Red Hat’s controversial decision to End of Life (EOL) CentOS 8 in December 2021, in favour of CentOS Stream (see LXF274) continues to have ramifications, with GitLab (https://about.gitlab.com) the latest high-profile project to switch to an alternative.
In a blog post (https://bit.ly/lxf290gitlabmove), it’s been confirmed that the platform for software development and delivery has moved to AlmaLinux (https://almalinux.org/). DJ Mountney, engineering manager, Distribution Build at GitLab, explains. “With CentOS going EOL, we needed to choose a build platform to replace our Centos8 build machines,” going on to say that “We needed a ‘boring’ solution, and AlmaLinux was asked for by our users.”
While we’re unsure how happy the AlmaLinux team will be with the software being labelled ‘boring’, this shows just how unpopular Red Hat’s move has been. “AlmaLinux is very excited to be the stage to GitLab’s rockstar,” said Jack Aboutboul, community manager for AlmaLinux.