IMHO we shouldn't jump the gun to rule out centos 8. As an example, streams actually allow upstream software ( like this one ) to work more closely with distro and release updates independently from distro schedule. May involve some packaging from this side and maintaining a repo but couldn't that be of some value?
Also centos 8 provides better tooling for containers etc. I just think we should take a closer look at the potential benefits of new model and not be too quick to rule it out.
Most of my experience is with commercial Linux (SLES) and thus of no help here. I will note that when this sad CentOS news first broke, I was in the process of bringing up a new HP Proliant DL385 Gen 10. I tried installing the latest Debian Stable but had it crashing on driver issues that I could not solve (the newest Proliant drivers I could locate were for Gen 9). This makes me cautious running Debian where it has to touch hardware, though I plan to run it as a VM going forward.
I will notes that since the first days after the CentOS announcement, Rocky seems to have accelerated their release plans. I therefor added a late vote for Rocky since this would seems to represent the least painful path for development.
I also note that in the last couple days, RH itself has apparently decided to offer low and no cost RHEL licenses for incidental users like our shop. I'm game for that approach too if it makes development simple(r) and stable.
Would there be any upgrade path from 3.0.2.6 to 5 by any chance?
We still have a few servers running on that build, and would prefer to not have to do the intermediate jump if possible.
There is a new version which is AlmaLinux.
I believe the Cloud Linux company has had a lot investment in the Centos Stack and are backing a new clone of RHEL much in the same way as Centos did. It will be a direct drop in for Centos and easy to migrate.
They intend to commit support through 2029