
CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat - socialized
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2014-January/020100.html
======
redhatstory
In the beginning, there was Red Hat Linux[1]. It was sold in boxes at stores
such as CompUSA (remember?) but was also available for free download from Red
Hat.

Then, Red Hat decided they could make more money by spinning off Red Hat Linux
into a separate enterprise-only product called Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(RHEL), which they declined to make available for free in a ready-to-install
binary form. Fedora[2] was also spun off at this time, as the free successor
to Red Hat Linux that was supposed to be only suitable for home users. Fedora
development was/is sponsored by Red Hat but they did not offer end-user
support, in contrast to RHEL.

Meanwhile, there was demand for a free version of RHEL. Since it was built
with GPL software, Red Hat was obligated to make it available in source form,
but their trademark policy prohibited anyone else from using the Red Hat name.
Therefore, a group of volunteers took RHEL, removed Red Hat trademarks, and
called it CentOS. To avoid confusion, CentOS explained the origins of the
distribution on their web site. For their efforts, they were threatened by Red
Hat's legal department and forced to remove all mentions of Red Hat and even
links to Red Hat's web site from the CentOS web site. CentOS complied and
began referring to its Red Hat derivations using the euphemism PNAELV[3].

Now, Red Hat has again decided they would benefit from being more directly
involved in providing an open-source, freely-available enterprise Linux
distribution. We've come full circle.

(Flippant depiction aside, I intend no antagonism, but merely find the history
of these projects interesting.)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Linux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Linux)
[2]: [https://fedoraproject.org/en/about-
fedora](https://fedoraproject.org/en/about-fedora) [3]:
[http://www.pnaelv.net](http://www.pnaelv.net)

~~~
justinmk
Red Hat is one of the most prolific single-entity contributors to open source
in the history of open source. I find it really odd that some FOSS people
regard Red Hat as some sort of evil corporation that should be the target of
said FOSS people's flung shit.

By the way, what did Firefox do to live down its IceWeasel[1] infamy?

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat)

~~~
cookiecaper
The Firefox trademark dispute is not the same thing. Red Hat was attempting to
keep their product from the open-source homebrew market -- they wanted to
charge money for their software, and did this as far as the license would
allow. Red Hat was as hostile as legally permissible to anyone trying to
circumvent this, like CentOS.

Mozilla simply claimed that the Firefox trademark cannot be applied to any
codebase that Mozilla, the trademark owner, hadn't officially sanctioned. They
began to actively prosecute those cases because some people were modifying the
Firefox source to contain malicious code and calling it "Firefox",
misappropriating Mozilla's trademark. Because Debian issues a version of
Firefox that contains unofficial patches, they cannot legally call their
distribution "Firefox", since Mozilla hasn't officially blessed that exact
codebase.

tl;dr Red Hat was trying to make money from users, and Mozilla wasn't

Disclaimer: I personally fully support making money from users and reject
freedom 2 as a true fundamental of "free-as-in-freedom software". I'm just
explaining why some people in FOSS dislike Red Hat, as it pertains to the
CentOS backstory, and why nobody cares about Mozilla's brief trademark dispute
with Debian.

~~~
ghshephard
"Red Hat was attempting to keep their product from the open-source homebrew
market "

Nothing would make Red Hat happier than having every hacker under the sun
using Red Hat - what they were attempting to do was keep the enterprise
customers, who were currently paying $1000+/CPU (or so) go with a free
alternative and kill their company.

Simply removing three things allowed them to do that: (1) No RHN/Up2Date
available for Centos, (2) No Support, (3) Most importantly, absolutely no
mention or reference to "Redhat" Trademarks.

Centos had everything else.

~~~
nitrogen
_(3) Most importantly, absolutely no mention or reference to "Redhat"
Trademarks._

This is evil, because the law is supposed to allow referential use of
trademarks as a fair use.

