Merge branch 'master' of https://github.com/perfsonar/website

_posts/2023-07-14-os-support.md

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+---
+title: "Statement on Operating System Support, 2023 Edition"
+categories: news
+permalink: post-2023-07-14-os-support.html
+tags: [news]
+---
+
+NB:  This is not a re-post from two years ago.
+
+Last week, Red Hat announced that it has ceased distributing the
+source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux to the public and barred its
+licensees from doing the same.  This closes the loophole it left open
+that made Alma Linux and Rocky Linux (and, originally, CentOS)
+possible, or at least easier, in the first place.  The maintainers of
+Alma and Rocky have indicated that Red Hat’s actions make their
+ability to maintain them more-complicated but should only have a minor
+impact on their release processes.
+
+For our part:
+
+Support for CentOS 7 will continue until it reaches end of life next
+June.
+
+Support for perfSONAR on Alma and Rocky in their EL8 and EL9 flavors
+remains unchanged.  While that support is currently considered beta,
+we will remove that designation once those builds have seen
+wide-enough use outside the development team to be considered stable.
+We do not anticipate major problems with either.  Red Hat Enterprise
+Linux and Oracle Linux will continue to be supported on an
+advisory-only basis.  This means the team may pass along any
+information arising from informal experimentation or reports from the
+community. Supporting these distributions will not be a priority,
+although we will integrate patches from the community that make
+perfSONAR work there and don’t cause problems for the
+officially-supported distributions.
+
+Support for any forks of RHEL will be considered if they turn into
+viable distributions and the perfSONAR community appears to be headed
+for a critical mass of adopting them.
+
+Our support for Debian and its derivatives will remain unchanged.  As
+part of an upcoming reorganization of our Docker containers, we may
+start basing them on a Debian-derived distribution to avoid
+instability caused by upheaval in the EL-derived world.
+
+The perfSONAR team has an in-person developers’ meeting scheduled for
+late next month, and this will be a topic of discussion.  While we
+understand that, like two years ago, most of you are still trying to
+find your way through this, early feedback on where you’re headed will
+help us make decisions about what to support and get that support in
+place in a timely manner.
+
+As always, if you have questions or concerns, please drop us a line at
+[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).