When Redhat announced in 2020 that CentOS as we knew it is dead, we had a problem: the bulk of our fleet ran on CentOS, with the occasional RHEL server here and there.
Weighing our options, we had to choose between converting all servers to RHEL (and shouldering the subscription costs) or moving to nascent distributions like AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux that emerged soon after.
At the time I worried what would happen to these distros if Redhat decided to restrict access to their sources - which all the clones depend upon if they want to be “bit-by-bit compatible” - and so we decided to bite the bullet, choose the save route, and buy Redhat subscriptions.
Guess what - almost three years later Redhat really restricts access to their source code.
I’m not sure, but does that mean that Alma and Rocky are practically dead? Would be a real shame.
Even though Redhat offers free developer subscriptions for your personal use, it’s practically impossible to find a VPS hoster that offers RHEL out of the box for small virtual servers like this blog, so AlmaLinux is a very nice option if you, like me, want to stay in the RHEL ecosystem.