On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 7:41 PM Johnny Hughes <johnny@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 12/15/20 6:12 PM, Joshua Kramer wrote:
> >> I don't think there will be a course change either, but for different
> >> reasons. The motivation isn't "cashing/selling out". It's... actually
> the
> >> stated motivation
> >> https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-centos-stream-updates#Q2
> >
> > First, I will note that I think the idea of creating *a version of*
> > CentOS that is called "Stream", with the intent that it leads RHEL by
> > a bit, is a GREAT idea, for exactly the stated reasons!
> >
> > There's one problem I have with this asserted motivation. Stream is
> > not being done as *a version of* CentOS. It is being done as *THE*
> > CentOS, which means you're discontinuing point releases. As far as
> > "maintaining CentOS point releases to follow RHEL"- this is what is
> > being discontinued. How much money, in developer time and other
> > incidentals, does this cost RedHat per year? Of course this is a
> > proprietary number. But let's imagine that this number is $250k per
> > year. Out of what was it, about $433M of profit (2019)? So it would
> > cost RedHat 0.06% of profit to hire more developers to keep issuing
> > CentOS point releases.
> >
> > What does RedHat "buy" in return for spending 0.06% of its profit on
> > maintaining point releases?
> > -Community trust and goodwill. Those members of the community that
> > cannot afford RedHat licenses for whatever reason still know that the
> > #1 player in the Linux marketplace still has their back. Then when
> > those folks move on to enterprises that can afford RH licensing (and
> > in some cases demand it), will select RedHat because of this trust and
> > goodwill. They will be highly likely to recommend other RedHat
> > products- since it all "works together" and they'll know RHEL (i.e.
> > CentOS) well. Also note that this trust and goodwill means
> > "convenience", even within enterprises that have a large budget with
> > RedHat. If I have a project and I want to spin up 100 OS instances
> > just for the heck of it, I can. I don't need to ask anyone, I don't
> > need to reserve or download any entitlement key files. I don't need
> > to debug weird problems when entitlement key files don't work.
> > -Control of part of the ecosystem. Those companies that build their
> > products to run on RHEL (or in RHEL containers) are able to (and
> > encouraged to) certify those products on RHEL because they are able to
> > use CentOS.
> >
> > But more to the point, what does RedHat LOSE by saving 0.06% of its
> > profit? The damage to community trust and goodwill far exceeds the
> > gains that would be realized if the status quo were kept in place.
> > Yes, it's true that many of the folks who used CentOS would never turn
> > into paying customers. But due to this situation, you have thousands
> > of system administrators who are actively looking to completely
> > abandon the RedHat ecosystem altogether. When it comes time to
> > recommend products... they aren't going to recommend RHEL. They
> > aren't going to recommend JBoss, or Fuse, or 3Scale API management.
> > It's clear that RedHat can't be trusted with some parts of its
> > portfolio, so why should we trust ANY of its products?
>
> So don't trust them. Move to something else if you think something is
> better.
>
> >
> > If it is 100% factually correct that the ONLY motivation for killing
> > point releases is the stated motivation, then it's just a simple
> > matter of finding a spare $250k (or whatever that cost is) from the
> > almost-half-a-billion dollar corporate coin purse. The return on
> > investment has been, and will continue to be, immeasurable...
> $250K is not even close. That is one employee, when you also take into
> account unemployment insurance, HR, medical insurance etc. now multiply
> that by 8. Now, outfit those 8 employees to work from home .. all over
> the world, different countries, different laws.
>
> .. THEN buy 30 machines minimum (servers, not workstations) for
> building and testing, buy a service contract for those 30 machines, host
> the bandwidth required to sync out to 600 worldwide servers.
>
> We need all the CI machines .. that is a bunch of blade servers for
> that. They need service contacts too.
>
> In any event it doesn't matter. The decision is made. If people don't
> want to use CentOS Stream, then don't. The decision is not changing.
> _______________________________________________
>
We won't.
Thanks for all your work in the past. Good luck to you.
And to Red Hat I have one more thing to say:
Buh bye!
###
--
*Matt Phelps*
*Information Technology Specialist, Systems Administrator*
(Computation Facility, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory)
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
60 Garden Street | MS 39 | Cambridge, MA 02138
email: mphelps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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