12.12.09

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

Posted in Europe, GNU/Linux, GPL, KDE, Novell, OpenSUSE at 6:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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.