It's probably an evaluation in preparation for removing CentOS in ways other than buying RHEL.

Federal agencies can't really use CentOS after 2024-06-30, so everyone dealing with federal clients is working on an upgrade path (CentOS was a major solution due to piggy backing on RHEL certifications )

There is no Rocky Linux 7, and CentOS 8 is already EOL, so I think it's a valid question.

There's a lot of CentOS 7 in various USGOV and adjacent (suppliers/service providers) who are stuck facing purchase of RHEL8/9 licenses or migrating to other distros - as CentOS 7 going EOL on 2024-06-30 means you can't use it for federal systems without each federal client getting a waiver.

You have to either go with another distro or provide your own support (essentially your own fork).

Those who want to stay with RHEL-like but not deal with actual RHEL licensing are often going with Alma or Rocky.

There's also the question: If I buy support from Rocky Linux and they provide a fix for something, then they'd need to upstream it, or how much can they allow Rocky to drift from RHEL, and for how long?

What if they surplant RedHat, can they afford to undermine RedHat long term, or is there a point where they fork?

Rocky Linux, and CentOS before it, is a strange product for people who want the benefits of RHEL, but don't want to pay for RedHat work. If you don't want support, then I think is fine, that the cost RedHat pays to be an open source company, but when you then turn to another company who rebadge RHEL and charge for support, it gets a little weird.

Is this the software equivalent of buying a generic drug? It's the same basic product but the details may make it work just as well or less well for any specific user. If it works for NASA and they save money, it seems like a win.

No quite, the generic drug makers can produce the product from scratch without the help of original manufacturer. Also RHEL is contentiously being developed, once a drug has been designed, there's no requirement to keep it updated (ruffly speaking). Rocky Linux is dependent on RedHat staying in business.

The problem will only manifest itself if RedHats business is sufficiently underminded. Losing a few customers isn't an issue, and many of the users of Rocky Linux probably wasn't going to buy a RHEL licens anyway.

From the vendor side, it's more like the software equivalent of dropshipping. Slap your own label on something you didn't make and call it a day. If the original "manufacturer" goes under, you either pivot or fail too.

From the consumer side, if you buy a dropshipped product you don't get the benefits of working with the manufacturer, and are risking worse customer service.