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Rocky Linux is a new distribution based 1:1 on Red Hat Enterprise, which is a replacement for its predecessor, CentOS. This is a result of Red Hat's policy change towards CentOS, which will now become a more experimental distribution. The upcoming Rocky Linux is being created by the person who previously prepared CentOS and decided to continue the mission of a free Linux system for enterprises. Those who wonder what to do after the changes that Red Hat (or rather IBM) has made for CentOS, Gregory Kurtzer responded in an interview with The New Stack. Gregory confirms the contribution that Red Hat has made to the stabilization and development of CentOS, but also talks about the fact that Red Hat has removed several packages from the system, which was hidden from the community, and this fact was not well received by the community when it came to light. This situation also made it clear that changes are coming. In December 2020, it was announced that CentOS 8 EOL (End of Life) would be accelerated and its end would come in 2021. Instead, CentOS Stream will be introduced, which will be an experimental platform for Red Hat Enterprise. The same maneuver was performed in 2004 for Red Hat Linux, which forced users to switch to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Linux as a community project is publicly available. Currently, there are many separate projects creating one of the Linux distributions, but we understand distribution here as a set of free software packages. This gives everyone the opportunity to use free software without having to pay fees.
In the case of Rocky Linux, the author defines the biggest challenge as building an integrated community focused on supporting enterprises while eliminating the risk of repeating what happened to CentOS. Creating a version of Rocky Linux based on RHEL is not a major technical task, so at this point, efforts are focused on creating a community, infrastructure, and building trust that Rocky Linux will always remain stable, open, and secure.
The community, although already quite large, must deal with many organizational tasks. While the author confirms that the infrastructure part is already completed, problems such as changing the communication channel from Slack to Mattermost have arisen.
I don't know about you, but I'm already waiting for the first release of Rocky Linux.
To support this project, you can buy hoodies, t-shirts, and hats with the Rocky Linux logo through the store:
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