AlmaLinux, a free and community-supported enterprise Linux distribution, has announced that it is shifting its goal from being one-to-one, bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to being application binary interface (ABI) compatible.
This change means that AlmaLinux will still be compatible with RHEL, but it will no longer be an exact clone. Also, AlmaLinux will strive to ensure that software running on RHEL can also run on AlmaLinux without any major changes.
For regular users, this change will have minimal impact on their experience with AlmaLinux. Red Hat-compatible applications will still be supported, and security updates will continue to be delivered promptly. The main difference is that AlmaLinux will no longer be limited to achieving “bug-for-bug compatibility” with RHEL. This allows them to accept bug fixes outside of Red Hat’s release schedule. While this may introduce some new bugs specific to AlmaLinux, it also enables them to address issues that haven’t been resolved by Red Hat yet.
AlmaLinux is also exploring alternative options since they are no longer pursuing an exact replica of RHEL.
The sources for this piece include an article in Fossforce.