This is another post in our weekly friendly chain.

OpenSUSE shows signs of progress. There is finally a central point for community news.

news.opensuse.org, an OpenSuse dedicated news portal went online these days.

Michael Larabel had a quick look at the latest alpha of OpenSUSE.

Yesterday's release of OpenSuSE 10.3 Alpha 6 marks the first time there is a single installation CD for OpenSuSE, but also added in this development build is the Linux 2.6.22 kernel, GCC 4.2, and other updated packages.

TuxMachines had a closer look, but was not impressed by what it had found.

All told this release is kinda broken, but it is an alpha. You have to break a few eggs to make a souffl'e, and hopefully it won't fall next release. This is the first release for which Coolo took responsibility, but he came along late in the game. Let's hang this one on Andreas. (jk) Actually, Coolo is said to have stated that this is the first alpha to feel like an alpha. Well, I don't know about that.

Shortly afterwards, Liquidat countered.

But there is plenty of time till the final OpenSuse 10.3 release, so these will be gone by then.

Anyway, it is very nice to see OpenSuse coming back to its feet again in regards of software management. Together with the Build Service there is really big potential in OpenSuse’s future!

Novell's management took the time to comment on Hack Week, which is a company-backed and community-driven initiative. It strives to involve the community a little bit more in the future, according to Nat Friedman's interview with Ars Technica.

For the first time that I can recall, the leading answer was of the form “nothing – it was perfect”. But there were also other helpful thoughts such as earlier notification for better planning and more community involvement.

Novell had its employee become the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the Linux Foundation where Ian Murdock's seat had been left vacant.

Moving on to a less Linux-oriented Novell...

Despite some new flaws, one schools district expressed satisfaction with the product.

District technology services is in the process of updating and combining two e-mail systems used by the staff members, faculty and administrators. They will take the e-mail systems and transfer use to one called Novell's GroupWise.

GroupWise has worked with the district for more than 12 years.

VOTE: 5-0

Moonwalk and Novell's Netware were mentioned in the following article.

Moonwalk Inc., the Australian developer of all-inclusive data protection and management software, announced today that the Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (the L&D), in Luton, UK, has deployed Moonwalk software as an information management solution for their Novell Netware environment.

Even with a better product, Novell was unable to market itself successfully, according to ServerWatch.

In the days of Windows NT 4, Microsoft introduced NT Directory Services in an effort to play catch-up to the established Novell Directory Services, a part of the NetWare networking suite. Administrators found NT Directory Services wanting, particularly in comparison to the sophistication — for the time — that Novell's product offered. NT, for example, scaled poorly and quickly became cumbersome under the weight of a midsize organization's needs. NT also suffered from a single point of failure vulnerability, which included a limited set of directory objects that were not extendable, lacked hierarchies and was unable to provide granular levels of authority.

Some bits on Novell Identity Manager were discussed in another context.

Novell Identity Manager 3.5 provides pre-configured workflow and provisioning tools to address the specific needs mandated by HSPD-12.

Finally, here is an audiocast with Novell staff. It is centered around virtualisation.

In this IT Link podcast Mike Vizard talks with Joe Wagner, senior vice president and general manager for systems and resources management for Novell, about adoption rates of virtualization in the enterprise.