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Red Hat Hires CentOS Developers
rjmarvin writes "Karanbir Singh and a handful of other CentOS developers are now full-time Red Hat employees, working in-house on the CentOS distribution with more transparent processes and methods. None of the CentOS developers will be working on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The CentOS project would become another distribution and community cared for by Red Hat, like Fedora, and Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens says the company is planning its future around OpenStack, not just Linux."
They could take over Solaris development too...
and not embrace and extinguish. Kudos to Redhat and CentOS.
Buy them! Or hire them like in this case..
I've always wondered what RH could do about CentOS. It was obvious that RH wasn't all that happy with CentOS, at least at first. With CentOS having to refer to "the up-line vender" and removing all the RH references and graphics it has always seemed to be the Red Headed step child.
So, does this mean RH has embraced the concept of CentOS, where "free is free" to download?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I've wondered why Google hasn't put out their own Linux distro for the mainstream audience. They could have eaten Microsoft's lunch if they put that out when they went to Vista. It would have cost Google next to nothing to fork a common distro like Ubuntu and slap their name on it, and by incorporating Google search and Chrome (or Chromium) into it, they could have increased their ad revenue. I guess ChromeOS is sort of like that, but I was imagining a full desktop OS.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Given that Redhat is now officially cooperating, I'm not entirely sure why CentOS is still relevant(rather than 'Redhat, RTFM Edition, upgradeable at any time to Redhat, Comes with Support Edition if you buy support'); but I assume that Redhat is focused on the enterprise for a few reasons:
1. Enterprise is where MS, and any other remaining competitors, really turn the screws on pricing. MS doesn't give away Windows Home editions; but only the OEMs know how much those costs, and most buyers aren't considering DIY or buying a 'bare' PC, so the effective cost (among the options they have) is zero. Enterprises, Not. So. Much. MS charges considerably more for 'Pro', and more again for anything server.
2. Enterprises have volume and techies. A home user has, maybe, the nerd kid down the street or something for tech support. They also have a small number of computers. Even a relatively high price, per computer, makes total sense if it avoids any support headaches, and allows those that do come up to be handled by the most common tech support people. Enterprises, though, have enough computers that buying techs rather than 'solutions' starts to become cost effective(plus, their requirements tend to be complex enough that 'solutions' still require techs)
3. 'Desktop'(in the sense of 'consumer') is where a lot of the really nasty hardware churn is. 'Enterprise desktop', 'workstation', and 'server' are all areas where (even if running Windows) IT departments Do. Not. Want. lots of driver/hardware churn, don't want to spend lots of time re-validating configurations, don't want shitty beta drivers, and so on. They are also often satisfied with a smaller variety of hardware, and from vendors who are more likely to build drivers with server and workstation customers in mind. Consumer OS that doesn't support a shitty inkjet released two years after the OS was? Pissed off consumer. Enterprise? Well, we've got some printers that all support Postscript or PCL, a bunch of servers that need NIC and SAS HBA support, and maybe some workstations with fancy graphics cards.
(As for Google and consumer Linux, it's a matter of taste whether you say that they already have, or that they never will: Android and ChromeOS are both Linux-based, neither have more than the slightest relationship to traditional linux/unix userlands. Is Google throwing its weight behind consumer Linux, or using embedded Linux as a cheap and easy way to boot a Google userland?)
CentOS is the freebie that anyone can use - but that nobody is under any obligation to provide support or patches for. This means that small companies who are waiting to grow before buying proper RHEL, can still use the software, though they can't file bugs or get a support hotline. But it also means that CentOS can be used for anyone training in skills for "Enterprise grade" Linux can get their feet wet on a system that is already in use in industry. When the time comes to work with Linux in a real business environment, they've a head start on those who chose systems closed to non-customers.
Why does this matter to RedHat? The more people whose yardstick and gold standard is RedHat-related technology, the better; and ensuring all you can do on the derivative can be done exactly the same way on the commercial (down to the version of a command, the dot in a package name and the quirks of the brand) goes a long way to provide this promise.
How does this benefit RedHat if CentOS is given away for free? CentOS is RedHat's technology already in the hands of the client. But having the software is one thing - having access to support, formal enterprise training offerings, consultancy services and a dedicated rapid response for business-critical bugs is vital in business. Once the small company who could not afford RHEL becomes big, suddenly they are aware that they are on systems that RedHat knows perfectly, and migrating from CentOS to RHEL is painless - being systems different only at branding level. Migrating to anything else, even to SUSE Linux for Enterprise or Oracle's Linux (the latter being a part-clone of RHEL), becomes more involved. CentOS really now is RHEL.
Indeed, the good karma from being seen helping the community is peanuts compared to the advantage the offering of an easy transition and self-trained fans and already-committed users brings.
