They simply repackage and rebrand RHEL, then give it away for free. If anything I'd be quicker to call RHEL the free rider on the hundreds of pieces of OSS software they use (but I do not make that argument).
If you want a warranty/support contract, definitely purchase RHEL. If you don't need that, but want enterprise grade stability and compatibility, use CentOS. If you want to run Linux on your laptop, don't use either.
> If you want to run Linux on your laptop, don't use either.
Actually CentOS 6.4 has been the most reliable thing on my Lenovo T61, T400 and Dell T3500. Everything works from hibernate, sleep, WiFi, SAS, SSD's out of the box with no configuration.
This is the polar opposite of Ubuntu, Debian stable, Debian testing and Mint which are royal bastards to get off the ground.
Never again. Always seemed laggy. I just loaded Scientific Linux 6.3 on 3 old thinkpads this past weekend. As you said, everything works. No "sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf", no modprobe & ndiswrapper. Red Hat was my first peek at linux, so I'm a tad nostalgic (remember 9.1? crux, luxi sans?).
That's good because given the amount of code Red Hat contribute back to the community, including buying proprietary tools and open sourcing them, you'd look like a complete idiot.
If you want a warranty/support contract, definitely purchase RHEL. If you don't need that, but want enterprise grade stability and compatibility, use CentOS. If you want to run Linux on your laptop, don't use either.