I like the Ubuntu Linux distributions not just because of the "lock in" issues, but a lot of things "just work" with Ubuntu that are difficult with Red Hat.<p>For instance there is a Sun Java installer that "just works" with Ubuntu and will keep your Sun Java up to date when you do your system updates. If you need a Bit Torrent client you can just<p>apt-get install transmission<p>but it turns out to be quite an exercise to compile and install any Bit Torrent client for Red Hat Linux.<p>I remember how Solaris was the center of the open source world in 1991, but by 2001 it was starting to get hard to compile things on Solaris. Red Hat is also diverging from the open source mainstream and it is "just hard" to do things that "just work" with Ubuntu.
I didn't get this at first, but the author was saying that CentOS is not a suitable substitute <i>to emulate Amazon Linux in development environments</i>. It's very reasonable to use CentOS as both development and production environments on EC2.
I've abstained from Amazon Linux for the same reasons: to evade vendor lockin and facilitate cleaner non-EC2 dev environments.<p>Though I think Docker improves the situation by decoupling applications from their host environment.
On the subject of (re)creating Amazon Linux outside of EC2, under the terms of the GNU Public License are they not required to distribute the source code to any paying customer who asks?