Talk:Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivatives

message: Previous discussion of the article's old name has been rendered moot by the current name.
(Thus, removing text from here, get it from the "history" of this page if necessary) JimD 20:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Article name

message: I think we should add a section to the article which discussion the technical challenges associated with building these clones (such as CentOS).  However, I want to hash it out here before migrating it into the main article.
I know that one cannot simply take the whole collection of .src.rpm files (source packages) and simpy run a command like: for i in /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/*.spec; do rpmbuild -ba $i; done  One problem with that approach is that many of these build processes run GNU autoconf and thus will find and link against various libraries on the system.  However, many packages are built by Red Hat Inc. in an environment containing only a specific subset of the total available libraries (mostly using chroot() jails).  There are, potentially, other options and environment settings which could affect how the packages are built from source into binaries.
Also when creating CD images ... generate index files, etc. there are a number of utilities which are included in the sources ... and which Red Hat uses to build their CDs ... but which are largely undocumented.  (The specific calling conventions for each of the utilities is not included in the sources nor in any available documentation.
(One can argue that these, admittedly minor, details constitute Red Hat's "secret sauce" for cooking up their final product.  However, that's no truly relevant to the proposed section of this article).
I'd love for some of the contributors and participants of CentOS, White Box, et al. to flesh this out with some more examples ... or provide a link to any good online discussion of the topic.
JimD 20:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New section: Technical Challenges? 

message: Should these not be called derivatives instead of clones ? -- Ernst de Haan 15:38 17 October 2006 (GMT+1)
I second that.  I think cloning more strongly implies exact replication.  The derivatives, work-alikes, or similar notions each add (or possibly subtract) from the base RHEL distro.
Joe 22:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you don't mind, I'll go out and be bold and move the article to Red Hate Enterprise Linux derivatives—some articles may need editing so they don't point to a redirect though; I think I'll nag the RHEL and CentOS pages myself. --Mike (talk) 06:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Clones or derivatives?

message: Actually, the release cycle is stated as a month after final release of the second following release. or about 13 months.  See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/LifeCycle .  However, I am not sure of the previous policy; I seem to recall from before it was 18 months, but I may be remembering some other distro, perhaps RHL9 or 8.0.
Joe 22:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: accuracy of Fedora release cycle (history)

message: The diagram is seriously out of date (10 years), particularly with the ending of CentOS and the subsequent rise of a new crop of RHEL derivatives.  I woukld suggest that it should be deleted pending a more up to date diagram. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:49, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Derivative diagram 

message: IBM / Red Hat posted this in June 2023: Red Hat’s commitment to open source: A response to the git.centos.org changes
with this controversial claim:
> Simply rebuilding code, without adding value or changing it in any way, represents a real threat to open source companies everywhere. This is a real threat to open source, and one that has the potential to revert open source back into a hobbyist- and hackers-only activity.
See news:
* Red Hat's Source Code Lockout Spells Disaster for CentOS Alternatives: Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux in Trouble?
* Linux Is The Next Platform, But Who Pays To Maintain It? - The Next Platform
* Red Hat ends the RHEL clones’ free lunch | InfoWorld
* Red Hat Now Limiting RHEL Sources To CentOS Stream - Phoronix
★NealMcB★ (talk) 20:32, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  This whole article is out of date as of Red Hat's 2023 efforts to further impede these derivatives