SUSE plans to fork RHEL in response to Red Hat's access limitation with a $10M investment

In the wake of Red Hat's contentious decision to limit access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)-related sources to CentOS Stream, SUSE has announced its plans to fork RHEL. This move comes shortly after Oracle's declaration of maintaining RHEL compatibility as far as possible. SUSE, the company behind Rancher, NeuVector, and SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE), aims to develop and maintain a RHEL-compatible distribution with unrestricted availability. The company has earmarked an investment of over $10 million for this endeavor in the coming years.

SUSE's commitment to its highly respected Linux solutions, such as SLE and openSUSE, remains undiminished. However, the company recognizes the need for choice and freedom from vendor lock-in for enterprises and the open-source community. As such, SUSE is dedicated to working with the open-source community to create a lasting, compatible alternative for RHEL and CentOS users.

Moreover, SUSE plans to contribute this project to an open-source foundation, ensuring continued free access to alternative source code. This move is a strategic step towards providing a more diverse and open ecosystem for Linux users and developers.