# Red Hat, Inc Aquires CentOS



## ramnet (Jan 7, 2014)

Red Hat, Inc has announced that it has acquired CentOS.

http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/ce...ry/020100.html

http://www.redhat.com/about/news/pre...os-join-forces

CentOS also has updated their website, http://www.centos.org/

Should be interesting to see what everyone's reaction to this news is since CentOS is heavily used in the web hosting industry.


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## Kakashi (Jan 7, 2014)

Saw this just now. Very interesting, still not sure what to make of it.


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## raindog308 (Jan 7, 2014)

I'm sure RedHat wouldn't attempt to seduce CentOS just to kill it.

No, I'm sure that would never happen.


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## Eased (Jan 7, 2014)

This just in, $300/yr subscription for each CentOS install now required.

(jk)


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## drmike (Jan 7, 2014)

For profit corporation buys "free" software...  

These deals usually go bad, even if it takes a few years.  

I never kept up with CentOS business/income model....  So curious why the sale is happening.


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## tonyg (Jan 7, 2014)

drmike said:


> These deals usually go bad, even if it takes a few years.


I agree with drmike, CentOS might die a slow death. Why would Red Hat keep such a competitor around?

In the mean time, it will likely mean a mass migration to some other distribution.

This is really interesting...


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## zzrok (Jan 7, 2014)

Red Hat is positioning CentOS as a middle ground between a very slow moving RHEL and the just-about-anything-goes Fedora.  I think they want to use it to test out new product niches they can eventually bring RHEL into.  They claim the existing disconnect between RHEL and CentOS will remain.  I am cautiously optimistic.


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## jarland (Jan 7, 2014)

Figures. Let's face it. CentOS is a unique distro in that it's generally thought of as the most well maintained RHEL variant for production systems. Either we're looking at the time for Scientific to rise, a new distro to fill it's shoes, or a Debian revolution. I mean there's Fedora but I mean....Fedora is to RHEL as Ubuntu is to Debian. It's not going to be the production distro.


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## tonyg (Jan 7, 2014)

zzrok said:


> I think they want to use it to test out new product niches they can eventually bring RHEL into.  They claim the existing disconnect between RHEL and CentOS will remain.  I am cautiously optimistic.


If they are going to use as a sort of test bed, then that means the disconnect will be gone.


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## Virtovo (Jan 7, 2014)

jarland said:


> Figures. Let's face it. CentOS is a unique distro in that it's generally thought of as the most well maintained RHEL variant for production systems. Either we're looking at the time for Scientific to rise, a new distro to fill it's shoes, or a Debian revolution. I mean there's Fedora but I mean....Fedora is to RHEL as Ubuntu is to Debian. It's not going to be the production distro.


I'd have to disagree with your Ubuntu comparison.  Ubuntu is very much a production distro.


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## tonyg (Jan 7, 2014)

Virtovo said:


> I'd have to disagree with your Ubuntu comparison.  Ubuntu is very much a production distro.


Only true for Ubuntu LTS.


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## zzrok (Jan 7, 2014)

tonyg said:


> If they are going to use as a sort of test bed, then that means the disconnect will be gone.


Let me clarify.  I think they want to make it easier for the community to add stuff on to CentOS and do the legwork of finding new opportunities for RHEL.


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## jarland (Jan 7, 2014)

Virtovo said:


> I'd have to disagree with your Ubuntu comparison.  Ubuntu is very much a production distro.


Ubuntu doesn't position itself as the enterprise production distro and it has long since lost it's chance to be perceived as such. It is a fine server, plenty capable of production, equally capable as Debian. However, perception is key. Ubuntu takes more risks with package upgrades than Debian and it turns people off. Just like Fedora is to RHEL, Ubuntu is to Debian, more liberal with package upgrades and less focused on the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" philosophy that drives the IT industry at the corporate level. I speak not of what you and I can make it and use it for, but what it is seen as and what it will be. Ubuntu will never be the widespread enterprise production distro, neither will Fedora.

So who would take the place of CentOS if Red Hat killed it? Either Debian or likely none that are currently high on the food chain in the Linux distro world. CentOS earned a unique spot as a completely free distro accepted by the IT industry at large.


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## DomainBop (Jan 7, 2014)

raindog308 said:


> I'm sure RedHat wouldn't attempt to seduce CentOS just to kill it.
> 
> No, I'm sure that would never happen.


