https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.centos.org_centos-2Dstream_&d=DwIDaQ&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=yAaeW4f9xtdQ08yhjVT7qX0S-gAsNpSY7Id7ezyAphLTZ0NKDsy2d7J4TEXPsD9f&s=jyhYWm05q9jDkTXiroxs-GQK4CsUiTsZppNzv8Z2wsg&e= 
shows "9" as well as "8", with "9" "coming soon".  Typically, when there 
is a new IBM RHEL major release, one becomes motivated to transition to 
avoid "obsolescence" issues (library "X.n" does not exist in major 
release M, has not been reliably back-ported to M, but is supported in 
M+1).  For many real time control and data acquisition systems that have 
internal experimental group support (as with some of the HEP 
collaborations), this may not be such an issue, but for those of us who 
use a variety of utility applications we did not write (for display, 
analysis, simulation, and the like), this can be a significant issue. 
Thus, will Fermilab/CERN et al. be staying with CentOS Stream 8, or will 
there be a further transition to 9 in the not too distant future?

If Fermilab/CERN is "staying" with 8, will the equivalent of the current 
Fermilab SL "support" still exist for those of us not part of a HEP 
collaboration (that is, not a signatory to a HEP collaboration 
"agreement/contract") or are such of us in "broader science research" 
left to the mercy of whatever CentOS Stream will offer?  Will there be 
an equivalent to this SL list for those of us in such "broader science 
research", or again, will it simply be the CentOS Stream list/s?

I bluntly can state that the a major lack of Ubuntu LTS current 
production release "support" is lack of the equivalent of this SL list 
-- only support for fee has some equivalent of this SL list, and from 
communication with others who use that support, it does not have the 
candor and specific instructions (use this RPM, and then do ... , etc.) 
that often are communicated on this SL list (as is expected from a 
vendor employee who is not allowed to deviate from the vendor "party 
line").  In terms of stability and "package availability" as well as 
"new/er" hardware support, Ubuntu LTS does seem adequate -- except when 
a specific detailed issue arises and the Ask Ubuntu system does not 
supply an answer (many "reads", no meaningful applicable "answers").

On 10/25/21 06:00, Glenn Cooper wrote:
> CERN and Fermilab have been closely evaluating the Linux distribution landscape. We observe that national cyber infrastructure organizations are increasingly supporting more science domains, so in addition to LHC- or HEP-specific considerations, it will be useful to have a choice that is widely recognized and meets the needs of broader science research.
> 
> Red Hat has made a proposal to CERN regarding an academic licensing scheme. Ultimately this would require significant overhead at external sites, and therefore we have worries on this proposal’s attractiveness for other sites.
> 
> Going forward, we propose to target CentOS Stream as the standard distribution for experiments. We feel that deploying CentOS Stream 8 is low risk, and we now have months of experience running IT services and experiment offline workloads on CentOS Stream 8 without any significant issues.  We feel that should issues arise with the adoption of CentOS Stream 8, it would be straightforward to reevaluate other options before CentOS Stream 8 support ends. CentOS Stream 8 is a supported distribution until May 2024. Trivial migration paths are provided by the various ELC (Enterprise Linux Clone) communities.
> 
> Continued support for existing workloads on Scientific Linux 7 and CERN CentOS 7 will be maintained as previously planned.
>