark my words.

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