Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model [LWN.net]

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 25, 2023 7:29 UTC (Sun) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935)
In reply to: Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model by spmfox
Parent article: Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

It's pretty good, I would have no problem using it for a small server. The kernel backports lag about 3 months and that usually gives enough time to find bugs and fix them. There's comprehensive CI and manual testing done before every commit (that was a multi-year effort prior to the announcement of CentOS Stream, and a requirement to make it viable). Especially rebases aren't done lightheartedly, even though they don't require all the red tape that was needed in the RHEL5/6 days.

The main issue of Stream is that it tells you what will be in RHEL, not what is on your *current* production machines that hypothetically run RHEL. That ironically makes it a better OS for production environments than for testing environments, in my opinion.

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Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 25, 2023 12:27 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> The main issue of Stream is that it tells you what will be in RHEL, not what is on your *current* production machines that hypothetically run RHEL. That ironically makes it a better OS for production environments than for testing environments, in my opinion.

Exactly. Despite all of the bits spilled about this, Stream is genuinely a better production environment for every use case [1] that doesn't *explicitly* require a specific RHEL point release. Those that have such strict requirements are brittle to the point where you won't/can't update beyond said point release without vendor approval, which makes even the old CentOS model (and what the current "free rebuilds" are still doing) a non-starter as once version N.M is released, updates for N.M-1 ceased.

(If you genuinely need bug-for-bug compatibility with a specific RHEL point release, the incremental cost for that license is going to be a rounding error on your other SW licensing/support costs. Please, prove me wrong.)

[1] Anectdotally, this applied to every environment I've deployed a CentOS installation, going back well over a decade.