Comment by 7ewis
7 years ago
What is the relationship between RHEL and CentOS?
Never actually used RHEL, but I've heard that they're basically the same - one comes with the support, the other obviously doesn't.
Is CentOS supported by Red Hat, so IBM in theory could shut them down?
CentOS is the main competition to RHEL licenses. I have been in many meetings where the "use CentOS so if we have to buy RHEL its an easy conversion " was made
I assumed Redhat was going to capture lost revenue by somehow making CentOS less viable.
IBMs business nature makes me think its even more likely now.
From my perspective, it always seemed that RHEL's big problem was that CentOS was easier to use. Whenever I set up a machine, I always reached for CentOS because to me it was the same thing, except I didn't have to ask for a license, I didn't have to securely store the license, I didn't have to enter the license, and I didn't have to document my strategies for handling those things.
It's generally also more reliable. In any sort of an org like setup, RHEL will be managed through Satellite. The new Satellite seems like a massive pain. The old one also had issues. Running centos compared to registering clients to satellite is a breadth of fresh air. Sometimes I wonder if RH creates complexity, and sells these overly complicated solutions to problems they create.
I can't find the reference, but Red Hat recently hugged CentOS after sort of passively ignoring it for a while. Now, as I understand it, Red Hat has committed to actively supporting CentOS.
They're different products for different customers. Folks who want to work cheap and hack their own stuff together will use CentOS and would never have bought a RHEL license anyway.
Meanwhile, folks who need a "we've got support" answer for every question will use RHEL and wouldn't be tempted by CentOS anyway; the cost savings is not worth the risk.
redhat owns the centos trademark and employs most of its developers.