OpenELA Publishes Initial Source Code For Building RHEL Derivatives

[unwind-protect]

I am fine with this move. Interesting combination of parties - Rocky which I greatly respect, and Oracle which, well...

Generally I think that some software vendors could use a bit of a shakeup in their "REL only" attitude. That would make all this a lot less dramatic.

[mSparks]

, and Oracle which, well...

That is definitely the most absolutely hilarious aspect of all this.

It almost feels like they listened to their customers, and acted to make their lives easier.

Oracle

did that.

da fuk....

Makes me pretty sad that is such a novel concept these days tho.

[lateo]

So Alma really is the only adult in the room.

Edit:
Somehow disappointed by SUSE/Novell here.
Not surprised one bit by Rocky and Oracle though.

[mSparks]

So Alma really is the only adult in the room.

Edit:
Somehow disappointed by SUSE/Novell here.
Not surprised one bit by Rocky and Oracle though.

because alma started it?

https://linuxiac.com/almalinux-decided-to-drop-one-to-one-compatibility-with-rhel/

Or just because community projects are immature and selfish?

[lateo]

because alma started it?

https://linuxiac.com/almalinux-decided-to-drop-one-to-one-compatibility-with-rhel/

Or just because community projects are immature and selfish?

Because they are capable of acknowledging what is fair and what is not, are capable of questioning themselves, can do their homework, and are respectful.
Pretty mature imo.

[michaelo2]

They already do for the windows and windows server products they sell, they only reason they would ship RH based linux contracts was there was no easy way to do it themselves. The "whole point" of openELA is to make it easy for vendors to brand up their own EL distributions while everyone works on the same codebase.

Server vendors don't ship Windows, they just sell it. Same for EL distros, they sell it, it's not their business to create it. The same codebase thing is a myth or a waste of time.

- A myth: if you expect that SUSE, Oracle and others will ship the same exact thing.
- A waste of time: to ship the same thing with different brand.

Was. Now no large corp can sign off on RH because its not legal for them to distribute software without also making the source code available, the only hardware vendor that will be shipping new RH distributions is IBM. Which was entirely their intention when they pulled the repos.

That's not correct and not how the real world works. You're simply wrong.

This is not a new thing or that special, RH is "only" just another fedora fork, (...)

Fedora is a community project where RH invests and has some of it's best engineers working on it. The goal of Fedora is RH to have somewhere to work plus benefit regular users. Fedora is where features land and CentOS Stream where they are curated to create RHEL. RHEL is a lot of more than a Fedora fork.

openELA produces a common resource for everyone to work from and reduces the fragmentation, which is good for everyone.

OpenELA creates fragmentation from CentOS Stream. Then each downstream distributor of OpenELA will create more fragmentation.

[mSparks]

Server vendors don't ship Windows, they just sell it. Same for EL distros, they sell it, it's not their business to create it. The same codebase thing is a myth or a waste of time.

Meanwhile, in the real world:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/blog/dell-emc-oem-makes-it-easy-for-your-brand-to-take-central-stage/

That's all Redhat linux does as well, Redhats branding slapped on a custom Fedora build. It also used to include significant community testing, that is over now, and has been pretty much since RH9.0

You can see exactly what that looks like from the sources in this openELA repository, check the .spec files, they list the source urls of the original developers.
Here's wayland in RH9.2 for example

https://github.com/openela-main/wayland/blob/el-9.2/SPECS/wayland.spec

= pull wayland 1.21.0 from
http://wayland.freedesktop.org/releases/%{name}-%{version}.tar.xz
Change log is at the bottom.

OpenELA creates fragmentation from CentOS Stream. Then each downstream distributor of OpenELA will create more fragmentation.

CentOS Stream has zero role to play in EL, there can be no fragmentation from CentOS stream, exactly one company is interested in it, IBM.
The role of the openELA technical steering committee is to select a better direction for building and creating branded EL distributions with common versioning, the main incentive for that is everything after RH8 has been a shitshow of general incompetence. The level of incompetence that thinks wayland 1.21.0 is something production ready that server administrators want by default on their production systems.

[andyprough]

Somehow disappointed by SUSE/Novell here.

SuSE was bought by Attachmate 12 years ago, and Novell stopped existing as a company 9 years ago. Your comment is an example of what's known as an "anachronism".

[sophisticles]

It takes the ultimate moron to make such statement. But then again, that is your level.

rocky and oracle already had their distros before openela and they found ways to negate redhat's paywall move.
suse provided support for redhat clone via liberty linux project.

None of them really needed openela for anything.

Or maybe it takes the ultimate person that is able to go to Alma Linux dot org and read what is right on their front page:

About AlmaLinux OS

AlmaLinux OS is an open-source, community-driven Linux operating system that fills the gap left by the discontinuation of the CentOS Linux stable release. AlmaLinux OS is an Enterprise Linux distro, binary compatible with RHEL®, and guided and built by the community.

As a standalone, completely free OS, AlmaLinux OS enjoys $1M in annual sponsorship from CloudLinux Inc. and support from more than 25 other sponsors. Ongoing development efforts are governed by the members of the community.

The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is a 501(c)(6) non-profit created for the benefit of the AlmaLinux OS community.

So Cloud Linux gives Alma Linux 1 million dollars a year to steal Red Hat's hard work and 25 other scum bags, I mean "sponsors", also give Alma money.

But you are correct about one thing, the real purpose of the 501(c)(6) non-profit they created is be able to avoid paying taxes on that million bucks.

That's a hell of a racket Alma and friends has going.

The best part is that jackasses like you run their PR machine for them for free.

Or maybe you are getting your beak wet as well?

[mSparks]

to steal Red Hat's hard work

oh my fucking god.
how the multiple expletives do you come to that conclusion?

99.99999999999999% of the lines of code redhat is distributing are not owned by redhat, were not written by redhat employees and everything they distribute is GPL licenced anyway.

and you want to call, copying the few thousand lines describing which versions OF OTHER PEOPLES SOFTWARE red hat employees wrote over decades, to build their "EL" distribution "stealing red hats hard work".

In what world do you not think you deserve a punch in the face for such utter nonsense.

You dont get to own someones Ferrari just because you scribble your name in black marker on the numberplate, only an ultimate moron indeed would believe you do.

What also seems to be totally flying over your head, is openela is about completely the opposite of using anything Redhat has produced in the last 2 years, its about replacing it with better because what they are building and plan to build is not fit for purpose in addition to being pirated.

And yes, even Alma Linux dropped them:

https://almalinux.org/blog/future-of-almalinux/

(btw, for the most part "binary compatible" just means "built using the same version of libc")