Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part I: Official OpenSUSE Boosting Team

Flower plant



Summary: "OpenSUSE Boosters" now official; Another SUSE worker departs

PREVIOUS posts about the OpenSUSE Conference [1, 2, 3] covered the event as a whole, but it turns out that an "RPM Summit" took place there too. Here are the details:

I’m sure you all heard about the openSUSE Conference 2009 that took place in September in Nuremberg. Not so many know about the RPM Summit that was a part of the conference during its first two days. Idea to create something like this started at LinuxTag 2009 when Zonker invited Florian to Nuremberg.


Zonker returns from vacation and an older interview with him is published for non-subscribers to read.

The openSUSE Conference was held September 17 - 20, 2009 in Nürnberg, Germany. There was full schedule with talks, workshops, Birds of a Feather sessions, an RPM summit, and more. We talked with openSUSE community manager Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier about the conference.


Boosted by Novell's PR team, there is some other stuff going on around him. Zonker used to be Perlow's editor in Linux Magazine and now he's promoting his review, which was published here in Vimeo (as video) and at ZDNet (as text).

I haven’t used openSUSE as my main Linux desktop OS for a while — that honor, at least for the last few years, has gone to Ubuntu. But could openSUSE 11.2 and it’s sexy KDE 4.3 implementation bring me back? Perhaps, perhaps.


Zonker and Perlow are now colleagues at ZDNet (correction: Zonker stopped writing for ZDNet a few months ago). There are other intersecting interests that we learned about, e.g. at OStatic.

We've occasionally mentioned the term "Microsoft Boosters" and "Novell Boosters" in the past, e.g. [1, 2, 3]. At one point we also explained why Zonker was a "'Novell Booster' in the Linux News." Novell needed some publicity, so it hired a person who had contacts in the press.

The OpenSUSE project now announces the ‘OpenSUSE Boosters’ Team, whose picture can be found here (from Federico, who left the OpenSUSE Board).

Writing about "New Challenges", here is another man who has officially left SUSE.

Some of you might have already noticed it: I’m no longer working for SUSE.


"No Thanks Microsoft Puppet" was the title assigned to this new comment from BrentH, who explained:

Suse employs some questionable business tactics thanks to a money trail leading back to Redmond. I no long consider Suse as a trustworthy linux distro.


OpenSUSE is still a fine distribution from a technical point of view. It also has some loyal supporters who stick with it despite Novell and Microsoft. Ben Kevan, for example, is catering for OpenSUSE 11.2, OpenSUSE 11.1 and OpenSUSE 11.0 while some folks work on and maintain an OpenSUSE version which targets education.

Novell's Stephan Kulow wrote about some changes in packaging and WebYaST is coming along too.

That doesn’t solve the 11.1->11.2 update case, but after updating to 11.2, you can reselect the patterns you want and you can be sure they will stay from now on. And perhaps we do an online update for 11.0 and 11.1 that will add patterns packages to the most prominent use case: the desktops.


Sandy from Novell wrote about Tomboy 1.2 and Federico wrote about Zeitgeist, which was at one stage at risk of Mono [1, 2]. It turns out that he worked with the Ximian team at one point.

Some years ago, after I stopped working on Evolution, I worked for a brief period in the Ximian edition of OpenOffice.org. Before that, I had never worked on such a complex code base.


Last but not least, Sascha Manns still coordinates Weekly News posts, which continue coming. There is also an audio equivalent now.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
 
People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day