I will respond inline here.

> Linux Future Committee
> Membership is internally comprised of representatives of key business units of CERN
> 
> Future Linux distributions will be RPM based•

AlmaLinux is RPM based and 1:1 compatible with CentOS and will continue to be with RHEL.

> Efforts required for retraining and retooling are too high to move away from RPM•

Agreed.

> Future Linux distributions will need to support both x86_64 and aarch64•

We already have 8.3 x86_64, we plan on released aarch64 for 8.4 and work on other architectures down the line (Other variants of arm, POWER).

> Many (several thousand) SoC systems will soon come online with aarch64

This is one of our top priorities as well and we can work together to make sure we support the board/chip you need out of the box.

> CERN, Fermilab and other scientific sites are strongly interested in common roadmap(s)
> Provide CentOS Stream 8 repositories:•http://linuxsoft.cern.ch/cern/centos/{s8,s8-testing,s8-snapshots}
> Long-term: 31.12.2021 onwards•

Will be provided by CentOS.

> Drop support for CentOS Linux 8•
> Support CentOS Stream 8 (until end-of-life 31.05.2024)•
> Support “Next” Linux Operating system
> Based on the analysis from the Linux Future committee, collaboration with Fermilab and other HEP communities, as well as the WLCG -decide on the path forward

FYI, we plan on supporting AlmaLinux 8 for at last 10 years from last month. We have the experience, knowledge, resources and partnerships to do so.

Jack