CentOS Stream is an open source operating system launched by Red Hat, which is closely related to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). In fact, CentOS Stream is an intermediate process in the development process of RHEL (Red Hat will develop the source code of RHEL on the CentOS Stream development platform before releasing a new RHEL version), and it is a preview version of RHEL, including RHEL mid-download Expected features and updates for a release.
As a derivative of RHEL, CentOS Stream has many similarities with RHEL. At the same time, there are many differences between the two in terms of release cycle, support cycle, software package, security, etc.
In addition to CentOS Stream, RHEL has also derived AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux and other systems. However, a change that Red Hat is announcing today could seriously impact these systems.
Red Hat blogged :
As the CentOS Stream community continues to grow and respond to new dynamics in the enterprise software world, we want to keep the focus on CentOS Stream as the backbone of enterprise Linux innovation. We will continue to invest and increase our commitment to CentOS Stream. CentOS Stream will now be the only repository for public RHEL related source distributions. For Red Hat customers and partners, the RHEL source code is still available through the Red Hat Customer Portal under their subscription agreements.
To be clear, this change does not represent any changes to the CentOS Project, CentOS Stream, or CentOS SIGs source code availability.
Since CentOS Stream will now be the only repository for public RHEL-related source code releases, this also means that distributions based on RHEL derivatives (AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux, etc.) will have a harder time providing builds that are 100% compatible with RHEL versions.
As for why such a decision was made, Red Hat said in a blog post:
Before CentOS Stream, Red Hat pushed RHEL's public source code to git.centos.org. When the CentOS project moved to CentOS Stream as the centerpiece, we maintained these repositories even though RHEL-based CentOS Linux was no longer built. Engagement, engineering investments around CentOS Stream, and new priorities of customers and partners that we are addressing make maintaining separate, redundant repositories inefficient.
To sum it up in one sentence, as an upstream RHEL, it will only provide services to paying customers in the future.
At present, AlmaLinux has issued an announcement on social platforms, saying that it will study the impact of this change on them, so that community members should not panic.