Red Hat Officially Joins Forces with the CentOS Project

CentOS has remained a popular Linux platform for those who want to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) without paying any fees, and it has also remained dependent on its own community of developers. However, now CentOS project leaders and Red Hat have announced they are joining forces to build a new CentOS, "capable of driving forward development and adoption of next-generation open source technologies." The news is good for fans of the CentOS platform.

Red Hat, of course, has experience with development of multiple Linux flavors. Ten years ago, Red Hat formed the Fedora Project and Fedora has remained a state-of-the-art platform. It has also remained an on-ramp for various tools and services that Red Hat offers. In its CentOS announcement, Red Hat officials said:

"Red Hat anticipates that taking a role as a catalyst within the CentOS community will enable it to accelerate development of enterprise-grade subscription solutions for customers and partners...Red Hat is once again extending its leadership in open source innovation by helping to establish a platform well-suited to the needs of open source developers that integrate technologies in and around the operating system."

"CentOS provides a base for community adoption and integration of open source cloud, storage, network, and infrastructure technologies on a Red Hat-based platform."

For years now, we've seen free, open source applications and platforms working in synergy with commercial offerings, and Red Hat has a deep understanding of that kind of synergy. For the CentOS faithful, Red Hat is likely to accelerate platform development, keep the OS as secure as possible, and much more.

According to the announcement: "Red Hat will contribute its resources and expertise in building thriving open source communities to the new CentOS Project to help establish more open project governance and a roadmap, broaden opportunities for participation, open pathways for contribution, and provide new ways for CentOS users and contributors to bring the power of open source innovation to all areas of the software stack."

Karanbir Singh, lead developer, CentOS Project provided the following statement: "CentOS owes its success not just to the source code it's built from, but to the hard work and enthusiasm of its user community. Now that we are able to count Red Hat among the active contributors to the CentOS Project, we have access to the resources and expertise we'll need to expand the scope and reach of the CentOS community while remaining committed to our current and new users."