Based on some of the goals mentioned in the press release (especially the ones that mention open stack and cloud), I'd say it is more likely they hope to milk the open source community for ideas to fill in a few gaps to accelerate the development cycle and keep enterprise clients from wandering off to one of their main competitors named Oracle.  Do they want to kill CentOS? No.  Would they like to kill Oracle Linux's raison d'être and have enterprise clients see RedHat as a one-stop shop? Yes. 

edit:



> CentOS earned a unique spot as a completely free distro accepted by the IT industry at large.


CentOS was never really accepted, or put into widescale use by the large enterprise segment of the IT industry .  They use RHEL...


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## raindog308 (Jan 7, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> CentOS was never really accepted, or put into widescale use by the large enterprise segment of the IT industry .  They use RHEL...


I semi-disagree.

Two different Fortune 500 companies I've worked for use it extensively, particularly for dev/test stuff.  In a lot of cases, if you're running prod on RHEL, you might do test/preprod on RHEL and dev on CentOS.  Or if you want a "every developer has a sandbox" sort of thing, then those are often CentOS.

However, if you outsource, it's harder to get adoption because most offshore paint-by-numbers support people don't want to support something that doesn't comes with a 1-800 number.

I also semi-disagree about Ubuntu being a "production distro".  It is in the sense that it's high quality.  And if your production is mostly web apps, FOSS stuff, etc. then no problems.  But if you're running specific industry apps, older stuff, big platforms (Websphere, Oracle, etc.) then RHEL/CentOS rules.  Most companies who publish commercial software for Linux write it first for RHEL and _maybe_ for another distro - and then it's typically SuSE for Europe or something.  The Debian/Ubuntu world usually isn't considered.

Again, though, lots of web companies whose production apps are LAMP stacks etc. and for them, Ubuntu is a valid choice.


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## texteditor (Jan 7, 2014)

jarland said:


> or a Debian revolution.


A man can dream...

Really though, doubt much will change. We might see some people defect to Scientific, but I really doubt Red Hat ever saw CentOS as a competitor, I doubt much will change about the project (CentOS will probably be organized better), and in the end I'd wager that this is entirely a way for them to brace themselves for an enterprise-Linux-market-dominance struggle with Oracle


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## VPSCorey (Jan 7, 2014)

Oracle Linux


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## tonyg (Jan 7, 2014)

Maybe this has something do with the move?

http://gigaom.com/2012/06/01/red-hat-dilemma-cloud-players-balk-at-new-support-fees/


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## TruvisT (Jan 7, 2014)

drmike said:


> For profit corporation buys "free" software...
> 
> These deals usually go bad, even if it takes a few years.


Very true.

The fact that CentOS is based off of Red Hat means that they are probably looking to profit off CentOS in some way.


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## SrsX (Jan 7, 2014)

So, how long till we hear how much they'll be charging us to use CentOS?


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## GIANT_CRAB (Jan 7, 2014)

SrsX said:


> So, how long till we hear how much they'll be charging us to use CentOS?


RHEL owns/sponsors Fedora project and rips off some of its code.

Fedoraproject is still free, I don't see why CentOS would become a product.

Also, RHEL better fix the upgrade path for CentOS 5 to 6 and make sure there's a path for 6 -> 7 too.


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## TruvisT (Jan 7, 2014)

GIANT_CRAB said:


> RHEL owns/sponsors Fedora project and rips off some of its code.
> 
> Fedoraproject is still free, I don't see why CentOS would become a product.
> 
> Also, RHEL better fix the upgrade path for CentOS 5 to 6 and make sure there's a path for 6 -> 7 too.


Isn't Fedora more their like testing ground since it is always bleeding edge then they port the stability to their EL side that most businesses and government agencies tend to use?


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## marlencrabapple (Jan 7, 2014)

Well the "new look" certainly doesn't inspire confidence.


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## wlanboy (Jan 7, 2014)

Hey it is open source. So it will end well.

If Redhat is doing something wrong a new fork will appear.

Like:


Mambo -> Joomla
Hudson -> Jenkins
MySQL -> MariaDB
RHEL -> CentOS


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## eva2000 (Jan 8, 2014)

Interesting to see how things pan out now. Luckily, latest Centmin Mod release now supports Oracle Linux too - just in case CentOS side makes a turn for the worst


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## GIANT_CRAB (Jan 8, 2014)

TruvisT said:


> Isn't Fedora more their like testing ground since it is always bleeding edge then they port the stability to their EL side that most businesses and government agencies tend to use?