Otherwise, RedHat's existence is highly beneficial to Linux.

~~~
blueskin_
That's a self-imposed policy on CentOS' side, not something they were forced
to do.

------
akbar501
Congrats to the CentOS team. You filled a much needed gap when the Fedora /
RHEL split happened.

As someone who used Red Hat Linux in the 90's / early 2000's, you had to be
there to know how large of a gap the CentOS team filled.

Historical background:

Red Hat Linux (RHL) was the most widely used Linux distro in the late 90's /
early 2000's. Overnight, RedHat destabilized RHL by turning it into Fedora
with it's rapid release cycles, lack of back ports, bleeding edge packages
etc. RHEL became a closed distro with only source distributed, but none of the
tools to easily replicate the build.

RHL users (who were the majority of Linux users) were faced with a choice. Pay
for RHEL or switch distros. This really sucked b/c RHL deployments were
largely servers that were designed for long term deployments. The community
was faced with a large scale migration of servers which involved a large
population of web and edge of network deployments.

This is when CentOS stepped in, created a binary compatible build of RHEL, and
allowed long time RHL users to continue with a RedHat-like distro.

RedHat has been a major contributor to OSS. However, projects like CentOS have
filled very important roles in the Linux and OSS communities. Again, congrats
to the team.

------
lvillani
I really wish that, when RHEL/CentOS branches from Fedora to make a new
release, they would also keep and provide a snapshot of Fedora's repository at
that time, just like what Ubuntu does when they sync with Debian Sid (i.e.:
packages in 'main' and 'restricted' repos are supported, all other packages in
the Debian archive are imported and made available in 'universe' and
'multiverse' repository for your convenience).

That would work a long way to make CentOS a viable Linux distribution for
everyday use. In my experience, EPEL isn't enough and rebuilding packages
seems like a wasted effort since they were _there_ when they branched off to
prep a new release.

Add a somewhat predictable release schedule on top of that (again, in my
opinion Ubuntu hit the sweet spot with 24 months here) and that would be the
icing on the cake. Heck, RHEL 6 was first released in 2010 and there's still
Python 2.6 on that!

I know that I could shut up and use Ubuntu (I do), it's just that I like
RedHat way more than Canonical but they don't make it easy for me to use and
love their products (speaking as a former Fedora user and contributor).

~~~
McGlockenshire
> I really wish that, when RHEL/CentOS branches from Fedora to make a new
> release, they would also keep a snapshot of Fedora's repository at that time

It isn't always so easy. I don't know what RHEL7 is like, but for 6 and 5
there wasn't a complete correlation between a Fedora release and a RHEL
release. For example, 6 is mostly based on Fedora 12, except for a bunch of
backports from 13 and a few from 14.

~~~
rodgerd
7 is definitely a mix of bits from 19 and 20.

------
jonathonf
A bit more information in the official announcement:
[http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-
announce/2014-Janua...](http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-
announce/2014-January/020100.html)

"With great excitement I'd like to announce that we are joining the Red Hat
family. The CentOS Project ( [http://www.centos.org](http://www.centos.org) )
is joining forces with Red Hat. Working as part of the Open Source and
Standards team ( [http://community.redhat.com/](http://community.redhat.com/)
) to foster rapid innovation beyond the platform into the next generation of
emerging technologies. Working alongside the Fedora and RHEL ecosystems, we
hope to further expand on the community offerings by providing a platform that
is easily consumed, by other projects to promote their code while we maintain
the established base."

(continues)

~~~
McGlockenshire
Additional useful highlights:

> \- Some of us now work for Red Hat, but not RHEL.

> \- Red Hat is offering to sponsor some of the buildsystem and initial
> content delivery resources

> \- Because we are now able to work with the Red Hat legal teams, some of the
> contraints that resulted in efforts like CentOS-QA being behind closed
> doors, now go away and we hope to have the entire build, test, and delivery
> chain open to anyone who wishes to come and join the effort.

> \- The Red Hat Enterprise Linux to CentOS firewall will also remain. Members
> and contributors to the CentOS efforts are still isolated from the RHEL
> Groups inside Red Hat, with the only interface being srpm / source path
> tracking, no sooner than is considered released. In summary: we retain an
> upstream.

~~~
pyre
Why would the build, test, and delivery chain be subject to Red Hat's legal
team? Did the process to remove Red Hat's marks from their GPL'd source
trigger trademark issues?

