Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part I: New OpenSUSE Board, KDE 4.4, and Site Changes

Chameleon hunting for a meal



Summary: OpenSUSE events, new board members, many technical posts, and changes to the OpenSUSE.org Web site

MANY posts about OpenSUSE have appeared over the past week. Here is a concise overview of developments and observations.

Events



FOSS.in enjoyed some OpenSUSE presence and so will SCALE, which has a deadline coming around the same time as Christmas celebrations by OpenSUSE staff. The main development though was the hyped up announcement of the new openSUSE Board.

The full Board will consist of:

* Bryen Yunashko * Henne Vogelsang * Michael Löffler (chair) * Pascal Bleser * Pavol Rusnak * Rupert Horstkötter


This announcement was ushered in by key OpenSUSE people, including Zonker.

Novell's Zonker



Joe Brockmeier's controversial gig in London is not forgotten. Earlier this week we wrote about Brockmeier being slammed for lying about the Microsoft/Novell deal. He is again sort of misusing Moglen's position of authority ("Have Faith in the GPLv2"), which is ironic given that his employer attacked the GPLv2, after which he joined this company and started to defend its actions, for a paycheck. Steve Stites writes: "Eben Moglen and all of the other illuminaries of the Open Source movement said that the Microsoft-Novell agreement complied with the letter of GPL2 and grossly violated the spirit of GPL2. One of the mandates in designing GPL3 was that GPL3 had to prevent such cynical manipulations of the GPL."

Brockmeier wrote a variety of other things, he spoke about social media, spoke to Stormy Peters and also spoke with FLOSS Weekly about:

openSUSE 11.2, the free and open source Linux operating system distribution from Novell.


Releases



Ben Kevan is still building Chrome for OpenSUSE, as well as writing a lot about KDE (4.4). With screenshots floating out there, KDE becomes the centre of attention to some.

I have to admit when I first thought or heard of this feature in KDE 4.4, I wasn’t really excited. I thought.. now why the hell would I want that.

Then I started using it.. and found quite a few usage scenario’s for it.


To quote some more KDE 4.4 on OpenSUSE posts:

KDE SC 4.4 Beta 1 has been released, and of course I couldn’t stay still. Thanks to the friendly openSUSE Build Service, there were packages available, so I just pointed my zypper sources to KDE:KDE4:UNSTABLE:Desktop repository, adjusted a few other things (mainly other third-party repositories) and updated.


Kevan also looks at the installation process of OpenSUSE 11.2 under the latest VirtualBox. This new review of the same release agrees that it's promising.

I would have preferred to have a bit more of a shiny version to introduce, but overall through the years openSUSE is the most consistently stable and polished desktop Linux available. It and its big brother SLED are used by government agencies, big businesses, education departments, security specialists, and everyday desktop users like yourself. One release with a few rough edges does not negate its otherwise exemplary track record.

openSUSE is available in several formats. The install DVD is a large 4.3 gigabyte image with lots of software and your choice of desktop systems. The popular live CDs come in KDE and GNOME varieties and offers a nice stack of apps to get started. You can learn more at the openSUSE Website.


Well, OpenSUSE 11.2 is hitting store shelves -- a sign of maturity for the GNU/Linux desktop as a whole.

Retail versions of openSUSE 11.2 are once again available. For the first time, the retail box is being handled by a partner, open-slx.


Technical



The end of SaX2 in OpenSUSE was mentioned on a couple of occasions before [1, 2], but it still begs for responses.

HowToForge has a bunch of new articles about OpenSUSE 11.2 [1, 2, 3] and new HOWTOs in other Web sites include:



Scott Morris, who wrote for Linux Journal last week, is still writing about OpenSUSE but not as often as he used to.

Leftovers



OpenSUSE Weekly News reaches a special number which does not escape the attention of key people who also share this audio recording. Web site changes can be seen in OpenSUSE.org [1, 2] and OpenFATE suddenly reappears too. It has been a while.

