Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

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taylorkh
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Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

Post by taylorkh » 2018/10/28 23:43:17

What might the impact be on CentOS? I imagine that many of you have seen the news...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-red- ... SKCN1N20N3

I guess someone had to start the conversation so I thought I might :mrgreen:

Ken

ark987
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Re: Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

Post by ark987 » 2018/10/29 08:50:44

I would like to know what will happen to this project. Since they got hired by Red Hat and now is being acquired. I have the bad feeling that this will be the first project to be shot in the head by the first house cleanup.

There is no clear path of upgrade from CentOS to paid subscription, that have me really worried about the future of CentOS since there is clear business motive for them to keep this freebee clone...

taylorkh
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Location: North Carolina, USA

Re: Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

Post by taylorkh » 2018/10/29 14:21:36

Being just a hobbyist user, and retired, CentOS is a nice convenience for me but not "mission critical." I started with Red Hat 5.8 - but had little idea what I was doing. By Red Hat 8 I was starting to get the hang of things. I had a print and file server on my otherwise Windoze home network. When things split I tried "Enterprise Workstation" but then moved to Fedora. I used that through Core 5 I think it was. I discovered Ubuntu by accident.

I was impressed by the ease of use of Ubuntu - especially in the way it addressed missing software. I tried playing an mp3 file. Red Hat would say "can't open file, contact your administrator." Ubuntu said "can't open file, would you like to find the necessary program?" It then provided me with a list along with 1 - 5 star ratings and allowed me to install one. I really started using Linux as my main OS with Ubuntu 8.04. Server and desktop. When I purchased a new high end PC in 2009 I found that 8.04 would not recognize some of the hardware. I went to 9.04 but that was a short term release. When 10.04 was released I found that it would not support my dual monitor setup - or two monitors at all for that matter (Unity).

At this point I had played with CentOS 5 a little. I installed CentOS 6 on the new PC and it worked fine - except for trying to install VLC - the media player. A fellow over on the Scientific Linux forum helped me to finally get that working. I started experimenting with CentOS 7 when it came out and had a mixture of 6 and 7 running on various machines. I found 7 to be a lot easier to setup - especially with the help of the nux-dextop repo. I now have all of my machines running on CentOS 7 except for 3 Raspberry Pi units which are Ubuntu.

All that said... I would sure like to continue with CentOS. I HATE to change things once they are working to my liking. I ran CentSO 6 on my main PC for 7 years - all on the original installation! I could change to another distro, probably Ubuntu, if the Big Blue purchase of the "upstream provider" makes things untenable. As a "home" user I would not be well served to purchase RHEL licenses for 3 servers and 4 desktops.

Ken

davidcarver
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Joined: 2018/10/29 14:38:09

What does IBM buying Redhat mean to the future of CentOS?

Post by davidcarver » 2018/10/29 14:44:31

What does IBM buying Red Hat mean to the future of CentOS?

Official: IBM to gobble Red Hat for $34bn – yes, the enterprise Linux biz
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/2 ... quisition/

smlunatick
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Re: Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

Post by smlunatick » 2018/10/29 14:53:38

I also wondering if it is "safe" to continue to use the CentOS distributions for main data servers. I have been using the CentOS for several servers since the 2008. I am now in the process of replacing my in-house CentOS 5 server that I installed in 2010. I was planning to go with the CentOS as I need the Red Hat linux structure but I do not like he subscription style for payments.

What other Linux distros are available for use in a standard file server?

davidcarver
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Joined: 2018/10/29 14:38:09

Re: Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

Post by davidcarver » 2018/10/29 15:09:38

Many of the supercomputers at universities run CentOS.

I just figured out that a 115 of the largest supercomputers in the world run CentOS according to the latest supercomputer top500 list at https://www.top500.org/lists/2018/06/ .
Last edited by davidcarver on 2018/10/29 16:50:24, edited 1 time in total.

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TrevorH
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Re: Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

Post by TrevorH » 2018/10/29 16:34:01

It's too soon to tell what it will mean for anything. The deal is announced but won't be completed, probably, until at least the middle to end of 2019. And then there'll be a period of review while they look at what they want to change (if anything) and then if there are changes they'll be coming in further down the line.

I suspect you don't need to worry about anything for at least a couple of years. And from what I remember of IBM when I was a mainframe systems programmer, they move incredibly slowly so it might be far far longer. So, bottom line, don't panic, wait and see.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

aks
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Re: Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

Post by aks » 2018/10/29 20:15:08

It may or may not be a good thing. I've never liked the commercial side of RHEL, but have always appreciated their "value-add". IBM is not as "evil" as (say) Oracle. What Oracle has done with Sun being the (sort of) benchmark.

IBM does have a long list of (truly) open source projects. Apparently RH will be a (almost) "independent" department within IBM. Well when money/business starts to bite, who knows?

IBM also has a very long (even longer!) pedigree of closed source/proprietary software and hardware. Although the PC standard (aka "IBM PC compatible" as it used to be known) was arguably the first wide spread (read: many people buying into) open hardware type of thing (albeit the licensing stuff around the BIOS code and so on).

From RH perspective, they can use IBM's reputation/pedigree/contacts/money to reach further into the (money making) "enterprise". From IBM's perspective, they are becoming a "nothing" (still an option) company and needs new kids on the block to play in the game. AWS/Azure making absolute billlions from the cloud, I think that's what is about.

In retrospect, IBM got burned by Microsoft over the OS/2 thing .... big time. Microsoft made a fortune and what did IBM really get?

I don't really know, but time will tell. Apparently IBM/RH is still going to be a open source company (as long as the code is licensed in such a manner ... although RH does makes *some* (an undefined amount) of it's code open).

Just a few ramblings from an old tired person. Take what you wish.

northpoint
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Re: Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

Post by northpoint » 2018/10/30 23:04:40

I too worry about this as I have some servers running centos also. I guess one can argue that the GPL will safeguard us but I really think it boils down to how many lawyers and money you have.

I will wait and see but I will also develop a backup plan just in case.

I have used RH before and started using it way back around 4.01 for running a BBS. I stuck with it thru Fedora Core but moved on because Fedora is kinda a test bed. I think I started linux around the 2.0.36 kernel which would put me at RH4.01 I do believe. I still have my boxed set sitting in my shop :)
Ryzen x1800 * Asus x370 Pro * CentOS 7.4 64bit / Icewarp /

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InitOrNot
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Re: Now that Red Hat is turning Blue...

Post by InitOrNot » 2018/12/24 14:38:48

If you think it is bad that IBM bought RedHat, wait until you see Microsoft buying Canonical and then you tell me what you think about it.

I think CentOS will keep going, because CentOS helps build mindshare for RHEL, otherwise freelance developers could not afford RHEL and when deploying in production those developer's wares you would have to match their environment and it would NOT be RHEL-like.

If IBM would kill CentOS, they would be shooting themselves in the face.

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