Moving Forward With CentOS Stream

Given Red Hat's recent announcement regarding CentOS Stream and CentOS 8, many teams are anxious about the short- and long-term future for CentOS. But as the dust settles, it’s easier to see the motivations behind the change, and the potential impact it may have on teams currently using CentOS.

In this blog, I'll address some of the key takeaways from the announcement, including the outlook for CentOS, CentOS Stream, and the greater open source operating system landscape. I’ll also talk about the nature of the change and why it marks a necessary shift to keep operating systems more aligned with application deployment.

Red Hat CentOS Announcement: Five Key Takeaways

In a recent announcement from Red Hat Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Chris Wright, he revealed that Red Hat is shifting their investment focus from CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream. For some development teams using CentOS as a low-cost alternative to RHEL, this announcement may complicate the path forward. For others, it marks an opportunity to further embrace DevOps and enterprise application modernity.

So, what are the key takeaways companies should get from this announcement?

From a practical technical point of view, this shift won’t make that big of a difference.

From a trust point of view, knocking eight years off the support timeframe for a popular CentOS version is, at best, jarring. At worst, it will leave many companies searching for the next free and stable alternative.

1. CentOS Is Dead, Long Live CentOS Stream

CentOS, at least as it was originally created and defined, is dead. The perceived long-term stability of CentOS, which drew many companies to the OS, has quickly been replaced with feeling of uncertainty surrounding long term support, and the viability of CentOS Stream as a long-term solution.

While these feelings of uncertainty are merited, and understandable, (after all, Red Hat did just reduce the community support window for CentOS 8 by eight years), much of the consternation surrounding this decision boils down to a lack of understanding of what CentOS Stream is, and how it will impact production applications.

While there are differences between CentOS and CentOS Stream, Red Hat has been adamant that they are not expecting any serious compatibility issues. That statement should be largely accurate for most companies. There will be differences and problems that stem from CentOS Stream, and even ones that make the headlines in tech circles. 

But will those differences and problems be a universal experience for all production installations? Almost certainly not. 

2. Continuous Delivery Will Be a Continuing Trend for Operating Systems

At its heart, the shift in focus to CentOS Stream is one that will bring the operating system more in line with modern development practices and trends. Chief among those modern practices, CI/CD.

For companies capable of integrating these continuously delivered distributions, it enables them to innovate at a faster pace, eventually bringing substantial improvements to areas like virtualization and container technology, directly supporting microservices and serverless computing, and generally doing more on-prem if they prefer some workloads to stay out of the public cloud.

For operating system providers, accommodating companies with mature CI/CD pipelines means retaining market share for large companies as the pace of cloud migration continues to accelerate.

3. Rolling Releases Aren't Unique to CentOS

In a recent blog reacting to the CentOS announcement, Steff Walter, director of Linux Engineering at Red Hat, said that this transition, and the emphasis on CI/CD, is a conscious effort to modernize the development practices behind RHEL.

For RHEL, at least, these so-called rolling distributions are nothing new. Long-time Red Hat employee Scott McCarty described the RHEL release cycle in a recent blog as being “similar to a rolling release within a major version.” More directly, it’s one that doesn’t follow dot releases, at least “in the traditional sense of Unix numbering.”

This means that dot releases aren’t following a linear, feature-dependent timeline, and instead are simply bundling the most recent changes that have passed quality engineering testing.

Is CentOS Stream Stable?

According to Red Hat, while CentOS Stream has been perceived as a comparatively unstable build, the truth is that it’s no less stable than the RHEL version that will be based on it.

4. There's Time to Adjust Plans

The biggest shock from the announcement was regarding the CentOS 8 community support EOL, which was originally scheduled for December of 2029. Now, that EOL will be December of 2021. This is an eight year reduction in community support, with that support often playing a large role in companies migrating to CentOS in the first place.

Learn more about extended support options for CentOS >>

With the shock of that decision fading, there’s plenty of time to decide on the right course of action. Whether that’s staying with CentOS and finding alternative support when the time comes, moving to CentOS stream and embracing the benefits of that system, or migrating to another distribution altogether, teams still have time to find the solution that’s right for them.

5. The Future Is Still Bright for Open Source Enterprise Linux

From a Red Hat perspective, CentOS Stream will likely improve a few problematic areas in the relationship between the CentOS community and RHEL. These improvements, given enough time, may mark a new era of community buy-in and innovation within CentOS Stream.

On the other side of the coin, there will be a surge in available options for open source enterprise Linux. In fact, there are already announcements from multiple groups planning a direct CentOS replacement.

There’s Rocky Linux, which is planned to be a downstream, bug for bug compatible release that uses the RHEL source code. Then there’s Project Lenix, which similarly plans to be a “1-1 binary compatible fork of RHEL 8 (and future releases).”

There will also likely be upstream versions in the mix as well, where distributions will find a way to reliably snapshot CentOS Stream as close as possible to RHEL releases.

While teams won’t want to start planning a migration to a potentially short-lived project, eventually the growing number of quality options will lead to another problem – the tyranny of choice.

For now, the best choice is to take a wait and see approach while the dust settles. There's no reason to rush away from CentOS. If you need alternative support, there are options (including CentOS support from OpenLogic).

Final Thoughts

The discussion surrounding CentOS and Linux is a familiar story in operating systems. After all, Linux was originally created as a free alternative to the expensive Unix.

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux now the expensive option, open source projects are already rushing in to stake their claim as the stable and free alternative. It also does leave questions surrounding other Red Hat open source projects and their plans for long term community support.

Luckily, behind all the noise surrounding enterprise Linux, the operating system itself is largely good enough. As long as distributions can keep the operating system secure and functional, it won’t be a significant obstacle to innovation.

Get a Complementary CentOS Consultation

If you're one of the many teams with questions about the CentOS news, or in need of extended long-term support for CentOS 8, OpenLogic is here to help. Get answers to your questions and advice on the path forward in a free consultation with our CentOS experts.

Schedule Free Consultation

Additional Resources 

• Guide: CentOS for Enterprise
• Blog - CentOS Stream Migration Checklist
• Blog - What's Next for CentOS Stream
• Blog - Comparing CentOS Alternatives
• FAQ: CentOS 8 Announcement 
• Webinar - Sunsetting CentOS: How to Find the Right Path Forward
• Webinar - Demystifying CentOS Stream
• White Paper - Decision Maker's Guide to Enterprise Linux