I have been listening to many media providers (YouTube/Podcasts) about this topic.
Hopefully I can provide my opinion in a respectful and thought-provoking way.
I do want to say that at the moment I do agree with the Red Hat overall end goals.
My main disagreement is with Red Hat public messaging and quick system braking methods.
Red Hat promoted trust with the CentOS model in January 2014 with the official joining with Red Hat.
Red Hat/Cent OS community promoted CentOS 8 on 24-09-2019 as a normal viable upgrade option. (10 Years)
Red Hat announced on December 8th, 2020 that work on CentOS Linux 8 will cease at the end of 2021. (Way below the 10 year)
This is where my disappointment in Red Hat decisions & messaging starts. I agree with the CentOS Stream Community goals, but to not match CentOS 7 Support window for 8 at least. I think caused their own "Clone" problem. (AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, etc)
After changing the terms (rug pulling in a harsher term) CentOS community website provided a FAQ which stated. "A: Yes, the source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux will continue to be published on git.centos.org. Nothing will change about how the source code is published. This change is only related to the binaries the CentOS Project is building and how they are published."
Then on 21/06/2023 Red Hat stated "CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases".
I don't disagree with this approach but to then hear they did this change before the statement, and it was even planned to release no statement, was an extra low point for communication/messaging from Red Hat.
I believe a slower time frame for this transition and good communication would have solved most of the community issues.
We would criticize a closed sourced company going back on their word multiple times, I feel we should do the same with an open source company, but not to the extreme as some third parties/people.
If Red Hat management put their hands up on these mistakes and stated to review their public messaging methods, I would be less concerned. At the moment, Red Hat are not matching their very high communication standard.
After all that, will this stop me recommending Red Hat Linux to clients... No, and I will still applaud their work.
(Small note: At the moment, I do respect AlmaLinux with knowledge I have, but this could change over time)