Recent Techrights' Posts

SLAPP Censorship - Part 86 Out of 200: The Position of Courts on Computer-Generated Lawsuits and Filings From Another Continent (Made by Two Men Who Work for Slop Companies)
Lawsuits by proxy from California
 
A Promise IBM/Red Hat Could Not Keep
"all about control, not so much optics."
Links 25/05/2026: Russia Lobbing Oreshnik Ballistic Missile Again, Slop Comes Under More Fire
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/05/2026: Injury in Gym and Abusive LLMs DDoSing Software Developers While Misusing Their Code
Links for the day
A 'Bank Holiday' When National Debt Doubles in a Decade
Maybe it's time to rename "Bank Holidays"
Links 25/05/2026: Lingering Environmental Concerns and Domain Registrars Targeted for Unmasking
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 24, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, May 24, 2026
Gemini Links 24/05/2026: Impressions of Auckland, the Age of Left or Right Extremism, and .zim files
Links for the day
Microsoft's 'Hiring Freeze' (Layoffs) and Salary Freeze (While Inflation Approaches Double-Digit Rates)
If they get replaced by anyone, it'll be low-paid folks in low-salary regions [...] workers' stress levels shoot up, compensation goes down
Slop Will Not End Humanity, The Pushers of It Do (Artificial Scarcities and Global Warming)
Causing hunger and poverty in the name of "computation"
How Can the 'Broligarchs' Love Us When They Don't Even Love Themselves?
Their SLAPPs have their limits
Death at IBM Due to Overwork
Dying for IBM is never worth it
We Publish Less, We Get More Exposure
UbuntuPit is coming to realise that quantity isn't what comes to matter or truly "count", especially when quantity comes at expense of authenticity
Codecs and Software Patents - Part IX - GNU Project Has Chosen to Adopt AV1 for Its Videos, Conversion and Additions Underway
One of our readers is working to help GNU through the maze of software patents and maze of patent lawsuits, which aren't the same thing but are somewhat overlapping issues
Links 24/05/2026: SoftBank CEO Getting Conned by Scam Altman, Hotter 2026 and El Nino With Growing Impact
Links for the day
Links 24/05/2026: Ebola Outbreak and "Journalists Identify Murder Victims Of Trump’s Boat Strike Program"
Links for the day
IAM Magazine is in Effect Dead, It's Now Fused Into Microsoft's Patent Troll (Which It Has Promoted All Along)
Microsoft-connected patent trolls in Europe [...] Now, in his new job, Wild can use his 'expertise' to help guide blackmail/extortion to better harm Europe's industry
A Huge Proportion of 'Articles' in The Register MS Are Actually Paid Spam of the Communist Party of China, Selling Compromised (for Wiretapping) Technology
The Register MS is having a go at becoming a marketing company or "B2B"
Top Officials Have Just Left Microsoft, Layoffs in Anything But Name
Microsoft's debt is very fast-growing
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) Meets "Alicante Mafia" at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Report on meeting with VP1 and his team on 21 April 2026
UbuntuPit (ubuntupit.com) Has Deleted Slop Pages, Its Slopfarm Experiment Has Failed (Like Always!)
Turning one's site into a slopfarm is a death knell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 23, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, May 23, 2026
The "Next Big" Bonus for IBM's CEO Apparently Comes From American Taxpayers While Veteran IBMers Are PIP'd and RA'd (Laid Off)
the next big thing will be the CEO's bonus
Links 23/05/2026: Starbucks Scraps Disastrous Slopfest, Colbert’s Final ‘Late Show’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/05/2026: Poetry, Hobbies, ROOPHLOCH, and More
Links for the day
Government Bailouts Won't be Enough to Save IBM
Bailouts from taxpayers in the US
Links 23/05/2026: Social Media Bans and Demise of Userbase of LLM Chatbots
Links for the day
Legal Letters Are Not Postcards
It seems like intimidation, nothing more
SLAPP Censorship - Part 85 Out of 200: The United Kingdom's Rating for Press Freedom Has Improved, But We Can Do Even Better
we see the US at #64
Sites Realise That Becoming More Active by Using Bots (LLM Slop) is Self-Destructive
We'll soon (maybe next year) also show that some of the 85+ KG of legal papers sent our way are computer-generated garbage, which might run afoul of some rules
European Patent Office (EPO) Strikes Persist, EPO Management Tries to Give False Impression of "Happy Staff"
EPO is trying to broadcast to the world a totally phony image of itself
Gemini Links 23/05/2026: Patience, LLM Chatbts Being Bad, and Unexpected Computer Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 22, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, May 22, 2026