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The post-CentOS world: How Linux became fragmented into competing free alternatives
Quoting: The post-CentOS world: How Linux became fragmented into competing free alternatives —
CentOS stands for "Community Enterprise Operating System." It was effectively Red Hat Enterprise Linux without the branding. While Red Hat owned the trademark to its eponymous logo and the name itself, the code was free and open source. This made it possible to release a version that was effectively the same as Red Hat Enterprise Linux but without the Red Hat Enterprise Linux price tag.
CentOS was popular for that reason. It was particularly popular in several areas: cash-strapped smaller companies in the pre-cloud era who had to install on-premises data centers but couldn't afford RHEL licenses; people who wanted to learn RHEL to improve their career prospects, since RHEL is widely used in enterprise companies and in scientific applications. CERN was a particularly heavy user of CentOS, collaborating with Fermilab to release its own spin, Scientific Linux.