On 22/02/2020 02:15, Yasha Karant wrote:

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Two comments.

I am not pursuing the IBM FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)

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For the avoidance of doubt, I do not think you are pursuing FUD about IBM. I was not the person who accused you of that. Indeed, I think you are being sensibly cautious.

I just said that it seems to me that IBM does have a profit motive to keep CentOS (or some other free access to Red Hat or a functional equivalent) available for the foreseeable future.

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I understand the current for-profit business arguments that IBM will continue to make CentOS viable and stable. I also do not trust these for the long term unless there are some strong fiscal reasons to do so for the long term (e.g., a change in taxation policy and enforcement).

Sure, things might change but it seems to me that longer term changes are not easily predictable no matter what. I can only say that it seems to me that, for the foreseeable future, IBM and Red Hat have no good reason as far as I can see to shut down CentOS. In the current world, maximising profits from Red Hat is overall facilitated by there being what amounts to a free version of it easily available.

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Second, the issue of support. "My" university has changed dramatically under the current campus President. Even under the previous campus administrations, the only supported entities were those for administrative computing controlled by the administration and that has, and had, no academic freedom. Worthless for any research that interested me. Most of these functions have been outsourced at this time. The administrators in these areas have no background in science or engineering, but rather "management". I am not deprecating anyone, merely putting things into perspective. There is no internal support at my campus for academic freedom curiosity-directed disciplinary research, with some support for some persons to secure external funding. My funding to do any of this was external, not internal.

It's a shame that your university computing environment has become so commoditised (although it is increasingly the way of things for most institutional computing services). It sounds like it's being run purely as a business, not as an education/research establishment per se.