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@maxamillion While I agree, it's definitely not helping things that CentOS Stream still goes EOL well before RHEL, AlmaLinux, etc.

@maxamillion That doesn't mean it isn't good or useful, but that it takes more intentional consideration in deploying it than CentOS Linux did.

@vwbusguy fair

@maxamillion This is unfortunately not trivial. I've had some trouble with filing Github issues against CentOS Stream because the upstream only now "supports Rocky", etc. Having to cut through the FUD around it gets tiring, honestly, but CS is still really nice for having fast track container patches and as a CI platform. I mean, I'm still using it very much, but I understand why there's preference for the rebuilds.

@maxamillion I would also be quick to point out that CS is part of the success story for AlmaLinux as they build against CS repos ahead of their own releases, which is part of why they're so quick to have stuff out when RHEL releases (especially compared to Rocky and Oracle who tend to have significant more lag).

@maxamillion I don't have the bandwidth for this right now, but sometime I'd be curious to test the differences between CS and AlmaLinux with the testing repo enabled.

@vwbusguy biggest difference is you can actually contribute to CS. Alma is a rebuild and if you need to fix something or get a feature into Alma then you submit a merge request to CS and wait until it lands in Alma downstream.

@maxamillion Oh sure, I understand that as someone who is into contributing to open source and building stuff. It's a harder sell in a place that's just looking for a platform to run their production stuff. No one wants to risk having to explain that prod is down because of a patch in CS that broke something and the vendor no longer "supports CentOS" (even if it's eventually going to be a problem for the vendor in the next RHEL release).

@vwbusguy @maxamillion Translates to “we don’t want to pay, but we want assurances and garantuees for free and will blame others happily” #SarcasmButOnlyHalf

@jwildeboer @vwbusguy seems that way

@maxamillion @jwildeboer That's one way to look at it. I say this as some someone who maintains CentOS Stream, RHEL, and the rebuilds in my dayjob. Frankly, the rebuilds mean you're likely to get vendor support and don't have to deal with rhsm (or acquiring contacts if they don't already exist). Often those decisions get made more out of convenience than social responsibility or even brand loyalty.

@maxamillion @jwildeboer Personally, the biggest reasons *I* might choose AlmaLinux over CentOS Stream or RHEL for something:
* Longer lifespan
* Desire less frequent updates
* Don't feel like messing with subscription-manager

At least with AlmaLinux, we can also contribute with testing and such for ELevate, which also helps upstream (and other downstreams).

@maxamillion @jwildeboer Oh yeah, and the rebuilds post security errata, which you don't get with CentOS Stream.

@vwbusguy @jwildeboer I'm curious where they get that errata from if they're rebuilding from CS.

@maxamillion @vwbusguy @jwildeboer They aren't rebuilding from CS. They're rebuilding from exported RHEL sources. Their errata is copied from RHEL with text search and replace, no validation.

@carlwgeorge @vwbusguy @jwildeboer isn't redistribution of errata a violation of the data usage terms? Or did I imagine that?