[Beowulf] RIP CentOS 8

[Chris Samuel]

Hi folks,

It looks like the CentOS project has announced the end of CentOS 8 as a 
version that tracked RHEL for the end of 2021, it will be replaced by 
the CentOS stream which will run ahead of RHEL8. CentOS 7 is unaffected 
(though RHEL7 only has 3 more years of life left).

https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/

 > The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the
 > next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild
 > of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which
 > tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as
 > a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream
 > continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development)
 > branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
 >
 > Meanwhile, we understand many of you are deeply invested in
 > CentOS Linux 7, and we’ll continue to produce that version through
 > the remainder of the RHEL 7 life cycle.

I always thought that Fedora was meant to be that upstream for RHEL, but 
perhaps the arrangement now will be Fedora -> CentOS -> RHEL.

I wonder where this leaves the Lustre project, currently they only 
support RHEL7/CentOS7 as the server, and more interestingly, people who 
build Lustre appliances on top of CentOS.

Then there's the question of projects like OpenHPC who've only just 
announced support for CentOS8 (and OpenSuSE15). They could choose to 
track CentOS Stream instead, probably without too much effort.

I do wonder if this opens the door for the return of something like 
Scientific Linux.

All the best,
Chris
-- 
Chris Samuel  :  http://www.csamuel.org/  :  Berkeley, CA, USA