Red Hat has declared that CentOS Stream will be the only public source-code repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

As a result of the choice, the business claims that CentOS Stream will be the only repository for openly released RHEL source code.

Through the Red Hat Customer Portal, paying customers will still have access to source code.

Red Hat had pushed the open-source RHEL code to git.centos.org and kept it updated even after the project's focus shifted to CentOS Stream. This will no longer be the case, according to the most recent announcement.

According to Red Hat, it is now inefficient to maintain separate, redundant repositories because of the engagement surrounding CentOS Stream, the engineering levels of investment, and the new priorities they are addressing for customers and partners.

In order to move to CentOS Stream, the development branch from CentOS, which was essentially a free version of RHEL, was decided upon two years ago.

For some members of the community who were used to using a free version of RHEL without Red Hat support, this change was distressing.

While CentOS closely followed RHEL, CentOS Stream is still in development and is therefore not always appropriate for use with production workloads.

Some people were alarmed by the switch to CentOS Stream and even more so by the decision to limit access to the RHEL source.

Users of CentOS alternatives, Ricky Linux, or Alma Linux will be concerned, but RHEL customers who pay for RHEL won't be impacted.

The developers of Alma Linux pleaded with the community not to panic while they looked into the implications of Red Hat's announcement.