Extending no-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux to open source organizations

Today, we’re announcing a new, no-cost program tailored for the needs and requirements of projects, foundations and more: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for Open Source Infrastructure. Joining a growing set of no-cost and low-cost programs, RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure provides a simpler, clearer and documented process for projects, communities, standards bodies and other not-for-profit software groups engaged with open source to gain access to RHEL subscriptions. While we plan to continue to refine this latest program, we wanted to outline what is available now for interested parties.

RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure extends Red Hat’s existing support for open source projects and communities, which now includes:

• Fedora for driving leading-edge development of Linux operating system improvements and enhancements.

• CentOS Stream to test applications and workloads against the next release of the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform.

• RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure to give open source communities, projects, foundations and other organizations a stable foundation for creating and hosting innovative open source software.

Supporting the open source software ecosystem is a core objective for Red Hat. This isn’t a need that revolves solely around making RHEL and other Red Hat solutions supportable in this landscape. We know that we are part of a larger, interdependent ecosystem which we benefit from and which we do our best to foster and support. This support comes in many forms, but often includes helping open source software projects, foundations and standards bodies access enterprise technologies for development and testing.

We frequently provide no-cost access to RHEL to these groups, but the process isn’t as formalized, consistent, accessible or transparent as we’d like it to be. With the announcement that we will be shifting our resources to CentOS Stream at the end of 2021, we want to make sure that those organizations engaged with open source have access to RHEL as they build and test the future of open source software.

What is RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure?

Under the program’s terms, eligible organizations will be granted access to no-cost RHEL subscriptions for any use within the confines of their infrastructure. This includes build systems, continuous integration (CI) testing and general project requirements (i.e. web servers, mail servers, etc.). These subscriptions will be self-supported by default, which provides full access to the Red Hat customer portal, knowledge base articles and forums, and also include Red Hat Insights, our proactive analytic tooling. We may also be able to offer no-cost support depending on the scope and nature of the organization.

Neil McGovern, executive director, GNOME Foundation

"As a non-profit, we rely on donations to help us achieve our goal of a world where everyone is empowered by technology they can trust. RHEL subscriptions are an essential part in this. With full operating system management and security updates, we can concentrate on the services we provide to GNOME users and developers without having to worry about the underlying systems. Red Hat has generously provided these services to GNOME at zero cost for years, and we look forward to continuing our relationship for a long time to come."

Eligibility for RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure subscriptions

We want RHEL to be used broadly in upstream open source development, both as a testing platform and as a stable foundation for development. This program is available exclusively to open source projects and other organizations that support the production of open source software. Generally, all software distributed under a Fedora-approved license is considered open source for the purposes of this program.

Projects sponsored by for-profit companies can also be eligible for RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure subscriptions with the caveat that subscriptions obtained through the program must be used solely for independent project infrastructure.

RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure is not intended for individual developers, current Red Hat customers/partners, governmental organizations, healthcare organizations, academic institutions or non-profits that want to use RHEL outside of independent open source project infrastructure. Red Hat is continuing to explore new programs for traditional non-profits, academic institutions and government entities, while individual developers can easily access RHEL via the updated Red Hat Developer program and enterprise customers can access RHEL for developers by contacting their account manager for a Developer for Teams subscription. Stay tuned for more details.

How can I get RHEL for Open Source Infrastructure subscriptions?

Organizations interested in this program should reach out to rosi-program@redhat.com.

As with our other programs, we want to make this subscription process and subsequent renewal as easy as possible, enabling open source organizations to focus on building great software rather than subscription maintenance. While we’re starting with RHEL, we intend to expand this program to include more of Red Hat’s technology portfolio.

We realize this program doesn’t cover situations where open source projects are using Public CI infrastructure provided by third-parties. This and other programs are still being worked on. So, we’re definitely not yet done expanding RHEL programs to meet community needs and want to hear from you. Send your questions and requests to us at centos-questions@redhat.com.