Just a couple thoughts on framing this "development": Yasha Karant <[log in to unmask]> writes: > Translation -- as a for-profit vendor, IBM does not want to subsidize > a competitor to RHEL that is without fee. I see this move in even worse light. Previously there was mutual benefit and trust between RH and CentOS/SL communities. The collective worked to make the shared system better, RH made money from those that need their hands held, while CentOS/SL community did not need to pay for what they did not need. What RH/IBM have done is to turn that relationship into an *exploitive* one. It has not just cut off the community from the "freeness" (as in beerness). Rather, the community (whatever will remain of it) now *works for free* for RH/IBM as beta testers. Now, for some, I think this new arrangement will be just fine. The "stream" nature of the CentOS new world order may actually be welcome for use some cases. Eg, I use and love Debian "testing" on my laptop. I can imagine those deep in the RH world and who do not already use Fedora on their laptops or workstations will enjoy CentOS Stream (I hear them crying now, "there are tens of us!"). For others, notably "grid" and other clusters and the sea of individual servers that can't afford RHEL but require stability, a new solution must be found. I've always considered Debian far more of a "scientific Linux" than SL. It has the stability and security fix support needed for large stable clusters and services. A switch of course will take effort. Lots of retraining (as someone who hates using RH, I can imagine there is a symmetry in how many RH admins/users think of Debian). Never the less, this development has made me hopeful that the crisis will bring about a better, Debian-oriented scientific computing future. > I suspect that I made the "correct" planning decision to switch to > Ubuntu LTS (until such time as Canonical follows the RH IBM path > ...). Canonical worries me (looking at you, "snaps") but in some sense they already have their beneficial exploitation of Debian (which has a decent level of mutuality) and that puts them kind of in their place. I can not imagine it would ever be worth it for Canonical to abandon Debian as their upstream feed. If they took a model of charging for Ubuntu builds (ala RHEL), it is relatively easy for users large and small to move to pure Debian or to one of the many Ubuntu rebuilds. For Canonical to "pull a RedHat" they'd need to "aquihire" the community leaders. I don't think it is technically possible for Debian to "sell out" like CentOS leadership. They are too numerous and too goverened by strong rules and practices that encode a moral community oriented philosophy. Nor would Debian give up due to funding as SL had to do. Debian actually has a surplus of cash. Likewise, the number of Ubuntu re-builds is too large for Canonical to buy out all of them. So, Canonical are, I think, "stuck". But, in a good way. They are not able to turn the tables on their community in the manner that RH/IBM just did. Well, famous last words, never underestimate the creative amorality of corporations, etc.... -Brett.