Fedora Project is bleeding edge but isn't broken as hell, unlike Archlinux.

Its actually safe to say that Fedora can be used for production purposes, you just need to keep updating your OS. (Upgrades are safe on Fedora)

Moreover, you get free ksplice when you use Fedora. (https://www.ksplice.com/uptrack/download-fedora)

Its meant for Desktop but with a few tricks, you can get it to work without gnome.



wlanboy said:


> Hey it is open source. So it will end well.
> 
> If Redhat is doing something wrong a new fork will appear.
> 
> ...


Wait a minute, so Debian is doing something wrong?


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## DomainBop (Jan 8, 2014)

> Moreover, you get free ksplice when you use Fedora. (https://www.ksplice....download-fedora)
> 
> Its meant for Desktop but with a few tricks, you can get it to work without gnome.



Fedora enjoyed a brief period of popularity during 2003/4 as a server OS  after Red Hat went to RHEL and before CentOS became established.

flashback: WHT discussion on CPanel+Fedora 



> As a CPanel distributor, we find that most company's today are using Fedora when they signup for a license.


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## lbft (Jan 8, 2014)

I assume we'll see Centos 7 released closer to RHEL7 than Centos 6 was to RHEL6.

I don't see why Red Hat would go to all this trouble to shut it down or start charging for it. The obvious profit opportunity is to keep companies in their ecosystem, even if they're not paying money now they may be able to sell them support contracts in the future - and they're keeping them away from Oracle, and keeping them away from learning other systems.

But even if RH did decide to pointlessly be assholes the worst case scenario is that people switch to Scientific.


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## dano (Jan 8, 2014)

I am skeptical of this deal and the future of Centos. Just last month, I was thinking to myself "is centos still moving forward or are they on the edge of dying"(this deal answered that question). I myself will most likely start to move more(40% centos now) towards Debian based distro's and also BSD(freebsd).


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## Magiobiwan (Jan 8, 2014)

One thing that might come from this is that it becomes even easier to switch your CentOS install to a RHEL install if you decide you want the support. Right now, if you purchase a RHEL subscription it's very easy to make your CentOS install a RHEL Install (just install a package from RHEL). Likewise to go from RHEL to CentOS. I think CentOS will remain free, as it does bring people to RedHat.


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## scv (Jan 8, 2014)

SrsX said:


> So, how long till we hear how much they'll be charging us to use CentOS?


You don't *have* to pay for RHEL. You pay for support.


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## SrsX (Jan 8, 2014)

scv said:


> You don't *have* to pay for RHEL. You pay for support.


Exactly. I have a good feeling it'll be same with CentOS, however costy prices.


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## Magiobiwan (Jan 8, 2014)

RHEL and CentOS are the same (effectively) though. All RHEL has is the support. What gain would RedHat get for making CentOS non-free?


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## maounique (Jan 8, 2014)

I also think they do not want to make it non-free.

CentOS gained a lot of market share that RHEL lost, it is normal to gather them together again, I dont see an issue there, however I did see CentOS going worse as of late, it is better than going belly-up IMO, RH now has Fedora for the up-to-date stuff and CentOS for stability.

I think their removal of the Xen support was a mistake they regret, for one thing, then they didnt have a testbed which the corporate sector used, it does make a lot of sense.

About the future in general, well, I see it as a good move, it is not like RHEL clone people wont have an alternative if things go south, or nobody can do the same trick again.

As a Debian fan I consider Debian has enough following, we do not need a giant here that will crush everything. It is already too big for my taste, though havent seen anything bad technically yet. It is inevitable it will start to go (even more) dogmatic or lagging behind with no real compatition in the free world. Competition is good, even against your own pet project.


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## wlanboy (Jan 9, 2014)

GIANT_CRAB said:


> Wait a minute, so Debian is doing something wrong?


It depends on who you think "Debian" is.

Did not bash it at all - you do not have to love everything to think that something is good.


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## ramnet (Jan 9, 2014)

marlencrabapple said:


> Well the "new look" certainly doesn't inspire confidence.


I agree. http://centos.org/ looks like a disaster compared to what it was before.


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## MannDude (Jan 10, 2014)

Suprisingly, there are zero comments on CentOS' own forum in their announcement here: https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=44407&p=188449&hilit=RHEL#p188449

It went out to their mailing list, but the forum seems dead with opinion which I figured there would be some buzz.


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## maounique (Jan 10, 2014)

Maybe it is tightly capped.


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