Bonum Certa Men Certa

Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part I: OpenSUSE Board Announced, More Beta Slippage

YaST boot mode



Board



THIS WEEK'S MAIN news would arguably be the formation of a new OpenSUSE Board following an election with a modest turnout. The results were sent to to OpenSUSE subscribers, including yours truly.

==Non-Novell==
Bleser, Pascal           148    45.96 %
Yunashko, Bryen           69    21.43 %
Linnell, Petee            42    13.04 %
Rodriguez, Alex           30     9.32 %
Pasanen, Tuukka           18     5.59 %
Rusinek, Jakub            15     4.66 %
  Total:                 322 	



==Novell== Vogelsang, Henne 126 38.18 % Mena-Quintero, Federico 86 26.06 % Shaw, Stephen 71 21.52 % Michna, Marco 47 14.24 % Total: 330




There is some more information about that in LWN.net.

Kristin Shoemaker, who writes about OpenSUSE quite regularly, managed to cover this pretty quickly.

In September, the openSUSE project urged its contributors and members to help choose a new board. The board was to consist of two Novell-affiliated and two non-Novell members chosen by the community, and chaired by a fifth Novell-appointed member.

Earlier this week, the results of the board election were announced. Community participation was impressive, with 178 of the 237 eligible voters casting at least one of the four votes (two for each category) they were allowed.


Ever since starting his ZDNet blog, Zonker appears not to have posted anything in OStatic, but Kristin does a lot of OpenSUSE coverage (even advocacy).

Heise published an item about this also. It covers a lot of SUSE news because it suits its audience.

The OpenSuse project has a new board. The election of the committee was the first time that OpenSuse community members have been able to vote on who sits on the board. The new board now includes two representatives of the OpenSuse community, Pascal Bleser and Bryen Yunashko, and two employees of parent company Novell, Henne Vogelsang and Federico Mena-Quintero.


OpenSUSE 11.0



This is the stable and very latest release. Kenneth Hess considered it worthy of inclusion in his list of 3 distributions to "watch and use," probably meaning that he personally favours them.

My recommendation for OpenSuSE 11.x and above? Get it, discover it, and report back to me on what you think of it.


Among the technical articles, one can find this XM Radio HOWTO, one for VMware Tools, and another for performance improvement.

Novell's engineers are still working on important graphics drivers.

When the X.Org developers raided the Edinburgh Zoo for their X Developers' Summit in September, Keith had intended to close RandR 1.3 in roughly one month. It's late, but we're now approaching November and discussion surrounding the much talked about properties support for the RandR 1.3 protocol has been rejuvenated by Novell's Matthias Hopf.


We have some inside information about this, but this can't be shared publicly yet.

OpenSUSE 11.1



The KDE4 implementation in this release is coming along nicely. More bits and pieces fall into place.

When I blogged a couple of weeks ago about KDE3 and KDE4, I mentioned that hiding of the task bar is the number one missing feature. Yesterday I talked with Will Stephenson - he was hacking on the sofa in the hallway - and he showed me some new stuff including this one which is now in openSUSE 11.1 Beta3.


Béranger has got his own special proposal for OpenSUSE artwork. He seems to have found an image of a lizard, but it's unlikely to ever make it in as the mascot of YaST. Have a quick look.

I've just read that openSUSE is looking for a YaST mascot. Wee, I thought they already had one!


Ben Kevan, who has been blogging about OpenSUSE for quite some time, seems to be new to the controversial EULA assigned to non-final OpenSUSE releases (builds rather).

I went to upgrade from openSUSE 11.1 Beta 3Plus to Beta4 via the factory oss repository (i also have non-oss enabled), and for the first time ever it required me to agree to an EULA before upgrading.

[...]

One of the very interesting points of the EULA, is that “THE SOFTWARE MAY NOT BE SOLD, TRANSFERRED, OR FURTHER DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION FROM NOVELL.”

Am I not allowed to share openSUSE with others?


This was discussed here, as well as in other places. Ben appears to have gotten explanatory comments as well. He received them promptly.

OpenSUSE 11.1 is not making such a great progress. This current planned beta is slipping yet again, just like the previous one.

Just a quick note. The 11.1 release is slipping by at least one day due to a few major problems with the DVDs found during testing.


Regardless, and despite the delays, plans are being made for launch parties to usher the release of OpenSUSE 11.1.

Just got a question via email (which I will respond to shortly) and the topic came up during one of my five or so meetings today: openSUSE 11.1 release parties.

Short answer: Yes, my friends, there will be release parties so you can get your Geeko on with other openSUSE enthusiasts.


Miscellaneous



Zonker was at the Ohio Linuxfest, which finally releases a report to summarise his appearance there.

Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier of Novell, specifically of its OpenSuSE division, delivered the morning keynote. His topic was bootstrapping a community around an open source project. He was speaking from primarily a company project point of view, but his advice extends to freelance open source developers' projects, as well.

One of his main points was that Open Source as a movement will succeed only if companies and communities collaborate successfully. A company which simply opens the source to its software allows others to see it, but that company hasn't truely gone open source until there is a community of users of and contributors to that project. I believe Brockmeier called it "source open" versus "open source."


The Weekly News came a little later than usual last week. Here it is, in case we missed something important.

In this week:

* openSUSE Build Service Webclient Survey Started * Development Release: openSUSE 11.1 Beta 3 Now Available * We want YOU - for openSUSE Weekly Newsletter * People of openSUSE: Henne Vogelsang


Next up, we shall look at SUSE.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Under the Guise of "MIT Technology Review Insights" the Site MIT Technology Review Posts Corporate Spam as 'Articles'
Some of the articles aren't even articles but 'hit pieces' against Free software and some are paid advertisements
Brett Wilson LLP Has Track Record in Scam Coin Cases (e.g. Craig Wright and More), Now It Works for 'Crypto' Scam Purveyors
But wait, it gets worse
Will Brett Wilson LLP Handle Its Own Winding Up Petition or be Struck Off for Overt Abuse of Process?
Today we sue not only the first Microsofter
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
Sharing Code and Recipes
It helps explain the triviality of software freedom
How Many Women Has Microsoft's Alex Balabhadra Graveley Already Strangled and Where Does That End?
If you too are a victim of this man and wish to share information, contact us
"We Might Save Somebody's Life"
I follow the example of my father
 
Victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, Wanted to Sue Him But Lacked the Funds (He Attacked Their Finances)
Having spoken to victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
Links 17/07/2025: Science, Hardware, and Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/07/2025: Staying in the "Small Web" and Back on ICQ
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 16, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Exclusive: corruption in Tribunals, Greffiers, from protection rackets to cat whisperers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/07/2025: Chip Bans and Microsoft’s “Digital Escort” Program
Links for the day
Revolving Doors: One Day You're a Judge, the Next Day You're an Attorney Paying Public Officials and Working for Violent and Dangerous Microsoft Employees
how the US justice system works
Slopwatch: Noise, Plagiarism and Even Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation
What are we meant to do to prevent a false association or misleading connotations? Game the LLMs? No. Boycott slopfarms.
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Simple Web Browsing with TLS
Links for the day
Links 16/07/2025: Fascist Slop Takes "Intelligence" Clothing, New Criminal Case Against MElon
Links for the day
Why I am Suing the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, in the UK High Court This Week
Out of respect to the process and to the Court, I shall not share any pertinent details about the case
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day