Spring is a binary clone of RHEL and the sources are not based off CentOS.

Quoting someone from the  Springdale mailinglist:  "Springdale Linux 
formerly known as PUIAS (Princeton University Institute for Advanced 
Studies) is older than CentOS and it compiles it's own binaries from the 
upstream source code. It is unrelated to CentOS and in my experience 
CentOS RPMs are not 100% safe. I tend to avoid them. Springdale has it's 
own repos, EPEL is ok and RPM Fusion works for me. For CUDA I use RHEL 
RPMs not CentOS RPMs the same goes for Chrome or anything else."

If you want to install Springdale you can just use the boot iso no DVD 
needed: puias.princeton.edu/data/puias/8.3/x86_64/os/images/boot.iso

As for converting from CentOS8 to Springdale it's basically removing the 
the Centos specific packages and replacing them with the Springdale 
packages. I have done this with a test system and afterwards with my 
personal systems that were running CentOS8. it worked flawlessly so I 
will be sticking to Springdale Linux even after Rocky Linux  is released.

Maarten

On 12/14/20 8:49 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:
> Springdale EL (Princeton in my terminology, just as SL is 
> Fermilab/CERN) shows the following:
>
> Download
> DVD
>
> i386    x86_64
> 8.3    TBA    TBA
>
> That is, there is no repo with an installable EL 8 ISO image.  As for 
> repos, Springdale shows:
>
> If you are only looking to install some rpms, you can download our 
> repositories on your system.
>
> YUM Repositories for PUIAS 8?  (NB:  This text was thus shown as not 
> [yet?] available.
>
> If Sprindale is built from CentOS, then such a build will no longer be 
> possible from CentOS Stream (a perpetual "beta" version, not a 
> production distro).  Springdale (and Rocky EL) and any future SL 8 -- 
> were the HEP community to fund such (personnel, space, and hardware 
> platforms) -- would need to get actual production RHEL 8 source from 
> IBM RH pursuant to the Linux, GPL, etc., licenses.  Such sources are 
> not "pretty" and are deliberately designed to be "unfriendly" to build 
> from source, even with removal of all of the proprietary "logo" IP.  
> The idea of keeping SL 7 "alive" with perpetual backporting also may 
> not be attractive.  For now, until IBM RH announces for CentOS 7 what 
> was announced for the to-be-defunct CentOS 8, CentOS 7 can keep SL 7 
> patched for security, albeit not necessarily for new hardware (e.g., 
> backporting drivers) or supporting new CPU and system I/O architectures.
>
> Yasha Karant
>
> On 12/14/20 3:39 AM, Maarten wrote:
>> I already converted over my personal systems over to Springdale Linux 
>> without having to reinstall because it saved me from having to 
>> reinstall Debian from scratch on all of my systems.
>>
>> On 12/14/20 12:37 PM, Tapia, Ron wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Is anyone considering Springdale Linux 
>>> (https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__springdale.math.ias.edu_&d=DwIFAw&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=fXPV3dpZLhNbng7dmn_Ujhzb4ZuEw1y-JygmhWnmWFc&s=X_cL7uUNfZJblixsdJpO5f8utO2X1cLdZWYLVmfwc-s&e= 
>>> ) as a way forward after SL7?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Ron
>>>
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