~~~
jlawer
I think the problem is that if they missed a trademark then CentOS was
distributing Redhat's Trademarks putting them in a sticky legal position.

~~~
geekowl
This is one of the reasons for being a fully independent distro with no ties
to a "corporation". Debian comes to mind, as does Slackware, Arch, Gentoo, a
couple of others. Being able to go about your business as a distro without
corporate oversight is desirable these days.

CentOS now has a "master" where before, the GPL allowed them to simply take
the source, remove trademarks, and re-compile as CentOS, getting the benefits
of a corporately-funded distro without the legal constraints of evil IP and
what not.

RH also may choose to play ball with certain organizations that I don't agree
with. This may affect CentOS in some way. An indy distro can give them the
finger and tell them to get bent. My goal is not money, it's freedom from
oversight, freedom to do as I please, freedom to have an unencumbered distro
not tainted by the likes of the false notion of IP, legal nonsense, you name
it. Debian is growing for a reason. One of those reasons is because it's an
indy distro.

~~~
bonzini
I understand what you mean by independence from corporation, but from CentOS
it's the other way round.

CentOS has always been a "slave" of Red Hat by design and, before this move,
the master could even sue it for misappropriating trademarks. Now, QA of
packages can be done in the open, because it would no longer be as problematic
to ship test-quality packages that still happen to include a Red Hat
trademark.

------
colinbartlett
Does this mean we can finally stop referring to RedHat as an unnamed
"Prominent North American Enterprise Linux Vendor"?

~~~
Nux
Yes (according to one of the core devs).

~~~
AlexanderDhoore
I think that's kind of sad, actually. Always made me laugh.

------
rootbear
I hope this will make it easier for me to use CentOS at NASA. They only want
us to use Linux distributions that are actively supported with security fixes
and for some reason they don't think CentOS qualifies, since it's not a "real"
company. They prefer us to use RHEL, Ubuntu, or Suse. But if this new
arrangement increases the perception of timeliness for updates, then maybe we
can start using it and save some money.

Edited for clarity.

~~~
hatchoo
Although I cannot personally vouch for it, I read that Scientific Linux gets
updates more often compared to CentOS.

------
k3oni
I am not sure if i feel happy or not about this. I just hope they don't go the
Fedora way on mangling, moving and changing everything around with every
iteration.

I don't see what interest has RH into Centos except for trying to disrupt the
base and push that way more businesses and customers to RH.

Maybe i'm just biased but Centos is doing pretty good in my opinion except
maybe the late code changes and updates.

~~~
McGlockenshire
> I just hope they don't go the Fedora way on mangling, moving and changing
> everything around with every iteration.

Why would they? CentOS is RHEL, they'll ship whatever RHEL ships.

~~~
ballard
RH may try to cripple CentOS, gather user statistics or advertise to promote
more consumption of RHEL instead.

"Keep your friends close, ..." because it's just business.

~~~
kbenson
More likely they'll provide a _more official_ way to convert CentOS to RHEL
and buy a support contract. It's always been possible, and many people use
CentOS with the understanding that if anything get really crazy, they can do
just that an buy support.

------
Keyframe
So, in general nothing much will change for users? Red Hat is introducing
stability by employing core developers to work solely on CentOS and possibly
streamlining changes between RHEL <-> CentOS. Or, if you prefer to view it
like that, Red Hat is exercising more direct control over CentOS.

~~~
justincormack
The comment below
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7020134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7020134)
says build and test in centos will open up, which is great news.

------
dmourati
I've largely made my living off CentOS software. I hope this new friendship
doesn't cause CentOS to become diluted or eventually shuttered. Great project
run by a very small number of very dedicated supporters. Best of luck to them.

~~~
themodelplumber
My concern is more along the lines of a sudden injection of tons of energy
causing the CentOS ecosystem some extreme growing pain. That could filter down
to individual service providers' servers becoming less reliable or even just
needing more frequent attention, which would be painful enough.

