LICENSEWARE
Contribute
Publisher · Open source

CentOS Project

The CentOS Project is a community free software effort that produces CentOS Stream, a Linux distribution that tracks Red Hat Enterprise Linux development, and formerly produced CentOS Linux. The distributions are free to download and are compilations of packages under their own open source licences, with the compilation copyright licensed under GPLv2.

Licensing at a Glance

  • Open source

  1. CentOS Linux and CentOS Stream are compilations of software packages, each governed by its own licence; like Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the compilation copyright is licensed under GPLv2.[1]

  2. The complete licensing terms for a given package are found in that package's source code, and the compilation licence does not supersede them.[2]

  3. The download page lists CentOS Stream 10 with an end-of-life date of 2030-05-31 and CentOS Stream 9 with 2027-05-31, each tied to the end of the corresponding RHEL full support phase.[3]

  4. Legacy CentOS versions are no longer maintained and are kept in the CentOS Vault for historical purposes.[4]

  5. CentOS Linux 8 reached end of life on December 31, 2021, with no automatic migration to CentOS Stream 8.[5]

Products

References

  1. CentOS Project Licensing Policy - The CentOS Project · centos.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  2. CentOS Project Licensing Policy - The CentOS Project · centos.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  3. Download - The CentOS Project · centos.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  4. Download - The CentOS Project · centos.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  5. CentOS Linux EOL - The CentOS Project · centos.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
Esc