Red Hat is restricting RHEL source availability to CentOS Stream

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Red Hat announced today that moving forward, the only RHEL source code releases will be for CentOS Stream. This is definitely a disappointing decision and one that might cause me to re-evaluate whether I continue to use RH-derived Linux.

I cut my teeth on Linux with Red Hat Linux 7.2, found in the back of a library book. Since then I’ve always come back to RHL, and later Fedora and CentOS because not only was it familiar, but I liked Red Hat’s model of working with and contributing back to Linux and the open source community.

Sadly, it seems like that era has come to an end. It started with CentOS being moved to upstream Stream releases only, and it looks like now they’re taking it a step further by restricting source access, likely to hamper the efforts of projects like Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux that have taken its place.

I worry what will happen next. Will Red Hat/IBM have a heavier hand in the direction that Fedora goes? Will they possibly kill it off completely? Either way, I don’t like the way things are headed.