-- "Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability." --Dijkstra
I've heard that and hoped they would release it for a general audience and/or make a desktop version of Android somehow.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I'd like to see them start a real effort to come out with a competitive version of desktop Linux.
Red Hat's business model is giving away the server software and selling support. They seem to be doing pretty well with that. Fedora seems like a way to keep the door open if enough paying customers want to migrate their desktops to Linux but not a market they are pursuing today.
We still have Scientific Linux.
Huh. Didn't know that. Well, the points still remain the same with that edit :-)
I wonder if beta could allow for adding errata #justkidding #donthurtme
-- "Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability." --Dijkstra
Really, you think Google could have just slapped their name on it and all the reason Linux hasn't taken off on the desktop would go away? The other part is that Google isn't very interested in giving you a local solution, that doesn't give them any data nor a hook to google services. And the third reason is that it would be too easy for third parties to strip off the Google bits, despite Android being open source they have very strong incentives to keep OEMs from shipping "bare" phones without all the Google services, the Play store and so on which they wouldn't have for a Linux distro.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's called Windows XP. Don't want viruses? Install Chrome, they hear from their friends, and continue plugging away on what Microsoft won't support, but which runs fine for them. Plus it doesn't have to be associated with that 'Linux' that nobody ever heard of or be installed in what is usually a destructive way even when you know what an operating system is and to be careful.
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
Really, you think Google could have just slapped their name on it and all the reason Linux hasn't taken off on the desktop would go away?
Not quite what I said. But if Google put their weight behind marketing a Linux OS at a time when people were unhappy with Microsoft's Vista and/or recently with Windows 8, yes I think Linux on the desktop could have taken off more so than it is now.
The other part is that Google isn't very interested in giving you a local solution, that doesn't give them any data nor a hook to google services.
You mean like ChromeOS, with Google search built in with Google apps throughout? Why not do the same with a full desktop OS?
And the third reason is that it would be too easy for third parties to strip off the Google bits
Android is open source, but not all of it. Google could easily market a Linux distro with some proprietary software integrated in, that most users would be able to/want to remove. You can get a Google-free version of Android, but you have to unlock the bootloader, load recovery, root, and install a new ROM; not something most users are going to do. Why not do something similiar with a full desktop Linux-based OS?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Let me take a second to applaud Red Hat for doing this.
This is why they own the Enterprise Linux market.
Their thinking, in a nutshell, is this:
Give the software (CentOS) to small companies.
Get kids right out of college using it to build their home servers.
Get everyone comfortable with CentOS/RHEL.
When it is time to buy, they will buy RH. Simple.
Here in NYC, Linux jobs are 99.99% RH/CentOS.
Because CentOS is free, anyone can download it and test
it. No disabled features, nothing. You want a job in Wall St?
Download CentOS, sit down and learn the thing and then
you WILL get a job! I guarantee it!
Microsoft, Oracle, Apple take note: This is how you own
a market. Not by squeezing every penny out of your
customers.
That's why Apple will never break into the Enterprise
market. This is why Microsoft has lost the Enterprise
market and this is how Oracle will fuck off and die soon
(hopefully).
Personally, I was a Slackware guy, for my home machines,
but CentOS has won me over. Now, it is the only thing I use.
One more thing: I work in Wall St. and I use RH/CentOS
every single day.
Red Hat, you guys rule. I salute you! Rock on!
It's called Windows XP.
Support ends in 2 months, so good luck using after that. And it doesn't and hasn't helped when people are shopping for a new machine.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Huuh!?
Of course there is a great potential in making CentOS RedHat. Before, even for the not-so-large and not-so-small enterprise; it was - from the perspective of a non-slashdotter - something done by 'hackers'; by geeks and nerds, with a dubious licence, without funding (so it could collapse anytime).
Once your RedHat Linux Enterprise comes from RedHat, for free, though under a different name and with limitations, it makes much more sense as an entry system; something to start with, try it out, and be safe on the legal side as well as the continuity.
What was your concern, again?
desktop linux isn't what made them a billion dollar company.
enterprise was, so .. yeah, I don't see the point in them making another ubuntu.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I wouldn't be surprised if RedHat did this to not only keep a community based RHEL afloat, but to also have direct access to the users in order to sale them the paid RHEL edition.
I wish continued success of CentOS but I've been burned by RedHat's "you need to pay for continued support to get updates or suffer through our brand new, very unstable (bleeding edge), and free Fedora distribution" tactic. I hope they aren't planning a similar fate for CentOS.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Full disclosure... I've been a Solaris Admin, off and on for years who has only been briefly involved with using zones
Your comments show this.
The zones idea is roughly equivalent to chroot (or schroot in some use cases) on Linux. So if you like zones, you can do almost the same thing on a Linux box.
