Abandoning Scientific Linux Was a Mistake

CERN and Fermilab abandoned Scientific Linux over a decade ago in favor of CentOS, a decision the author argues was a mistake. Scientific Linux provided the physics community with an institutionally independent, stable Linux distribution that could be freely shared across international research institutions without commercial licensing constraints. While CentOS initially seemed like a reasonable alternative, the author suggests the labs lost important infrastructure by treating Scientific Linux merely as duplicated engineering work rather than recognizing its value as a community resource tailored to high-energy physics collaboration needs.