Red Hat continued expansion of programs for the free use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, covering the needs of users in traditional CentOS, which arose after the transformation of the CentOS project into CentOS Stream. In addition to the previously provided free builds for production deployments with up to 16 systems, a new option “Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for Open Source Infrastructure” is offered, which allows you to use RHEL for free in the infrastructure of open source developer communities and organizations supporting open source development.
In particular, the new program covers organizations and projects involved in the development and hosting of open source software approved for inclusion in the Fedora Linux repositories. Free use of RHEL in such organizations is permitted in infrastructure elements such as build systems, continuous integration systems, mail and web servers. Program members additionally have access to the Red Hat portal with documentation, knowledge base, forums and analytics system Red Hat Insights . Formally, the support service does not cover RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure participants, but depending on the importance of the project, Red Hat does not exclude the possibility of providing free technical support.
The presented program is currently limited to organizations only and does not affect individual developers, current partners and customers of Red Hat, government organizations, educational institutions and non-profit organizations wishing to use RHEL in areas not related to maintaining infrastructure for open source software development.
Access to participate in the “RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure” program is provided on the basis of applications sent to the email “[email protected]”. Individual developers can install RHEL free of charge through the existing Red Hat Developer program. In the future, it is planned to implement several more programs that cover the need for traditional CentOS, in particular, such programs will appear for non-profit organizations not related to open source software and educational institutions.
Recall that the key difference between the CentOS Stream assembly is that the classic CentOS acted as a “downstream”, i.e. was assembled from already formed stable RHEL releases and was fully binary compatible with RHEL packages, and CentOS Stream is positioned as “upstream” for RHEL, i.e. it will test packages before being included in RHEL releases. Such a change will allow the community to participate in the development of RHEL, control the upcoming changes and influence decisions, but it does not suit those who just need a stable distribution with a long support period.