Abandoning Scientific Linux Was a Mistake
The author reflects on the decision by CERN and Fermilab to abandon Scientific Linux, arguing it was a strategic error. The piece emphasizes the importance of maintaining shared infrastructure for scientific collaboration.
Why it matters
It provides a historical perspective on open-source software management within large-scale scientific research institutions.
A recent CERN announcement caught my attention. By the end of 2026, more than 2,200 industrial computers and embedded systems around CERN's accelerator complex are expected to be running Debian 13.
CERN is not abandoning the Red Hat ecosystem. AlmaLinux and RHEL remain the main supported Linux distributions across much of the organization; Debian support is currently limited to accelerator front-end systems.
Still, the move took me back to a decision made more than a decade ago: CERN and Fermilab's gradual abandonment of Scientific Linux. With hindsight, I think it was a mistake.
Not because Scientific Linux was technically superior to CentOS, or because maintaining another Linux distribution was free. And not because CERN or Fermilab could somehow have controlled what Red Hat or IBM later chose to do.
The mistake was treating Scientific Linux mainly as duplicated engineering work. It was infrastructure.
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