Centos & No-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux Individual Developer Subscription - the difference?

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chlowden007
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Centos & No-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux Individual Developer Subscription - the difference?

Post by chlowden007 » 2022/04/14 06:21:32

Hello
I have discovered that there is a No-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux Individual Developer Subscription that can be used for small projects. Could anyone tell me how this Red Hat offering compares to other centos alternatives such as Rocky/Alma/OEL/Springdale?
Any thoughts most welcome

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TrevorH
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Re: Centos & No-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux Individual Developer Subscription - the difference?

Post by TrevorH » 2022/04/14 08:23:41

This scheme existed before Red Hat abandoned CentOS but it was restricted to a single RHEL license. As part of the backlash about RH dumping CentOS, they rejigged this devsub to allow use on up to 16 RHEL instances and, at the time, said it was free to use for any purpose. However, when the actual thing went live, the Ts&Cs that come with it are so complicated that you really need a lawyer to read it to tell you if you are safe to use it for anything useful.

If you can use it then it's a free 16 copies of RHEL. It expires once a year and needs to be renewed but that doesn't affect your installed systems - or if it does it only means you need to resubscribe them, it's not a reinstall or anything.

So the advantages: it's RHEL and you get updates as soon as they are released.

The disadvantages, it's RHEL so comes with license stuff like subscription manager which you'll have to work out how to use to subscribe your systems to get updates. The slight opaqueness of the Ts&Cs. Maybe RH will withdraw it once they feel like they can get away with it - though there's been no hint that they might do so but then no-one saw the abandonment of CentOS coming either.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

lightman47
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Re: Centos & No-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux Individual Developer Subscription - the difference?

Post by lightman47 » 2022/04/15 19:21:25

In addition to TrevorH's comments:

I have a license for as long as RedHat (IBM) decides to maintain this policy. I just "renewed" 2 months ago. It wasn't seamless but neither was it awful. My experience is here -

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=78812

I love RHEL 8 and will stick with it (and my single 'included' Red Hat 9 Beta VM installation) as long as it lasts now that CentOS has been deemed non-profitable. You can always try it. When you 'expire' you lose Update capability. Your systems continue to run - but no longer get updates from RedHat.

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