Ever since Red Hat announced that CentOS would be discontinued and replaced entirely with the new CentOS Stream, there has been a lot of confusion in the open source community about Red Hat's move. In this regard, Zhang Jiaju, Chief Architect of Red Hat, answered questions recently and explained this change in CentOS.
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As a replica of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS was once popular in the market for its open source, free and stable features. However, Red Hat believes that CentOS, which is downstream of RHEL, cannot meet the needs of today's enterprises. In order to create a better environment for innovation, the company redesigned and launched a better community version, CentOS Stream, and placed it upstream of RHEL to create a better CentOS and RHEL.
Zhang Jiaju said that the difference between CentOS Stream and RHEL itself is very small, and the stability of CentOS Stream and RHEL is basically the same. The purpose of CentOS Stream is to increase transparency and collaboration in the RHEL development process.
Developers in the community will find that the development process of RHEL is integrated with the development process of CentOS, so that users will more easily access some resources of Red Hat. Zhang Jiaju also showed a version of CentOS Stream on February 24 on the live broadcast. After comparison, the git log of RHEL's enterprise code is actually the same as the latest code log of CentOS Stream. So the difference between the two is tiny.
It is foreseeable that the transfer of resources and investment to CentOS Stream will further drive Linux innovation and allow the wider ecosystem community to have a closer connection to and the ability to participate in RHEL development.
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When asked if CentOS users will not be able to get patches and security updates after CentOS stops updating, Zhang Jiaju emphasized that the update frequency of CentOS Stream is faster than that of CentOS, and CentOS Stream and RHEL are updated almost synchronously, so patches will be released in advance before entering RHEL. Enter into CentOS Stream. This is undoubtedly a big improvement of CentOS Stream compared to previous CentOS versions.
In response to the question of whether the rapid update of CentOS Stream's patches can guarantee stability in a specific production environment, Zhang Jiaju said that each update of CentOS Stream has an update corresponding to RHEL , and developers who continue to pay attention to update changes will be more Relatively stable versions are easy to find . At the same time, Zhang Jiaju has repeatedly emphasized that for enterprise-level users who have higher stability requirements and need to support critical business applications, using RHEL, an enterprise-level operating system, is a more secure choice.
In addition, from CentOS to RHEL, Red Hat also has corresponding stable and reliable migration solutions. Whether migrating from CentOS 8 to RHEL 8, or migrating from CentOS 7.8 to RHEL 7.8, its ABI and API are the same. Red Hat will undertake the replacement of resource packs in this process, and its reliability can be trusted.
Focusing on the joint development work of the CentOS community after CentOS is suspended, Zhang Jiaju said that the launch of CentOS Stream will make the use of users more convenient, and it is also a boon for community developers.
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In response to the availability of YUM after CentOS is deactivated, Zhang Jiaju pointed out that YUM is actually available. Some old configuration resources in the CentOS system are not available, but community developers can easily complete the update by simply replacing the source with the source of CentOS Stream.
Likewise, CentOS is a community version of open source system software, and Red Hat does not charge a cent for CentOS users. Therefore, Zhang Jiaju believes that there is no concept of non-stop service. In fact, the previous CentOS version can be used all the time. Only the version update of this product is really stopped.
Overall, CentOS Stream will shorten the feedback loop for ecosystem developers and make their changes smoother. Ecosystem developers will have a rolling preview of the next RHEL release by working on the CentOS Stream between Fedora and RHEL.
CentOS Stream enables Red Hat and the wider community to develop as much transparently as possible in the next release of RHEL. Provide a clear way for the wider community to contribute to RHEL releases. With CentOS Stream, all developers can deliver new features and bug fixes in smaller RHEL releases.
The cessation of CentOS is an important time node, and open source software innovation requires constant fresh blood injection. Red Hat's promotion of CentOS Stream to replace CentOS is not to revolutionize the "life" of CentOS, but to make the collaboration between Red Hat and the open source community more transparent and efficient, so that the potential of Red Hat's open source project products can be "expanded" and better serve Community developers and customers.
Source: CCID, Xu Peiyan