[bclemens]

Rocky Linux has not teamed up with SUSE. The announcement from SUSE included that CIQ is teaming up with them. CIQ != Rocky Linux. CIQ != the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation. We might use whatever they come up with to make an additional distro later.

Rocky Linux, as it is, will always be 1:1 with RHEL. We are dedicated to providing 1:1 "bug for bug" Rocky Linux, for both 8 and 9, for the full duration of their life cycles. Broken promises from CentOS are the reason we started Rocky Linux in the first place, we're not going back on anything we've already committed to.

I believe we (Rocky Linux) were pretty specific about how we're getting source in the announcement at <https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/>. SRPMs from UBIs, cloud instances, etc. The only intentional omission are the additional legal loopholes we've discovered to get source, that we're keeping in our back pocket. We want to keep those backup methods to ourselves so that Red Hat doesn't close off too many at once, should they choose to try to screw over our community again in the future.

[bonzini]

> screw over our community

For some definition of community.

[bayindirh]

From my observation point, I see that Rocky already has some sizeable following. Esp, from research community.

[bclemens]

We do indeed. Adoption numbers are promising <https://rocky-stats.tiuxo.com/auto.html> but community size is enormous as well. 9071 folks on https://chat.rockylinux.org, ~300 folks on IRC, ~4100 folks on the forum, etc.

Adoption by many large organizations / businesses was also quite fast. And may have even caused us some trouble, I suspect the attention garnered by NASA's use of Rocky Linux had something to do with instigating Red Hat's recent antics.

[bayindirh]

The charts really look impressive. I didn't expect such an uptake. The funny thing is, people have tried it first (ephemeral instances), then started to migrate.

Fascinating. No wonder why Red Hat got a little irritated.

[bclemens]

What are you trying to imply here Paolo?

[bonzini]

That there is a community around enterprise Linux that you chose not to participate in, and that is the Fedora ELN/CentOS Stream community.

And that I think I am finally understanding the differences between Alma and Rocky.

[5e92cb50239222b]

The difference was painfully obvious about 3-4 months in, this only confirms it. Everyone here keeps asking why would one pick AlmaLinux over literally anything else, while I'm sitting here asking myself how would anyone risk running his business on a distribution built on such a shady foundation, from sources obtained in a metaphorical back alley. Feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen, I wouldn't want to be on the receiving side of that for sure.

[bclemens]

We participate in the Enterprise Linux community just fine. Our community members report bugs and throw patches at upstream projects, run SIGs creating value for EL, maintain Fedora and EPEL packages, etc.

[bonzini]

You're talking about the users' community (and I have nothing to complain about that) and generic upstream; however I am talking about the builders' community instead.

[bclemens]

Can you elaborate how the patches, bug reports, package maintenance, etc, do not benefit the "builders' community"? They all go to the same upstream.

And what exactly do you mean by "builders' community", do you actually mean "Red Hat"?

By "not participate in" do you mean "not pay your employer"? Which we do, actually. Just wired a good chunk of money to Red Hat the other day, ostensibly earmarked for supporting the Fedora project.

[geerlingguy]

This is the dichotomy it pains me to see. Users who contribute are builders. That's the open source way. You don't have to be on a SIG or involved in the monthly meetings of an advisory council to contribute value to open source projects.

Maybe this dichotomy prompted the whole "hackers and hobbyists" imagined threat.

[lakomen]

Thank you for that.

This also decides the Alma vs Rocky question for me. Rocky wins.

[LeFantome]

You were very clear