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As you know, after IBM's acquisition of RedHat, IBM shocked the Linux community killing CentOS 8 stable . There will be no CentOS Linux. Red Hat announced that there would only be CentOS Stream, which will act as a rolling version and will be used as the next RHEL. We now have a possible alternative called Rocky Linux.
CentOS Linux is reborn as Rocky Linux
I think Red Hat and IBM underestimated the Linux community. Did they believe they could get away with a significant change? How did they not see it coming? I think IBM and Red Hat don't care about open source anymore. They went ahead and removed a lot of things from the CentOS wiki as well:
Second Ars , CentOS co-founder Greg Kurtzer is one of many community members who is not happy with Red Hat's decision to shut down CentOS Linux. Kurtzer released the following press release on Wednesday:
I was as shocked as the rest of the community by the Red Hat news. When I started CentOS 16 years ago, I never imagined the incredible reach and impact it would have around the world on individuals and businesses who rely on CentOS for Linux distribution. In response to this unexpected change, I am proud to announce the launch of a new project, Rocky Linux
I will treat CentOS Stream as beta or development software. I'd rather use Arch Linux or Debian testing than deal with these IBM scams. I strongly believe that both Ubuntu / Debian and SUSE / OpenSUSE will gain market share. Here are the percentages of websites using various subcategories (distributions) of Linux:
What is the Rocky Linux Project?
From place of the project :
Rocky Linux is a community business operating system designed to be 100% bug-by-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux now that CentOS has changed direction. It is undergoing intense community development. Rocky Linux is led by Gregory Kurtzer, founder of the CentOS project. There is no expected arrival time for a release. Contributors are encouraged to contact using the communication options offered on this site.
CloudLinux, but alternative and RHEL 8 fork for CentOS 8 users
Second Wikipedia , CloudLinux OS is a Linux distribution marketed by shared hosting providers. It is developed by the software company CloudLinux, Inc. The CloudLinux operating system is based on the CentOS operating system. In a post on the blog , also announced the fork of RHEL 8:
We already maintain the CloudLinux operating system, plan to release a free, open source, community driven, 1: 1 binary compatible fork of RHEL® 8 (and future versions) in Q2021 8. We will create a separate, totally free fork Fully binary operating system compatible with RHEL® XNUMX (and future versions). We will sponsor the development and maintenance of this operating system. We will work to create a community around the operating system, with the board of directors of the community members.
summing up
IBM now owns the Red Hat software. So, they are trying to milk every penny from their purchase. I expect IBM to make a huge price change in Red Hat-owned software such as RHEL, Ansible, Red Hat Virtualization, OpenStack, JBoss Enterprise, and other apps. They will use corporate lawyers to enforce even stricter licensing for RHEL and make it unlikely that anyone will fork Red Hat Enterprise Linux anytime soon. I can't wait to see Rocky Linux as CentOS's successor and wish them the best of luck as it takes time to rebuild goodwill and branding in the open source world.
Would you use Rocky Linux once it's released?
We leave you a short but eloquent video from MorroLinux which sums up the problem well.
