It's fair to say that if you're considering CentOS, you should compare it with other major distros and not just the paid RHEL product. But I think it's a bit unfair to limit its value only to those wanting compatibility with RHEL.
We run CentOS with supplemental packages from EPEL and RPMForge plus some we build locally. That gives us all the nice provisioning tools from Red Hat, plus stability and timely security patches, plus a reasonable update and release schedule, plus newer versions of things people actually want to use. So we can have very stable servers, and quite stable workstations with newer packages. Thus far, those advantages are keeping us on CentOS, just as they pulled us to CentOS after Red Hat dropped the free product and before they announced academic pricing. Also, if you're nervous about the current CentOS kerfluffle but still interested in RHEL compatibility, another RHEL rebuild that's worth a look is Scientific Linux (<http://www.scientificlinux.org/>), which is very similar to CentOS with some tweaks here and there. In the wake of the CentOS announcement there's even been some talk amongst the developers of merging CentOS and Scientific Linux, perhaps by pooling resources for the core rebuilds and having different spins for people who are more or less interested in 100% RHEL compatibility. Claire *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Claire Connelly c...@math.hmc.edu Systems Administrator (909) 621-8754 Department of Mathematics Harvey Mudd College *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
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