------
emmelaich
I think Red Hat had to do this, otherwise CentOS would be drawn closer and
closer to Oracle.

~~~
Nux
lol!

------
jlgaddis
I wonder if this will lead to CentOS getting security updates at the same time
as RHEL (or very shortly thereafter) or if CentOS will continue to have to
"play catch-up".

It is for this reason that I moved to Oracle Linux about a year ago when
deploying a bunch of new machines. I am certainly no fan of Oracle the company
but they were getting security updates out much quicker than CentOS.

------
geekowl
I see this as RH not wanting competition and/or wanting to somehow control
CentOS. It's no wonder, honestly, that Debian is gaining in popularity as they
are the last of the main Linux distros who control their own destiny. I feel
very awkward about this news.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
The absolute worst that can happen is a return to the state of today. Also,
CentOS didn't do anything new and creative and visionary that all. Their goal
from the beginning was to replicate RHEL with all the non-free bits (mostly
artwork and trademarks) replaced.

~~~
geekowl
The concern isn't to have anything new and creative. That's not always the
goal of OSS. The goal is the have free and open equal alternatives to
corporate-controlled software. Debian, for example, is likely the last of the
truly unencumbered distros.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
Tell me what CentOS will no longer be able to do that they could previously.

~~~
geekowl
The idea is to have a distro with no "corporate" oversight -- an independent
distro. This is the reasons why I heavily lean Debian and OpenBSD, because
they are independent.

~~~
sciurus
Since CentOS blindly reproduced a product generated by a corporation, I'm
having a hard time understanding your argument.

------
johnchristopher
What would the consequences/benefits be for the Fedora project ?

~~~
this_user
RHEL and CentOS are aimed towards enterprise customers, Fedora is for
individual users. I don't think there's any kind of real competition or even
overlap between CentOS and Fedora. In addition, Fedora is basically a
community project (although led by RH). It seems unlikely that RH would be
able to shut down or materially alter the Fedora project even if the wanted
to. In the worst case scenario the community could just branch the code and
form a new organisation to lead its development.

~~~
langdon
The Fedora Project is also going through some pretty significant changes. See
[https://lwn.net/Articles/569795/](https://lwn.net/Articles/569795/) (although
slightly OT).

------
mergy
Now if they can just get rid of RPM I might come back!

~~~
Nux
Do come back, it's better than the competition nowadays. :)

~~~
BCM43
How so?

~~~
undoware
I'm not sure what the OP 'mergy' intended, but I'd guess that the intended
reason had to do with better ecosystem curation. Under the hood, my
understanding is that .rpm is marginally inferior to .dpkg, but not remarkably
so. E.g. using cpio instead of gz as the format basis. So by elimination, the
only reason to prefer .rpm would be the rpms, if you follow.

As a longtime Fedora user and a recent emigre (post-Snowden) to OpenSuSE, I
agree that there is much to love about the selection of RPMs available,
especially under Fedora. Although I'm sticking with suse for the lightning-
fast zypper (still noticably faster than yum or even its slated nextgen
replacement dnf!) and well-thought-out snapper utilities. But that is OT.

~~~
matt__rose
Mostly it's a matter of picking your poison. dpkg allows some things that RPM
doesn't, and vice-versa. dpkg does have some nice features (well, features I
can't remember, except for I went "Ooo, I want rpm to have that" when I saw
it)

One thing that dpkg has that really annoys the hell out of me is allowing for
user input during the transaction. It makes unattended upgrades impossible

~~~
YokoZar
In general Debian/Ubuntu packages do not prompt the user with debconf
questions these days, although there are occasional leftovers in old packages
if you upgrade via a terminal with apt-get update.

You can define an environment variable, DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive, to
force even the worst-behaved packages to never ask a question.

~~~
tene
You can set those configurations, certainly, but it's up to the package
maintainer to actually respect them. At my previous company, I occasionally
ran into packages that insisted on trying to read from the terminal, even when
installed noninteractively, with all configuration flags set to
noninteractive. I can understand the potential appeal for a lone individual
working with a small number of hand-maintained systems, but when working with
a large cluster, interaction during package operations is just a horrible
misfeature.

