Downstream?
What's the timeline look like on this for some of the newer downstream projects like Rocky and Alma?
Red Hat has officially lifted the lid on version 9 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), code-named Plow, the latest major version of the dominant paid-for, commercial server Linux. This release aims to roll out features and functionality without being too different from its older siblings. The IBM subsidiary said it expected …
Alma aim for 48 hours, I've not seen them miss that yet, they've shipped 9beta for a while so they've got the process in place. Rocky aren't normally far behind. So far both have been light years ahead of where CentOS were with 7 or 8 releases.
Looking on Red Hat's site I can't see the download for 9 being available, just a "we've announced 9" and they're still offering 9Beta for download.
What I did notice is the release of 8.6 today. So the clock is ticking to see whether Alma manage Thursday, again they've been offering 8.6 beta for a short while so I guess they've got the process in place.
From the Press Release El Reg is working from:
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 will be generally available in the coming weeks via the Red Hat Customer Portal and major cloud provider marketplaces."
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-defines-new-epicenter-innovation-red-hat-enterprise-linux-9
Who is to say whether "coming weeks" means two or twenty...
-> Pricing starts at $179 for the workstation edition, if you can live without support, and $299 with one year of support. The most basic server edition starts at $349 without support, $799 with a year of standard (business hours) support, and $1,299 for premium (24×7) support for severity 1 and 2 cases.
$179 or $349 for an ISO image. Or $299 for a 1 year desktop subscription. Ha ha ha ha ha. I really wonder who buys this stuff. On the server, maybe it's reasonable to satisfy certain support requirements. But for a desktop they want $299 per year. It's free as in speech and not as in beer. Well you didn't need to explain that to me.
How much is an Oracle Solaris licence with one year of premium support for non-Oracle hardware? 4 sockets £713.
Tell me again about how good a deal this is, and for who. The next time we read about some essential part of Linux infrastructure (let's call it that) which doesn't have enough funding, why not buy a support contract from them?
" ... Tell me again about how good a deal this is, and for who. ... "
Oh, I don't know.
" ... In the quarter ended in March, IBM reported revenues up 7.7 percent to $14.2 billion, and net income up 1.8X to $733 million. Red Hat's revenues rose by 18 percent as reported (and by 21 percent at constant currency) to what we calculate as $1.41 billion ... "
But with numbers like that, I'm guessing ............
A WHOLE FUCKING LOT OF PEOPLE.
" ... The next time we read about some essential part of Linux infrastructure ... "
I think that ...........
60% of the internet.
Amazon.
Google.
To just to name 3, pretty much MAKES it "essential" to "infrastructure".
No they all run the free clones.
Some probably have a few paid for Red Hat subscriptions so they can get support. Even the entry level self supporter level gets your bug reports read reasonably promptly.
But they were running CentOS in their mega data centers. This is partly why the ending of CentOS caused so much alarm. A few have opened their petty cash tins to chuck a few dimes at Alma & Rocky. But normally these guys have in house expertise.
I think GitHub announced they'd switched from CentOS to Alma the other day.
But huge numbers of customers like the warm feeling of having support and their managers like the idea of having someone to shout at.
If you run a business that relies on a service you need to have some recourse if that service fails. If you can't meet contractual obligations to your customers they'll be pissed off with you and that pissediness could well take the form of legal action. If you run RHEL and you have RH support in place you can expect them to work on the problem and hopefully fix or work around issues so you don't get into trouble. If you run a community supported distro then you may well get a quicker better response but you have no assurance of that and if you don't then there is nothing you can do about it whereas if you have a contract with large organization then there is.
Obviously in your case you'd not ever run what you consider (and have repeated said) to be a virus. But the majority of the Internet does run on flavors of Linux.
For the Internet giants who run sites with 10s of thousands of physical servers they can afford to have their own teams in house. But even many IT companies are moving away from that model.
Never said it was a good deal. This is to make money from the people that go "well if it ain't expensive, it ain't any good" and I know a LOT of those people.
If you're not one of those people, there's devuan.org and other places.
Unfortunately Oracle Solaris comes with Oracle, so they have to pay me to take it. I have to use that garbage at work.
The next time we read about some essential part of Linux infrastructure (let's call it that) which doesn't have enough funding, why not buy a support contract from them?
I usually suggest they get Patreon and I support through that. That lets me easily and automatically send $5 (or whatever) a month to a project that deserves it.
>How much is an Oracle Solaris licence with one year of premium support for non-Oracle hardware? 4 sockets £713.
To be fair there if you're counting your license acquisitons in terms of number of sockets and you can count that number on one hand you're probably not the target market for RHEL.
It's the dominant Linux in the enterprise world.
But even there practically nobody will be using it on a desktop.
The vast corporation I work for pays for both Redhat and SUSE licenses for various things we do.
I don't know exactly how much we spend every year, but my guess would be ~$20 - $30 million US. In that sort of ballpark anyway.
I'm going to assume there are good reasons we spend that money, but even if there are not, it's not my money and they spent $1 billion or so on share buybacks.
I know which one I prefer.
"As with any long-term supported distro, this can cause issues when you need newer versions of core components"
For Linux, I still use RHEL 6 because I am waiting for a decent desktop environment to appear again. I find you can solve the issue of the "core OS component" treadmill by creating a simple Debian chroot with debootstrap for those few applications that you unfortunately need the latest version of (like Web Browsers).
And RHEL 6 is effectively ancient. You can probably get away with this solution and RHEL 9 for 20+ years.
Quite.
And I think, for me at least, it's eventually less about how the technology turns out, and more about how Red Hat (mis-)handled the change.
That is, if they had announced CentOS Stream before 8 release, while most of us were still firmly in the EL7 release, or before 9 release while leaving EL8 lifespan and support policies unchanged, there might have been somewhat less uproar.
But putting out Stream after EL8 was released and some people and orgs had already begun migrations, and also chopping the announced support lifespan which people had been planning around, that felt like pulling the rug out.
Small wonder that some people stopped trusting Red Hat (or trusted them even less, as the case may be), and started looking for alternatives.