No, it's not. Chroot is a (mostly) completely useless mechanism for security and isolation.
With zones, you can set up the zone with a completely different IP, with different firewall rules and even routing tables, and give some access to the root account on that zone, and not have to worry about them breaking out of the zone or affecting the hosting system (because you can put memory and CPU restrictions on the zone so it doesn't eat up system-wide resources). You can have dozens of zones on one hosting machine and the overhead of this "virtualization" is (IIRC) less than 3%.
FreeBSD's jails is the closest equivalant (having inspired zones). With jails you can also give out the root account and not worry, and even have set-UID binaries.
Put a set-UID binary in a chroot space (or even a Linux container) and all security is gone.
Zones/jails are nothing like chroot: the former can actually be used securely (where do you think the first VPS system came from? FreeBSD jails), while the latter is a nice speed bump before being broken out of.
to the CentOS team.
You deserve a vacation for your hard work...
Good. Did you enjoy it?
Now get back to work. :-)
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I'm pretty sure that internal names of unreleased things can't be used as trademarks.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Fedora is the test-bed. Users get Fedora for free, and RedHat gets a large audience trying the ideas/software out. I wouldn't certainly call it beta, but it's not "stable" like RHEL is considered to be.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Given that Redhat is now officially cooperating, I'm not entirely sure why CentOS is still relevant
At first glance, it wont be relevant real soon, and i bet wont exist must longer either.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
4. The enterprise are the people who actually want things fixed through service and support, while consumers tend to ditch hardware and software that's broken. My PC is one of a kind anyway, I don't care one bit about replacing any component with what is best and cheapest right now. If you did that in a company you'd quickly end up with hundreds of franken-PCs and a maintenance nightmare. Likewise, broken software is often an excuse to get around to upgrading or switching tools that you were kind of planning to but never got a kick in the ass before now.
At the office we need continuity, we have schedules and deadlines to keep and the #1, #2 and #3 priority of any failure in production is to restore it to working order and last working configuration. Changes need testing and rollback plans, we'd never jump the gun because shit breaks. Yet that's been fairly common for me personally, I didn't really want to give it the time and effort but if shit is broken and I have to deal with it anyway then I might as well really do something about it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Both of our hit and run ACs are completely fantasizing.
1) There aren't any CentOS "developers". CentOS is not "developed". It is just lifted verbatim (and entirely legally) from the Red Hat source code. The source code is edited where necessary strictly to remove Red Hat's corporate branding, and then just recompiled.
2) Kharanbir Singh and the others will not be "gone" from CentOS. On the contrary, they will be paid good money by Red Hat to be even more effective with CentOS. They are specifically not being "taken off of" CentOS.
3) CentOS security updates are quite timely on the whole. There have in the past been periods of time coinciding with minor version upgrades when they lagged, and I imagine this will be ameliorated by this new change.
wrong, those of us who used the Linux desktop in the late 90s brought it into the enterprise and worked to get it accepted.
RedHat very much became a success because of their desktop linux. Creating Federo, to be different from the Enterprise linux (which has restricted access) was a stab in the back to the userbase
They have, it is called Android.
Note: this is basically the same story as http://linux.slashdot.org/stor... . The source is datelined February 10, 2014 , but starts "On Jan. 7, Karanbir Singh, project lead on CentOS, announced to his community that he and a handful of other core CentOS developers would now be employed full-time by Red Hat." (emphasis mine). The hiring isn't a new thing, it was announced at the time of the whole CentOS announcement (and actually happened, er, considerably earlier, AIUI).
Doesn't run well for a lot of people. Need 64-bit features? You're out of luck (and Windows XP x64 was horrible). Need to run new versions of Microsoft Office? You're out of luck. Windows Update? Hope you have hours for it to finish. Windows XP is old, and is showing its age. Similar argument can be applied to my G5 Power Mac running OS X 10.5 (Quad G5, 12GB RAM), my SGI Octane running IRIX 6.5, and my SunBlade 1500 running Solaris 10. For the PPC and Sparc, install Firefox (or Aurora on Mac, since PPC isn't officially supported still), update Flash, and BAM! Just as useful as Windows XP to most people.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
And it's lost on you why they can't update the kernel mid-release. For long term stability they have to keep the same kernel version. Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, SGI, IBM, and plenty others have realized that too. When RHEL 7 comes out it will have a 3.x kernel. But RHEL 6 MUST keep the same kernel to avoid breakage.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
It's great to know a good company like Red Hat is behind CentOS. CentOS is already great stuff now, and will hopefully be even better with the corporate backing. It should be a winning situation for all parties, including the end user.
Instead of CentOS, why couldn't Red Hat get hold of Scientific Linux, and use it to try regaining the unixstation market, even if based on i7/Xeon?