I’m so annoyed with this. We were using CentOS, which was effectively killed, then I did a lot of research and spent time moving everything over the AlmaLinux.
Having to now do it all again another time is so frustrating; the only pragmatic long-term option is to bite the bullet and get things working on Debian.
I'd just finished migrating around 70 Centos 6 machines to Centos 8, a month ahead of them killing the distro that was supposed to last until 2028. We went with Rocky, but the problem is the same as Alma's.
Fortunately both companies seem to have pretty well developed plans for coping with this, and no doubt Oracle and Amazon distros will too, so no need to jump ship yet.
That said, we're also considering a debian shaped future, at least in part. There's absolutely no way we'll sign up for Rhel accounts. Not because they're expensive, but because decisions like this undermine our trust in them as a business partner.
Look in to Rocky Linux. It was started by the original developer of CentOS the day Red Hat announced that CentOS would be moving upstream of RHEL. They've already put out an announcement saying that it's essentially going to be business as usual for them.
From what I understand, Rocky and Alma are essentially the same and so I found it difficult to decide between the two when moving from CentOS. Whatever happens now, will apply to both.
The writing is on the wall and it’s similar to Twitter and Reddit: they wanted to kill CentOS as it was, weren’t expecting the community to come back with Rocky and Alma, so now they’re trying to kill those too. The above video posits a scenario where Oracle’s legal team help the little guys by going to battle with IBM, but I don’t see it.
At this point, I don’t think it’s smart to go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over, but then again I’d be very happy to see the little guys succeed.