Posts by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
(DIR) Post #AXbggARoeNFUxEim0W by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-06-23T21:59:08Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
What so many folks are missing is that the news this week isn't actually new. RHEL EUS and ELS update sources have always followed this policy. It's why RHEL clones didn't offer equivalents. I've been warning people about this for *years*. Here's the most recent example:https://old.reddit.com/r/AlmaLinux/comments/10m0etc/speculative_concern_about_migrating_centos_7_to/j66upha/
(DIR) Post #AXbggBLTJRlhjqlDl2 by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-06-23T22:01:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
#RedHat is not an open source company. It's an enterprise software company with an open source development model. It's not a charity, it's a business. It always has and always will make decisions in support of making a profit. Welcome to capitalism, for better or worse.
(DIR) Post #AXbggCGXtFQEarSnia by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-06-23T22:04:14Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
The announcement this week was that the automation to export RHEL source RPMs (the archives containing software sources and spec files, the recipes to build RPMs that make up RHEL) was being shut down. This automation was a legacy system from the original CentOS acqui-hire and the times when RHEL was developed completely in private, with a "throw it over the wall" open source approach.
(DIR) Post #AXbggD2P1JhezHr1JQ by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-06-23T22:05:58Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
We have something better now, an actual real community enterprise distro with an open development process that you can be a part of. This is #CentOS now. Everything there is completely unrestricted and people can do whatever they want with it, including making derivative distros. #RHEL itself is functionally a derivative distro based on CentOS Stream.
(DIR) Post #AXbggDmUFyZBIDPp8y by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-06-23T22:10:25Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
That legacy export system had zero benefit for CentOS and RHEL maintainers and contributors. The sources in CentOS are proper version-controlled package sources, with real commit messages. The stuff from the legacy export system was garbage by comparison, with commit messages like "import foo-1.0-1.el9".
(DIR) Post #AXbggEbBDV7FpR8J9s by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-06-23T22:13:37Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
That said, RHEL rebuilds were completely dependent on this legacy export system. They all knew that customer portal source RPMs, available under specific contractual agreements, met all the necessary license requirements. Remember the EUS and ELS stuff I brought up? Same thing. The legacy export system always existed at Red Hat's discretion. The rebuilds built their projects *and business offerings* on this, fully knowing the risks. It truly sucks for them, but that's the reality of it.
(DIR) Post #AXbggFSi0TvyVSB3aq by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-06-23T22:17:12Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
I have complicated feelings around this decision by my employer. I do not fully agree with it, and I'm not posting all this in an attempt to defend it, per se. I'm pointing out that this was completely predictable, and that because of that and the benefits of #CentOS Stream, there was an obvious choice for most people.
(DIR) Post #AXbggHBPblHpqO6GuW by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-06-23T22:20:37Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
My notifications are blowing up from this thread already, and I haven't read them all yet. But go ahead and miss me with the "RHEL is too expensive" complaints. Red Hat is a business with a product for sale. If you don't like the price, vote with your wallet and choose something else. Or negotiate a better price based on volume. That's how the enterprise software world works.
(DIR) Post #AXfrvgJmJc90GpOxPM by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-07-14T04:49:29Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@shaun Not quite right, no new license or subscription terms were introduced. The no redistribution clause has always been there for RHEL binaries and sources obtained via subscription. The minimum requirement of some of the licenses involved is to provide sources to those you provide binaries to. RH went beyond that by posting the sources for the latest minor versions of RHEL (not older EUS or ELS versions) in a few additional ways, in public and not bound by the no redistribution clause.
(DIR) Post #AXvUfGkjLHlE1wCnwG by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-07-21T15:20:39Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@maxgot CentOS Stream is RHEL built in the open in collaboration with the community. Decisions are still made by Red Hat, so it's not community led, but it's more community oriented than classic CentOS ever was.
(DIR) Post #AXvUfIT4xspVLlxjhg by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-07-21T16:42:25Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@maxgot This would be incredibly difficult to measure. The bulk of the dataset would come from GitLab merge requests. You would also have to go find bugzillas with patches attached, which was the workflow for CS8 before it was onboarded to the CS9 GitLab workflow.
(DIR) Post #AXvUfJQHPmBWJNf0ym by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-07-21T16:42:48Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@maxgot You'll have to identify the authors, not just as Hatters or not, but RHEL maintainers or not. I would argue that a MR from @Conan_Kudo working in a different department counts as community because working on RHEL is not his job. Or my submissions working in CPE to upstream debranding stuff for classic CentOS 8, or to resolve issues in support of EPEL. It gets even harder because I don't believe the maintainers are required to use their at-redhat-dot-com email addresses.
(DIR) Post #AXvUfLVJg1Oyla246i by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-07-21T16:47:08Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@maxgot @Conan_Kudo Even the GitLab metrics will be misleading, because there are several types of repos. A single dist-git commit probably encompasses more work than single src-git commit. Commits to releng things like comps would also be difficult to compare directly.
(DIR) Post #AYihbRy2qHW70cDj2O by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-07-12T02:48:18Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I regularly see folks state that they use a RHEL rebuild distro because managing RHEL subscriptions is too painful. 5 years or so ago, I might have been inclined to agree with them. That said, things can improve over time, so let's check out the current state. The most notable improvement in the last few years is a thing called Simple Content Access (SCA).#RHEL #RedHathttps://access.redhat.com/articles/simple-content-access
(DIR) Post #AYihbUOLpRkQWmXlJo by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-07-12T02:49:18Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
My main use cases for RHEL are building packages with mock and running repoquery commands inside local podman containers. How easy is it to use actual RHEL for these use cases? It's literally one command.sudo subscription-manager registerI ran that on my Fedora workstation, it prompted me for my username and password, and I was done. RHEL mock chroots just worked. Podman UBI containers just worked, with access to the full RHEL repos, not just the limited UBI repos.
(DIR) Post #AYihbWJofHJCVIRAWm by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-07-12T02:50:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
dnf commands on my workstation were slightly slower afterwards due to the dnf subscription-manager plugin. Since I don't need any subscription repos directly on my workstation, I disabled the plugin and the subscription-manager setting that would re-enable it.sudo subscription-manager config --rhsm.auto_enable_yum_plugins 0sudo sed -e '/^enabled=/ s/1/0/' -i /etc/dnf/plugins/subscription-manager.confDisabling this plugin doesn't affect the subscription passthrough to mock or podman.
(DIR) Post #AYihbYAJnYtqEQ0c08 by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2023-07-12T02:51:20Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
This was really easy y'all. If you were previously put off by frustrations with subscription-manager, give it another shot.
(DIR) Post #AjGsdGmLGyTRF5tMVk by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2024-06-25T01:08:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Hot take, apparently: "patches welcome" or "pull requests welcome" is just fine as a response to complaints. It's a gentle reminder of how open source works. If you are offended by it, that says more about you than the person saying it.
(DIR) Post #AmH2o7IhjLAz4L1GBE by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2024-09-22T19:29:28Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
#centos #rhel #redhat
(DIR) Post #AvTUxjtuVYqIuLNAqe by carlwgeorge@fosstodon.org
2025-06-25T02:26:02Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@BrodieOnLinux I did that as a bit of an inside joke for @mattdm, as a throwback to a comment on LWN a few years ago.